33,000 Children Have Their Say
Meet Jessica, Jessica is fictional, but according to the most frequent responses from the 2005 CensusAtSchool survey Jessica starts the day with toast and a glass of milk for breakfast. She lives in Auckland and shares the house with three other people. Surprisingly, it takes Jessica less than 10 minutes to get to school by car. Jessica knows what she wants for Christmas, even more than money or an Ipod, she wants to upgrade her cell phone. She is 13 years old and currently in Year 9 at school. She brings her lunch from home and plays netball. There is much more of interest about Jessica, but telling you now would spoil all the surprises.
About CensusAtSchool:
CensusAtSchool is an online survey for Year 5 to Year 10 students that provides real, relevant data to enhance statistical enquiry across the curriculum. CensusAtSchool NZ is hosted by the Department of Statistics at the University of Auckland in association with Statistics New Zealand and the Ministry of Education. It is a non-profit, educationally motivated project.
Schools take part voluntarily, with students completing the survey during lesson time, and then submitting their data to contribute to an international database, which includes information on children from Australia, England, Canada and South Africa. Some questions are in common with the other countries, to provide comparisons between countries, while the remainder of the questions are tailored to reflect the interests of New Zealand children. Data and classroom resources are now available for schools. More resources are currently being developed by a team of maths teachers.
A selection of CensusAtSchool survey results:
Respondents
33,000 students took the opportunity to stand up and be counted in this years online survey, an increase of more than 15,000 from CensusAtSchool 2003. Over 2,000 teachers registered their classes nationwide.
Tables summarising participation follow:
| Age | No. of Respondents |
|---|---|
| 6 | 11 |
| 7 | 17 |
| 8 | 98 |
| 9 | 2379 |
| 10 | 4525 |
| 11 | 4928 |
| 12 | 5511 |
| 13 | 6744 |
| 14 | 6675 |
| 15 | 2201 |
| 16 | 81 |
| 17 | 35 |
| Region | No. of Respondents |
|---|---|
| Northland Region | 828 |
| Auckland Region | 13889 |
| Waikato Region | 3463 |
| Bay of Plenty Region | 1326 |
| Manawatu-Wanganui Region | 1682 |
| Taranaki Region | 501 |
| Gisborne Region | 294 |
| Hawkes Bay Region | 719 |
| Wellington Region | 4018 |
| Nelson-Marlborough Region | 734 |
| West Coast Region | 215 |
| Canterbury Region | 3027 |
| Otago Region | 1917 |
| Southland Region | 592 |
Technology
In the last two years cell phone ownership has increased dramatically more than doubling for 9 -10 year-olds. By age 14, a massive 84% of the children surveyed have their own cell phones
Phone ownership by age
| Age | 2003 | 2005 | Percent Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 10% | 22% | 120% |
| 10 | 13% | 29% | 123% |
| 11 | 23% | 44% | 91% |
| 12 | 33% | 59% | 79% |
| 13 | 51% | 76% | 49% |
| 14 | 59% | 84% | 42% |
RSI by 15?
70% of respondents who owned a cell phone sent text messages the previous day, with almost a quarter of them sending over 50. The median monthly expenditure was $20 with 1 in 5 spending over $50. Almost half the children have their own TV and just over a quarter have their own MP3 player. Levels of access to the internet however do not appear to have changed over the past 2 years.
Lifestyle
Students were asked about many aspects of their daily life, and many interesting facts came to light.
There are big changes in lunch time activity levels as children advance through the school system. At Year 5, 80% report their main lunchtime activity as running around and playing. This drops to around 60% at intermediate school age and plunges to a little over 20% in high school. By Year 10 the main “activity” is either sitting or standing around. Overall, 40% of students are driven to school by car while only 1 in 4 walked. A further quarter took public transport.
Despite widespread worries about dietary changes feeding an obesity epidemic some traditional patterns still seem to be maintained. For example, the vast majority of the children still bring their lunches from home 88% at Year 5 dropping to 69% by Year 10. Bought lunches increase from 9% at Year 5 to 20% by Year 10. Whereas only 1% of the Year 5 children have no lunch, by the second year of high school 7% did not have a lunch.
Parents wondering when to send their children to bed will not get much guidance from the practices of their peers. There is a wide range of bedtimes which change only slowly with age.
The most common bedtimes are:
8pm - 9pm for 9 and 10 year olds
9pm - 10pm for 11 and 12 year olds
10pm - 11pm for 13 -15 year olds
The 10 most popular Christmas present requests were:
Girls:
1. Cell phone
2. Ipod
3. Money
4. Clothes
5. Dog
6. Car
7. Laptop
8. Horse
9. MP3 player
10. Book
Boys:
1. Money
2. Cell phone
3. Motorbike or quad-bike
4. Car
5. Playstation portable
6. Computer
7. Ipod
8. Bike
9. Playstation 2 console
10. Computer game for PS2
Certainly makes interesting reading. Worrying trends regarding the inactivity of teenagers, perhaps we could invent a new game called ” chase the cell phone”!
Lorraine Herbert — November 21, 2005
i think that there should be info about most of the people so we can see how they get to school and other info
waliullah — December 5, 2005
I wonder if telecoms and vodophones aggressive marketing strat, play an significant contribution to the young of the nation inactivity………. big huge wall posters at the airports. Fast speaking and blinking youngsters wanting only the latest cellphones costing $700………..And we as a nation of pioneers are allowing this physco abuse for profit…..Reap what you sow.
maui — February 3, 2006
i think Statistic is really interesting if you try to concentrate on it
Zareen — February 23, 2006
wow thats really amazing i like my $1200 phone, thank you. it has all the features that i actually use lol
Cameron — February 24, 2006
i really enjoyed reading that info. i never knew so many kids would want to take part
Cameron — February 24, 2006
WOW! I didn’t know that PS2 games and console are the 10th most wanted christmas presents for boys. I thought it would be 1st or 2nd!
