Question 1

What is MindSprout, in one sentence?

Accepted Answer

A pastoral awareness tool that gives schools a calm, banded view of how their students are doing, based on a 60-second mobile check-in.

Question 2

Who is MindSprout for?

Accepted Answer

Primary and secondary schools, multi-academy trusts and local authorities. Inside a school, it's used by form tutors, pastoral leads, SENCOs, designated safeguarding leads and senior leaders.

Question 3

What does MindSprout NOT do?

Accepted Answer

It does not diagnose, score, or label children. It does not replace a counsellor, ELSA, CAMHS pathway or your safeguarding system. It does not message students on a teacher's behalf.

Question 4

Is there a mobile app?

Accepted Answer

Yes — students complete check-ins on a mobile-first installable web app (PWA) that works on any phone or tablet without an app-store download. Teachers and leaders use the web dashboard from any browser.

Question 5

Does MindSprout work offline?

Accepted Answer

The student check-in is designed to be quick and lightweight; it needs a connection to submit a response. The dashboard is online only.

Question 6

How long does a check-in take?

Accepted Answer

Most students finish in 60–90 seconds. The flow shows one question at a time with large, friendly buttons and an age-appropriate emotion scale.

Question 7

How often do students check in?

Accepted Answer

It's up to you. Most schools run a weekly check-in during form time, plus a short pulse before or after key moments (exams, transition weeks, after holidays). Anything from weekly to monthly works.

Question 8

What ages is MindSprout designed for?

Accepted Answer

We support Years 1 to 13 (US grades 1–12) with age-appropriate language, reading level and emotion scales. The default question sets are tuned for KS1, KS2, KS3, KS4 and KS5 / sixth form.

Question 9

Can students write a comment?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Every check-in includes an optional comment box and a clearly-labelled 'I need to talk to someone' option. Both route straight to the right adult — never to a chatbot.

Question 10

Can a student see other students' answers?

Accepted Answer

No. The student app shows only their own questions. There is no peer-visible data anywhere in the product.

Question 11

Can we use our own questions?

Accepted Answer

Yes. School admins can edit the default sets or build a new set tailored to your pastoral framework, RSHE curriculum or a specific intervention. You can also schedule different sets for different year groups.

Question 12

What does a teacher see?

Accepted Answer

A class view with each student's recent wellbeing band (green / amber / red, with text labels alongside colour), trend arrow, last comment, and any safeguarding flags. Designed to be readable in 30 seconds at the start of a lesson.

Question 13

What does a school leader see?

Accepted Answer

A whole-school view with banded distribution, week-on-week trend, year-group and class comparisons, and the schools' safeguarding follow-up queue. All filterable by year, class or date range.

Question 14

Can I export the data?

Accepted Answer

Yes — CSV export is available on every report for school admins, with full audit logging of who exported what.

Question 15

Are there trust-level or local-authority dashboards?

Accepted Answer

Yes, for partner organisations. They show anonymised, aggregated trends across the schools that have opted in — never pupil-identifiable data.

Question 16

How is the wellbeing band calculated?

Accepted Answer

Each response generates a 0–100 score using a transparent weighted formula. Scores are banded 0–39 (red), 40–69 (amber), 70–100 (green). The thresholds are configurable per school.

Question 17

What triggers a safeguarding flag?

Accepted Answer

Any of: a red response, the student selecting 'I need to talk to someone', two consecutive red responses, or a 25+ point drop versus the student's 7-day average. Schools can tune these thresholds.

Question 18

Where does a flag go?

Accepted Answer

Into the school's safeguarding queue, visible to the named DSL and any teacher with the right role. Flags are never emailed to parents or sent to students automatically.

Question 19

Does MindSprout replace CPOMS / MyConcern / our safeguarding system?

Accepted Answer

No. MindSprout sits before safeguarding — it surfaces who might need a conversation. Concerns are then logged in your existing safeguarding system as normal.

Question 20

Will MindSprout ever reply to a student on our behalf?

Accepted Answer

No. The student sees a calm confirmation screen and a reminder of how to get help inside school. We never send AI-generated responses to children.

Question 21

Where is the data stored?

Accepted Answer

On our managed infrastructure in the UK or US, depending on your network's requirements. No data leaves your chosen region.

