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Guidance

School census 2017 to 2018: technical information

Technical specification and validation rules for submitting 2017 to 2018 school census data.

Updates to this page

From:
Department for Education
Published:
20 March 2017
Last updated:
13 June 2018
Show all updates

  1. Updated 'School census 2017 to 2018: validation rules' to version 2.2. The document’s version history describes the update.

  2. Updated 'School census 2017 to 2018: validation rules' to version 2.1. The document’s version history describes the update.

  3. Updated 'School census 2017 to 2018: validation rules' to version 2.0. The document’s version history describes the update.

  4. Updated 'School census 2017 to 2018: business and technical specification' to version 2.0.

  5. Replaced the technical specification and validation rules documents with updated versions. The changes are described in the version history of each document.

  6. Updated technical specification and validation rules. The documents' version histories describe the updates.

  7. Updated validation rules. The document’s version history describes the update.

  8. Updated technical specification and validation rules. The documents' version histories describe the updates.

  9. Added version 1.3 of the technical specification. The document's version history describes the updates.

  10. Added version 1.2 of the technical specification and 1.1 of the validation rules. The documents' version history describes the updates.

  11. First published.

This publication was withdrawn on

These documents are for the 2017 to 2018 school census. For the current census, visit our guide to submitting data for the school census.

Applies to England

Documents

School census 2017 to 2018: business and technical specification

Ref: DFE-00099-2017

PDF, 1.74 MB, 133 pages

School census 2017 to 2018: validation rules

ODS, 118 KB

This file is in an OpenDocument format

This file may not be suitable for users of assistive technology.

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School census 2017 to 2018: validation rules

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 356 KB

This file may not be suitable for users of assistive technology.

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If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email alternative.formats@education.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Details

This is technical information about submitting data for the school census 2017 to 2018.

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 schema file so that schools can provide data in the correct XML format
  • 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.

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