Early Years Survey Pack

🔒 New for 2026 and fully aligned to the Ofsted School Inspection Toolkit 2025

Gathering meaningful stakeholder feedback on early years provision requires a different approach to surveys in other parts of the school. Children in the early years cannot complete written surveys independently, parents are often the primary source of evidence about how well their child has settled and how supported they feel at home, and staff feedback in this context needs to go beyond general teaching confidence to address the specific demands of early years pedagogy, assessment and care.

This pack gives you everything you need to plan, administer, analyse and act on stakeholder feedback about early years provision, and because the core survey templates come pre-populated with carefully considered questions, you can move from planning to distribution with minimal preparation time.

You'll get:

☑️ Three ready-to-use surveys – a child survey using a supported emoji/faces scale for use with a known trusted adult, a parent survey and a staff survey – all aligned to the 2025 Ofsted School Inspection Toolkit 

☑️ A question and statement bank covering feeling safe and secure, engagement and learning experiences, communication and interaction, relationships and social development, confidence and motivation, settling and transitions, support for learning and development, understanding the curriculum and pedagogy, teaching interactions and assessment, inclusion and SEND, environment and routines, and safeguarding and supervision

☑️ A survey analysis template with tally tables, open question theme tables, a summary and next steps section, and an Overall Summary Triangulation table with RAG ratings

☑️ A pre-survey checklist to guide you through each stage of the process, and four survey letter templates for communicating with parents and staff before and after the survey

☑️ An 18-page PDF guidance document covering the full survey cycle, and a free worked example to help you interpret and act on your results

All documents are fully editable so you can adapt them for your school's specific context.

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Early Years Survey Pack

Early Years Survey Pack

£10.00 £7.50
£10.00 £7.50
CONTENTS
WHO IT'S FOR
HOW IT CAN HELP
WHAT ELSE?
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What's in this Early Years Survey Pack?

This pack provides a complete, end-to-end system for gathering, analysing and acting on stakeholder feedback about early years provision. Every document is aligned to the 2025 Ofsted School Inspection Toolkit, and the survey templates are pre-populated so your team can get started without having to build surveys from scratch.

You'll get:

☑️ Child Survey (faces scale, adult-administered) – a single version using a four-point emoji/faces scale, designed to be read aloud by a known and trusted adult in a relaxed, informal setting. It includes six closed questions and one open question covering whether children like coming to school, whether they feel safe, whether there is a grown-up who helps when they feel sad or worried, whether they like what they play with and learn about, whether they keep trying when things feel hard, and whether they have friends. The open question invites children to draw or write anything else they want to share. Full guidance is included on how to administer the survey sensitively, when to stop if a child becomes distressed, how to handle responses where anonymity is limited by the nature of early years settings, and how to avoid inadvertently prompting particular answers.

☑️ Parent Feedback Survey – 12 closed questions and 2 open questions using a four-point Likert scale, covering communication and relationships, settling and transitions, support for learning and development, and safety, well-being and care. Questions address whether parents feel welcome and included in the school community, whether staff communicate well about their child's learning and development, whether they were well supported during the settling-in period, whether they know what their child is learning and are given ideas for supporting learning at home, whether their child's individual needs are understood and well supported, and whether they feel confident their child is safe and cared for by kind and nurturing staff. Includes guidance on timing, distribution, anonymity and what to do with a small sample.

☑️ Staff Feedback Survey – 12 closed questions and 2 open questions using a four-point Likert scale, covering understanding of the curriculum and pedagogy, teaching, interactions and assessment, inclusion and meeting individual needs, environment, routines and relationships, and safeguarding and supervision. Questions address confidence in the early years curriculum and what children are expected to learn at each stage, ability to adapt teaching to different starting points, confidence in modelling language and vocabulary development, assessing children's progress and using this to plan next steps, identifying and responding to children's individual needs (including those with SEND or EAL), knowing where to go with concerns about a child's development, the quality and consistency of the learning environment and routines, safeguarding responsibilities, and whether staff receive regular supervision or check-ins to support reflective practice. An optional role field allows responses to be grouped by teaching and support staff, which can reveal whether less experienced practitioners feel as confident as more experienced colleagues, or whether staff in child-initiated play contexts have a different view of provision quality and consistency. Includes guidance on timing, distribution and target response rates.

☑️ Question and Statement Bank – a broad selection of additional prompts across all three stakeholder groups, for use in surveys, informal conversations or observations. Child prompts (for use by a known adult) include: feeling safe and secure, engagement and learning experiences, communication and interaction, relationships and social development, and confidence and motivation. Parent themes include: communication and relationships, settling and transitions, support for learning and development, safety, well-being and care, and inclusion and equality. Staff themes include: understanding the curriculum and pedagogy, teaching, interactions and assessment, inclusion, SEND and meeting individual needs, environment, routines and relationships, and safeguarding, supervision and well-being.

☑️ Survey Analysis Template – tally tables for recording closed responses question by question, open question theme tables for grouping qualitative feedback, a summary and next steps section for capturing key findings and actions, and an Overall Summary Triangulation table with RAG ratings to bring together responses from all three stakeholder groups in one place.

