During fieldwork, Ipsos monitored the survey responses. In particular, we monitored the number of completes and partial completes by each Active Partnership (AP), local authority, individual school, year group and survey type.
From this information we could determine whether the appropriate year groups and classes had been selected to participate. We also monitored the number of completes compared to the targets set for the term, and against the completion rates from previous terms.
Furthermore, we monitored the number of completes by whether pupils were attending school or not – attending school every day, attending school some days of the week but not all or not attending school at the moment.
We also monitored the device that respondents were completing on (desktop, smartphone, tablet, feature phone, console or unknown). This was to ensure that all devices that may be used to complete the survey at home or at school were compatible with the survey and to monitor drop-out rates by device type.
During academic year 2024-25 (Year 8), additional demographic characteristics of responding cases (gender, ethnicity, region) were monitored weekly and shared with Sport England. The relationship between year 1-2 and parent responses were also reviewed weekly.
Ipsos produced weekly fieldwork updates for Sport England, increasing to twice weekly in the last few weeks of term, as well as more detailed summaries at four key points during the survey year.
Ipsos also produced a mid-term response review, to identify local authorities which might fall short of the completion target, based on a review of the number of schools which had agreed to take part and the number of completions.
Where necessary, and possible, reserve sample for those local authorities was issued to the AP in the following term to try and mitigate any shortfall in numbers.
Information by school type is shown in the table below. Information by local authority and AP are shown in the appendices.
The numbers in this table include all the main sample as well as issued reserve sample. The numbers include any partial or complete pupil, parent or teacher responses.
Number of schools selected and responding by school type (sampled schools)
| School type | Selected schools | Responding schools | % of selected schools responding |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary | 3,515 | 1,019 | 29% |
| Secondary | 2,448 | 760 | 31% |
| Independent | 370 | 38 | 10% |
The school year 3-11 and parent questionnaire collected the key behavioural data required for the calculation of estimates for participation in physical activity. The school year 1-2 and school year 3-11 questionnaires provided the attitudinal and outcome data.
This means that response was also monitored in terms of overall questionnaires completed, and behavioural and attitudinal questionnaires, by term and overall. This is shown in the table below for complete and partial questionnaires in the final data.
Note that this table is based on cases in the dataset, after cleaning and reallocation to sampled/non-sampled in the case of errors by the schools in survey link used. This is different from technical reports prior to academic year 2021-22 (Year 5), which reported on complete cases in the fieldwork data.
Complete and partial questionnaires for sampled responses by term and type of data
| Type | Total no. of cases: Autumn term | Total no. of cases: Spring term | Total no. of cases: Summer term | Total no. of cases |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1-2 pupils | 5,704 | 7,927 | 6,331 | 19,962 |
| Year 3-6 pupils | 11,734 | 16,850 | 14,568 | 43,152 |
| Year 7-11 pupils | 25,277 | 29,620 | 25,257 | 80,154 |
| Parents | 1,759 | 3,207 | 2,176 | 7,142 |
| Total: school year 1-2, 3-6, 7-11 and parent | 44,474 | 57,604 | 48,332 | 150,410 |
| Percentage of target | 151% | 196% | 164% | 171% |
| Teacher | 397 | 543 | 498 | 1,438 |
The number of selected schools, responding schools and responding pupils in each AP and local authority are shown in the appendices.