Question 22

Is MindSprout GDPR-compliant?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We provide a ready-to-sign Data Processing Agreement, a pre-filled DPIA template, and our sub-processor list on request.

Question 23

Who can see a child's data?

Accepted Answer

Only staff in that school, with permissions scoped by role (teacher, pastoral, SENCO, DSL, school admin). Row-level security at the database layer means no school in the platform can see another school's data — and neither can we, except for support tasks with explicit consent.

Question 24

Do students need an email account?

Accepted Answer

No. Students sign in with a class code and a 4-digit PIN given to them by their teacher. PINs are stored as bcrypt hashes — even we can't read them.

Question 25

Is there an audit log?

Accepted Answer

Yes — every sensitive action (viewing a student profile, exporting data, changing a role, resolving a flag) is logged with who, what and when. School admins can review it at any time.

Question 26

Will you train AI on our students' data?

Accepted Answer

No. Student responses are never used to train any model — ours or a third party's.

Question 27

How long does it take to get set up?

Accepted Answer

Most schools are running their first check-in within a week. CSV import for classes and students, printable class codes and PINs, and a 30-minute training session for pastoral leads.

Question 28

Is there a free trial?

Accepted Answer

Yes — a free 30-day pilot with no card required. You can run it across one form group, one year group, or the whole school.

Question 29

Do you offer training?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Live training for pastoral leads on day one, and short recorded sessions for new staff joining mid-year. Trust and LA partners also get joint enablement sessions.

Question 30

What happens if a child is off-roll or leaves?

Accepted Answer

Their account is archived. Their historical responses remain available to the school for safeguarding continuity, in line with statutory retention periods, and are then permanently deleted.

Question 31

How does pricing work?

Accepted Answer

Per-pupil, per-year, billed annually. Volume discounts apply automatically above set thresholds, and there are dedicated tiers for MATs, dioceses and local authorities.

Question 32

Is there a minimum contract length?

Accepted Answer

No. The default is annual, but a single-term pilot is available for schools that want to start small.

Question 33

Can a local authority or trust fund MindSprout for our schools?

Accepted Answer

Yes — many do. We can invoice the partner directly and apply a network discount to each school.

Question 34

Are there setup or per-user fees for staff?

Accepted Answer

No. Staff accounts are unlimited and there are no setup fees.

Question 35

Will I, as a parent, see my child's responses?

Accepted Answer

Not by default. Responses sit with school staff so children can answer honestly. Your school will share aggregate insights or individual conversations with you in the same way they share other pastoral information.

Question 36

Can my child opt out?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Participation is voluntary at the student level. A skipped check-in is recorded as 'no response' and never penalised.

Question 37

Is there anything I need to install at home?

Accepted Answer

No. The check-in runs in any modern browser on any device the school provides or your child uses.

Question 38

Is MindSprout accessible?

Accepted Answer

Yes — we target WCAG 2.1 AA across the student app and the dashboards. That means keyboard navigation, screen-reader labels, sufficient colour contrast, and text labels alongside every colour cue.

Question 39

What about students with SEND or EAL?

Accepted Answer

The check-in uses short sentences, an emotion scale with both colour and text, and supports read-aloud through the device's built-in screen reader. Translated question sets for major UK community languages are on the roadmap.

Question 40

Does it work on older school devices?

Accepted Answer

Yes — the student app is intentionally lightweight and runs on older Chromebooks, iPads and Android tablets typical of UK schools.

Question 41

Do you integrate with our MIS / SIS?

Accepted Answer

Direct integrations with Arbor, Bromcom, SIMS, ScholarPack and PowerSchool are on the roadmap. Today, sync is via CSV import, which most schools find quick and predictable.

Question 42

Single sign-on for staff?

Accepted Answer

Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 SSO for staff accounts, with SAML available on partner tiers.

Question 43

Will MindSprout add parent surveys / staff wellbeing / behaviour data?

Accepted Answer

Staff wellbeing check-ins are on the near-term roadmap. Parent surveys and behaviour-data correlation are under active discussion with our partner schools — they shape what we build next.

Everything schools, trusts and parents ask us.

The product

The student check-in

Dashboards and reporting

Safeguarding

Privacy, data and security

Rollout and onboarding

Pricing and contracts

For parents and carers

Accessibility and inclusion

Integrations and future plans

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