☑️ Pre-Survey Checklist – a step-by-step checklist taking you from clarifying the purpose of your survey through to distributing it, analysing results and updating your school improvement plan, so nothing gets missed at any stage of the process.

☑️ Survey Letter Templates – four editable letter templates: a notification letter and a feedback letter for parents, and a notification letter and a feedback letter for staff, ready to adapt for your school.

☑️ Guidance Document – an 18-page guide covering every stage of the survey cycle, from planning and design through to analysis, reporting and acting on difficult results, with practical advice for leaders at all stages of experience.

☑️ Worked Example – a PDF case study showing how the analysis template works in practice, using a scenario focused on achievement, progress and support for different groups of pupils. It can be read as a standalone guide or used alongside your own data, and is equally useful for new leaders approaching stakeholder surveys for the first time and experienced leaders looking to strengthen their approach.

All documents are fully editable so you can adapt them for your school's specific context.

Who should use this Early Years Survey Pack?

This pack is designed for headteachers, deputy headteachers and early years leads who want to gather structured, evidence-based feedback on the quality of their early years provision from children, parents and staff. It is particularly valuable during a self-evaluation cycle, when reviewing the quality of teaching and care in the EYFS, when preparing for an Ofsted inspection or when an early years lead wants to triangulate observation evidence and learning documentation with the direct experiences of families and practitioners.

EYFS leads and Reception teachers will find the staff survey especially useful for identifying areas where practitioners would benefit from further support or CPD such as around assessment for learning, vocabulary development, supporting children with SEND or EAL, or the consistency of routines and transitions across the team. The optional role field makes it possible to compare responses from qualified teachers and early years practitioners, and this comparison can surface important differences in confidence or experience that the lead may wish to address through targeted coaching or professional development.

Trust executives and school improvement leads working across multiple schools will find the consistent structure of the surveys – particularly the parent survey and staff survey – makes it practical to gather comparable data across settings and identify patterns in early years provision quality at trust level.

How can this pack help school leaders gather meaningful feedback on early years provision?

This pack helps you tackle the most common challenges leaders face when planning and running stakeholder surveys on early years provision.

"How do I gather pupil voice from children in the early years in a way that is meaningful and appropriate for their age and stage?"
The child survey is specifically designed for this context. It uses a simple four-point faces scale, is read aloud by a known and trusted adult in a relaxed one-to-one setting, and is intentionally short – six closed questions and one open prompt – to match young children's attention and willingness to engage. The accompanying guidance explains how to administer the survey without leading the child's responses, when to stop if a child becomes distressed or disengaged, and how to handle the natural limitations of anonymity in early years settings. The Question and Statement Bank provides additional prompts for informal conversations where the survey format is not appropriate.

"How can I find out whether parents feel genuinely informed about what their child is learning and supported to extend that learning at home?"
The parent survey directly addresses this. Closed questions ask whether parents know what their child is learning, whether they are given ideas for supporting learning at home, and whether their child's individual needs are well understood and supported. The open question asking what the school could do differently to better support the child or family during these early years frequently generates specific and actionable suggestions, particularly around communication frequency, how progress is shared and whether home-school links could be strengthened.

"How do I find out whether all practitioners in the early years team feel confident in their understanding of the EYFS curriculum and how to plan for children's next steps?"
The staff survey includes questions specifically focused on curriculum knowledge, assessment confidence and the ability to adapt teaching to children's different starting points, all of which are areas where gaps between experienced and less experienced practitioners are common. The optional role field means you can compare responses across the team to identify where additional support, mentoring or CPD would be most impactful.

"How can I use survey data to evaluate whether our environment, routines and transitions are consistent and providing children with a secure base for learning?"
The staff survey asks directly whether the learning environment is well organised and purposeful, and whether routines, transitions and expectations are consistent across the team and provide children with a sense of security. The child survey asks whether children like what they play with and learn about and whether they keep trying when things feel hard, both of which are indicators of a well-designed environment that supports engagement and resilience. Taken together, these provide a triangulated picture of whether the physical and relational environment is working as intended.

"How do I check that all staff – including less experienced practitioners – understand their safeguarding responsibilities in the early years context?"
The staff survey includes a specific question on whether staff understand their safeguarding responsibilities in the early years and know what to do if they have a concern about a child's safety or welfare. This sits alongside a question about whether staff receive regular supervision or check-ins to support reflective practice, which is both a quality marker for early years provision and a safeguarding enabler. The Question and Statement Bank includes further prompts on safeguarding, supervision and well-being for use in team meetings or individual conversations.

Want to build on your work in the early years?

Browse the full range of Honeyguide early years resources to find tools that support every stage of your self-evaluation and school improvement work in this area.

Take leadership further...

Early Years Audit Pack

The Early Years Audit Pack goes further than surveying stakeholder views, evaluating the systems, pedagogy and leadership practices that underpin the quality of early years provision. Where surveys capture how children, parents and staff experience the setting, the audit examines the underlying frameworks, from the coherence and sequencing of the early years curriculum, to the quality of adult-child interactions, the effectiveness of assessment and the rigour of transition planning. Strong survey data is a valuable component of a robust early years audit, and together they provide the rounded, evidence-informed self-evaluation that supports confident leadership of this critical stage of education.

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