Research Centre
School Operational Resilience Survey
Understand your school’s operational resilience. Benchmark your capability. Plan your next steps.
The ASBA & Bounce Operational Resilience Survey helps schools assess their current capability across emergency management, critical incident management and business continuity.
By completing the survey, your school will receive a tailored report showing:
its current level of operational resilience;
how its results compare with participating peer schools;
how its capability compares with recognised best-practice expectations; and
practical priorities for strengthening preparedness, response and recovery.
Estimated completion time: 15–20 minutes
Who should complete the Survey: A school business leader, risk manager, executive leader or staff member with oversight of emergency management, critical incidents or business continuity.
Why participate?
Schools manage a wide range of disruptions – from emergencies and serious incidents to technology failures, infrastructure outages, severe weather and the loss of critical services.
This survey provides a structured way to examine how well your school is prepared to:
prevent and prepare for disruptive events;
coordinate an effective incident response;
maintain critical school operations;
communicate with staff, families and stakeholders;
recover following a significant disruption; and
learn from incidents, exercises and reviews.
The results will help ASBA and Bounce better understand capability across the sector and develop resources, articles, workshops and training that respond to the needs of school business leaders.
Receive a benchmark report
Participating schools will receive access to a benchmarking report, allowing them to compare their emergency management against best practice and against peers, helping identify opportunities for continuous improvement.
Receive a tailored benchmarking report to:
gain valuable insights;
see where your school stands;
identified strengths and priority improvement areas;
Benchmark reports will be available once the benchmarking tool is released.
What will the survey assess?
The survey considers capability across the following areas:
Governance and leadership
Oversight, accountability, policies, roles, reporting and executive involvement.
Emergency management
Emergency plans, Emergency Planning Committees, Emergency Control Organisations, training, exercises and site preparedness.
Critical incident management
Activation, leadership structures, decision-making, information management, communications and stakeholder coordination.
Business continuity
Critical activities, dependencies, disruption strategies, continuity plans, recovery priorities and exercising.
Communications and stakeholder management
Staff, student, family, regulator, emergency service and media communication arrangements.
Training, exercising and continuous improvement
Training frequency, exercise programs, lessons management, corrective actions and ongoing capability development.
What will your school receive?
Following completion, participating schools will progressively receive access to:
Individual benchmarking report
A tailored report summarising your school’s results, identified strengths and priority improvement areas.
Peer comparison
An indication of how your school compares with other participating schools, using aggregated benchmarking data.
Best-practice comparison
An assessment of your current maturity against the capability expectations incorporated into the benchmarking framework.
Recommended actions
Practical recommendations to help your school prioritise improvements.
Quarterly updates
Updated benchmarking insights as the number of participating schools grows and the sector dataset becomes more representative.
Individual schools will not be identified in published sector reports, articles or presentations unless the school has provided separate written permission.
How the benchmarking works
Survey responses are assessed using the ASBA – Bounce Operational Resilience Benchmarking Framework.
The framework
The framework assigns capability indicators across the assessed areas and provides an overall maturity result.
The report
The report is intended to support planning and continuous improvement; it is not an audit, certification, legal opinion or guarantee that an organisation will successfully manage every emergency or disruption.
Peer comparisons
Peer comparisons will be based on the information available from participating organisations.
Comparisons may be limited during the initial survey period if there are not enough participants to produce reliable or appropriately de-identified results.
The results
Results may be segmented where sufficient data exists – for example, by school size, jurisdiction, sector or operating context.
Before you begin
To provide an informed response, it may be helpful to have access to your school’s:
- emergency management plan;
- critical incident or crisis management plan;
- business continuity plan;
- training and exercise records;
- incident or post-exercise reports;
- governance or committee arrangements;
- current improvement actions.
You may need to consult other members of your school before submitting the survey.
Please provide one coordinated response per school or participating organisation unless ASBA or Bounce has advised otherwise.
Important information
Participation is voluntary. You may choose not to answer optional questions. The accuracy and usefulness of the report will depend on the completeness and accuracy of the information provided. Responses should reflect the school’s current arrangements rather than planned arrangements that have not yet been implemented.
Survey findings and recommendations are provided for capability-development purposes. Schools remain responsible for determining their obligations, assessing their risks and obtaining appropriate professional, legal, regulatory or technical advice.
Take the first step towards stronger operational resilience
Complete the survey to understand your school’s current position and identify practical opportunities to strengthen preparedness, response and recovery.
Questions about the survey can be directed to:
Bounce Readiness
Cheryl Hambly (Director, Bounce Readiness), chambly@bouncereadiness.com.au, 0412 664 413
Association of School Business Administrators (ASBA)
Kathy Dickson (CEO, ASBA), ceo@asba.asn.au