“I want to know exactly how our education is perceived”

Good teaching starts with listening. Pupil and parent satisfaction surveys (LTO and OTO) show schools what is going well and where they can improve. ‘With an LTO and OTO, you get an honest and broad picture of how pupils and parents experience education,’ says Bas Roosen, director of quality development at Winford.

Winford has years of experience with student and parent satisfaction surveys. “We initially had our own questionnaires, completely tailored to our teaching,” Bas explains. Three years ago, he and his colleagues decided to outsource the surveys to DUO-Onderwijs. “That saves a lot of time and gives peace of mind in the implementation,” Bas explains. “Thanks to their expertise, we now have access to valuable and reliable insights.”

The choice of DUO-Onderwijs did not come out of the blue. “We wanted a party that has a lot of experience in education and understands exactly how to approach and carry out a study,” he says. The broad benchmark was the decisive factor. “We can now compare our results not only with our own data, but also with national figures. We set the bar high for ourselves,” Bas states. “We want to distinguish ourselves from other schools with small classes and good teaching, but then you have to know where you stand.” In addition, Winford also wanted to start with a employee survey. “Then it is convenient to place that with one party that has a lot of experience in this.”

Implementation will be a lot faster and smoother from now on. “Before, we could spend hours discussing the exact details of the surveys. Now all that is taken out of our hands. We coordinate the questions and planning with DUO-Onderwijs and they do the rest. As a school, we already have a lot on our plate, so it's great to be relieved of this burden.

Winford has eight secondary schools, each with its own headmaster. They administer the survey to staff. According to Bas, the reports are clear and quickly available. “We discuss the results in the MT and then each headmaster is instructed to link actions to them for their own school.” Thus, signals are weighted in the same way. “That helps in determining focal points, both at school level and organisation-wide.”

According to Bas, it is important to keep doing the surveys annually. “Our population changes rapidly. We have a lot of late inflow. As a result, it can happen that one year everything runs smoothly, while the next year a group of students or parents turn out to be less satisfied. You don't want to discover that only when it's too late.”

The surveys provide information you don't get from separate conversations. “We have a lot of contact with parents through mentors, at least once a month. But that's mainly about the individual child.” With a survey, you look more broadly. “Take safety. If a pupil experiences something as unsafe, you want to know if that is an individual feeling or if there is something structural going on, such as invisible bullying.”

The results are often a confirmation of what Winford already thinks, but sometimes also an eye-opener. “Our mentoring and personal guidance invariably score high. In addition, I want to get a sharp focus on how parents and pupils view the didactic quality. Are they satisfied because their child feels comfortable, or also because the educational content is strong? I think the anonymity of the surveys helps to get an honest view of that.”

Bas Roosen is director of quality development at Winford and deputy director at the Amsterdam site.