Thursday 8 May 2014

EXCLUSIVE: Leaked Draft Catering Questionnaire

Those who bothered to read Tuesday's article will have remembered the promise of the draft School Council Catering Questionnaire, and you can view the raw, unedited (quite literally) version of that here (seriously, why has the school got this ongoing fetish for Comic Sans?). However, those for the witty remarks and prize winning satire have come to the wrong site look no further:

First, we thought it would be fun to show how 6 of the 10 questions are incorrect in the eyes of a GCSE mathematics syllabus, and then we'd show you how we answered the questionnaire. According to the official AQA GCSE Mathematics book (that we will be referencing throughout this article), all the questions have a degree of incorrectness as, and I quote, "Always give a choice of answers with tick boxes." The questionnaire? Bulletpoints or open space. Tut, tut, tut.

Question 1 is a badly put one as questionnaire writers must "make sure the responses do not overlap", and in Question 1 the option "Needs improvement" is included amongst other options, such as "Excellent" and "Poor". If, in the instance of the question, flavour is "Poor", then surely it also "Needs improvement" simultaneously. Equally, Question 1 refers to both flavour and quality of school dinners; two very separate things. AQA say: "Ask a specific question."

Question 3 has the same "Needs improvement" problem as Q1, as well as the added issue of the breadth of the question, asking about service of dinner staff, conduct and how they speak to students. It is basically a repeat of the wrongs of Q1. Top marks.

Question 5 has quite a few problems with it, and it is thankful that the School Council have picked up on this, although we are not entirely sure in the right way. Not only does it feature two very different questions strapped together, to which AQA says: "Ask short questions" and "Ask a specific question". There is no way you can answer both questions with one yes/no answer. Question 6 suffers the same ails, as it too contains two questions, however the second is a re-worded version of the first (it literally says "In other words"). This needs to be shortened to just the one question to be precise and correct.

Question 8 also fails to "Ask a specific question" as it asks after the presence of fruit, vegetables and salad. Pick one or make the questionnaire longer. Question 9 is a tricky one as, although it is concise and is a simple yes/no, the options do not cover all the bases. Asking if the food is overpriced, the yes/no options only account for if the food is overpriced, or it is isn't. If it isn't, then there is nothing to say if it is the correct price for what it is, or they are underselling. A solution to this (for all those Councillors taking notes) is to make the question have three choices: yes / correctly priced / under-priced.

But enough maths; here's how we answered:


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