As for girls i think books shouldn’t have come 10th.
It’s really interesting to see what the reseults of the survey are.
Jessica — March 2, 2006
I would like some info about how old children/people get a game console eg. playstation xbox gameboys etc. etc. and in seperate graphs
sorted by boys and girls and where they come from.I would like the info from Auckland, Dunedin, Wellington, Hamilton, Queens town and
Chritchurch.I am doing a graph on it and I need some info
Bob — March 6, 2006
What people of all ages have for a game console from NZ
Victor — March 7, 2006
I would really like to meat you and see what you do
kimberley — March 8, 2006
Whats up with the book thing for girls?!?!?!
I can relate with clothes money cellphone ipod!!
Paige — March 13, 2006
oooooooooo and dog and laptop!!!
Paige — March 13, 2006
SOME ONE WANTED A FRIEND FOR CHRISTMAS, interesting….
Need more variables in the random sampler but otherwise…
interesting…….
Jeff Da Maori Ow — March 23, 2006
i thought it was really interesting but why dont you include raglan and other schools
brier — March 28, 2006
Any school from around the country could take part - it was up to the teachers :)
Rachel — March 28, 2006
Hey im thinking y dont u hav raglan there
Micah Geraets — March 28, 2006
Have a look at the page which has the schools which took part, here - Raglan Area School is on the list :)
Rachel — March 28, 2006
Thanks 4 putting raglan down and W.B.B 4 Life!!!!
Micah Geraets — March 28, 2006
How often would you do these census”?????
Hinepare — March 28, 2006
We did CensusAtSchool in 2003 and one in 2005. Planning is beginning on the next one but nothing has been decided on yet.
Rachel — March 28, 2006
is there any other reasons apart from statistics why we have census and what happens to the people who are over seas……………..
brier — March 28, 2006
Brier, this isn’t an official census - like the one done last month. CensusAtSchool is completely voluntary and not all schools take part so if you’re not in New Zealand during CensusAtSchool and your class was taking part, then you wouldn’t have filled in the form.
Rachel — March 28, 2006
Rachel, you’re cool. Are you the spokesperson for this website or something?
Hinepare — March 28, 2006
I’m one of the co-directors of CensusAtSchool. There’s more info about me here.
Rachel — March 28, 2006
I think this is a very good idea this census im just annoyed i did not hear about ituntil recently
Harry — March 28, 2006
SO RACHEL HOW MANY PEOPLR TOOK PART
ray — March 28, 2006
Ray - have a read of this page and you’ll find the answer to your question.
Rachel — March 28, 2006
This was interesting reading, and it helped me for research for an english essay, so thanks!
Lisa — July 24, 2006
This justs shows how spoilt our generation is who needs a cell phone at the age of nine?
Greg Taylor — August 26, 2006
gee these trends are kinda scary that’s a big percentage increase of owning cellphones within the 9 and 10 year olds. i was wondering when the next one will be and whether it would include about year 10? cheers
lexi — October 3, 2006
y do u think dats scary? i think its cool. phones rock cos u can txt ur m8s. its really weird that girls want books ae i mean you can have like 20 bux instead of a book lol well interseting info luv lots krissy kitten mwah
krissy — October 3, 2006
Hello, I just wanted to say thankyou for your wonderful soruce of infomation. It has helped me out a lot with a project (regarding the appalling use of cellphones in the younger generation) and i really apprecitate it. You are all right that these are scary trends. Yours faithfully, Abygail R
Abygail — October 8, 2006
I WANT CELL PHONES
Kevin — December 15, 2006
I think you should have more statistics on the effects of kids having a cellphone.
For example, how many teen lives are saved everyday because they had a cell phone?
courtney — February 8, 2007
The information about bedtimes isn’t really correct for me. But it might be that im not the same as others.
Ionica — February 22, 2007
hi guyz (and girlz lol)
me and twitch definetely agree wiv da girlz (not so sure bout da horse though!!lol) we were suprised dat not very many boyz wanted ps2z.
p.s o but da 10th 1 4 boyz doesnt make sense coz im pretty sure ur sposed 2 have PS2 GAMES 4 ps2 not COMPUTER GAMES!!!!!lol
n e way datz me and twitch- signin out!!
useless and twitch — February 22, 2007
there is too many students that have drove to school like in my school all they do is sit around and talk about drinking like who cares and than when they are done they go to there cars and drive till they get bored i dont even think they car about school.
get teens in active
megan beaulac 17
megan — April 17, 2007
Some pretty cool statistics but my school didn’t do it.
Year 10 Girl — May 1, 2007
The kids in our country are becoming increasingly materialistic. I don’t see any signs of religious/spiritual values in any of them. What does this list of popularity of presents wanted during Christmas reveal? That none of our young generation want the love of their families, their friends and most importantly, of God, as a gift for Christmas.
Humaira Khan — May 12, 2007
i would like to ask some questions how much people in nz have a cell of age 11 & 12 i just want some basic addiction info on children which have cells and how they get addicted to them please try and respond as soon as possible cause i need this info for a speech on health so please if you can ansewer my ques please email me at least my monday or sunday
pawanpreet — May 18, 2007