More than 200 schools have already registered to take part in the project that is a collaboration between Stats NZ, Auckland University and the Ministry of Education.
The country's largest school survey happens every two years and has been going almost a quarter of a century.
It asks Year 3 to Year 13 students all sorts of questions about their hopes, dreams, hobbies and habits.
Rachel Cunliffe from Census at School told RNZ the point of the survey was for students to be excited about the data they get back.
"These are the things they've actually said they would like to know about other students and the whole point is to get them excited about the purpose of data, why we collect it and then to analyse it."
She said this year, some interesting questions would be included in the census.
"They're asking all sorts of things from how many pets they have in their home and what types, how heavy their school bag is, what musical instruments they play are and what they'd like to do as a job one day.
"Then all sorts of the common questions students want to know. Like, what is their favourite, food, sport to play and colour."
Students also submitted more serious questions to be included, she said.
"Their screen time usage, whether they were using a device in bed last night, how much screen time.
"We're actually asking about ChatGPT for the first time since that wasn't around two years ago."
The data from the census is anonymised, then returned immediately back to the teacher, she said.
"The classrooms use that data to learn things about students in their class, and then also the database for whole of the New Zealand is available for teachers and their students to explore as well."
The information will be useful for students themselves as well as their parents, she said.
"I'm sure as a parent, other people have been asking, what time do your kids go to bed? My kids say it's 9pm, but other people's is 10pm.
"The students themselves also want to know what's the common bed times or how much screen time are other parents allowing kids to use."
She said at the end of the survey, children are asked to tick a box stating they are giving honest and true answers.
"There's always a few kids who are silly with their answers, but you can see really strong consistency with them. They are completely anonymous, confidential, secure. We care a lot about their privacy.
"We also get them to sign a declaration or checker box at the very end saying, 'I am giving true and honest answers'. Just like when you fill in the national census."
Last year was the highest number of students who filled out the survey, over 52,000 students from more than 800 schools.
Cunliffe said types of questions stayed the same and some have changed over the years.
"We've always been asking them what age they got a cell phone, and so that's really dropped over the years. Younger and younger kids are getting their first cell phone.
"We always ask about their social media usage and when we started Facebook wasn't a thing, it was Myspace, then Bebo."
Through the years they have changed questions to match the times, but they have kept old questions to see how the students' answers change over time.
"Snapchat is still pretty big with them now and TikTok, of course. Facebook is not used as much as it was 10 years ago by young people."
For the first time, the census will ask them what job they want to do when they leave school, she said.
"It'll be interesting to see if being a YouTuber or an influencer is up on the top list or not."
The survey would also this year ask the students what they thought was the most trending word currently, she said.
"Last year it was brainrot, so it'll be interesting to see what our young people are actually saying is the trendiest or biggest most over used word right now."
