Guidance

School census 2016 to 2017: technical information

Technical specification and validation rules for submitting 2016 to 2017 school census data.

From:
Department for Education
Published
4 May 2016
Last updated
19 April 2017 — See all updates

This publication was withdrawn on

These documents are for the 2016 to 2017 school census. For the current census, visit our guide to submitting data for the school census.

Applies to England

Documents

School census 2016 to 2017: business and technical specification, version 1.6

Ref: DFE-00124-2016

PDF, 4.16 MB, 135 pages

School census 2016 to 2017: validation rules, version 1.8

ODS, 109 KB

This file is in an OpenDocument format

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School census 2016 to 2017: validation rules, version 1.8

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 337 KB

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Details

This is technical information about submitting data for the school census 2016 to 2017.

Use this if you’re a:

  • supplier of software for school management information systems (MIS)
  • user of school MIS software

The specification contains:

  • changes to the previous year’s census collection
  • what data schools should supply at school level and pupil level
  • how to structure the data in XML
  • how to check the data against the validation rules

Software suppliers should use the list of validation rules so that schools can validate the data they submit.

You should also read the common basic data set (CBDS). This defines common data items that schools use in MIS software and that we use in our data collections.

More guidance on submitting school census data is also available.

Published 4 May 2016
Last updated 19 April 2017 + show all updates

  1. Updated business and technical specification with version 1.6. The changes are described in the document's annex H.

  2. Added version 1.5 of the technical specification and version 1.8 of the validation rules. The updates are described in the documents' version history.

  3. Added version 1.3 of the technical specification and version 1.4 of the validation rules. The updates are described in the documents' version history.

  4. Added version 1.3 of the validation rules. The updates are described in Annex H, under '1_3'.

  5. Added version 1.3 of the business and technical specification and version 1.2 of the validation rules. The updates are described in the documents' version history.

  6. First published.

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