Interpreting data

Please note

Data are only presented if enough students answered the question to ensure anonymity. Not all students who participated in the survey will have necessarily answered all the questions.

Reading the charts

Data are shown for your school using both bar and line charts. Charts which present data by year group show data for boys and girls separately if at least 15 boys and 15 girls have answered the relevant question, excluding those who said ‘I do not want to answer’. If fewer than 15 boys and/or 15 girls in a year group have answered, then only data for both genders combined is shown. If there are fewer than 15 responses in a year group, even with the genders combined, that year group is excluded from the chart. Missing data could therefore indicate that either: (i) no data were collected (e.g. your school did not participate in the survey that year, or chose not to survey all year groups); (ii) the question is new (e.g. the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire was only introduced into the survey in 2019); or, (iii) data have been excluded due to low numbers.

Bar charts

Bar charts present data by gender and year group with national averages for girls and boys shown as lines, for comparison. These averages come from all students who took part in the Student Health and Wellbeing Survey that year (e.g. 2021) combined. Differences between the national averages and school data can be accounted for by different school contexts across Wales. A drop-down menu located in the bottom right-hand corner of the bar chart enables you to view your schools’ data for different survey years.

Line charts

Line charts present your school-level average over time, overall and by gender and year group. It is important when assessing any change in your school-level average that you also consider any change in your sample between survey years. For example, if your school includes Years 12 and 13, you should consider whether these students were surveyed at each time point. Surveying these year groups in some years and not others will likely impact your data by increasing (or decreasing) the mean age of your sample. Line charts do not currently include national benchmarking, but this information is available via the new Public Health Wales SHRN Data Dashboard (accessible via the ‘Resources’ page).