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About Us

About the project History of the project Statements

The project

CensusAtSchool is an initiative aimed at enhancing statistical literacy in schools while also increasing awareness around the importance of the national census and national statistical data.The website allows students to complete a brief online questionnaire and to analyse their class results.

A new questionnaire is released each autumn and the site contains sections for support materials/resources for multiple subjects.

CensusAtSchool is a collaborative project involving Scoilnet – the Department of Education and Skills’ portal for teachers and schools in Ireland – the Central Statistics Office and the PDST Maths Development team.

The continuation of the Census At School Ireland project was made possible by the involvement of Dominic Martignetti whose technical expertise and experience working with the original UK project proved indespensible

History of the project

The Royal Statistical Society Centre for Statistical Education (RSSCSE) started the Census At School project in 2000 in conjunction with the National Statistics Office in the UK. The project, originally a one-off, was linked to the UK population census of 2001. Returns from the questionnaires 1-8 on the current Census At School website pull data from UK students since Ireland only joined the project in 2009.

A number of other countries have also embraced the project with necessary adjustments to reflect local culture and traditions. These include: Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Queensland and the USA.

Statements

The partners involved in CensusAtSchool.ie have carefully considered the issue of privacy and accessibility. The survey website was last audited and tested in September 2020 for the CensusAtSchool.ie project with the following statement created on the 9 th of September 2020.

Privacy:

  • The data will not be released for commercial benefit or the advantage of any outside body.
  • The motivation for the project is to provide a rich educational resource for both teachers and students to enhance statistical literacy and learning.
  • Individual anonymity is guaranteed because no names are attached to individual participants’ submitted questionnaires.
  • Individual student participation is voluntary.
  • Access to class results is limited. When teachers first register for the project, they are sent a password that allows them to access the summary results for their classes. These results are available in the form of a spreadsheet and do not contain student names or class or school identifiers.
  • The use of information collected from students is limited to educational purposes.

Data submitted to the CSO for the end of year analyses is encrypted and the data is transferred securely using an SFTP Client. The CSO fully respects your personal privacy rights and any personal information which you volunteer to the CSO will be treated with the highest standard of security and confidentiality, strictly in accordance with the principles of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Accessibility

  • The content on the survey website is for everybody, taking part in the CensusAtSchool.ie learning activity, to use and understand.
  • The CensusAtSchool project team want everyone using our websites and surveys to
    have a positive experience, this means you should be able to:

    • zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
    • navigate most of this website using just a keyboard
    • navigate most of this website using speech recognition software
    •  listen to most of this website using a screen reader
  • My Computer My Way from AbilityNet explains how people can make their computers, tablets and smart phones easier to use and is divided into the following sections: vision, hearing, motorand cognitive (learning differences). A wide range of devices are covered with downloadable factsheets.
  • CensusAtSchool.ie documents and guides have been made as accessible as possible. However, if you experience difficulties and require an alternative format please contact us for more information. You may also use these contact details to report any problems or provide feedback related to the accessibility of this content.
  • If you have reported a problem with the website but you are dissatisfied with the response you have received, please contact us to let us know. You can also contact the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) who is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
    Contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
  • This website is partially complaint with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 standard. Areas of non-compliance are listed below, with a description of how an element does not comply, why it is an exception or how we intend to resolve the non-compliance. For more details, read the our audit report of the survey website against the WCAG 2.1 standards.
  • The CensusAtSchool accessibility statement has outlined the ways the CensusAtSchool.ie project team are working to improve the accessibility of the Survey website, that included:
    • From September 2020 any new content created will conforms to the new regulations.
    • Quickly and effectively reacting to reports regarding non-compliant content.
    • Putting in place plans to review and update third-party tools to correct any outstanding issues.