Guidance

School census 2018 to 2019: technical information

Technical specification and validation rules for submitting 2018 to 2019 school census data.

• From: Department for Education
• Published: 28 June 2018
• Last updated: 7 May 2019
  Show all updates

  1. 7 May 2019

     Updated documents ‘School census 2018 to 2019: validation rules’. Changes described in document version history.

  2. 12 April 2019

     Updated documents ‘School census 2018 to 2019: validation rules’. Changes described in document version history.

  3. 15 February 2019

     Updated documents 'School census 2018 to 2019: business and technical specification' and ‘School census 2018 to 2019: validation rules’. Changes described in document version histories.

  4. 18 December 2018

     Updated documents ‘School census 2018 to 2019: validation rules’. Changes described in document version history.

  5. 30 November 2018

     Updated documents ‘School census 2018 to 2019: validation rules’. Changes described in document version history.

  6. 30 October 2018

     Updated 'school census 2018 to 2019: business and technical specification' and 'school census 2018 to 2019: validation rules'. Changes in version history.

  7. 26 September 2018

     Business and technical specification updated, changes are described in the version history of the document.

  8. 17 September 2018

     Updated 'School census 2018 to 2019: business and technical specification' and 'School census 2018 to 2019: validation rules'. Changes in version history.

  9. 24 August 2018

     Updated School census 2018 to 2019: validation rules spreadsheet

  10. 28 June 2018

      First published.

This publication was withdrawn on 2 August 2019

This document is for the 2018 to 2019 school census. For the current census, visit our guide to submitting data for the school census.

Applies to England

Documents

School census 2018 to 2019: business and technical specification

Ref: DFE-00106-2018

PDF, 4.61 MB, 132 pages

School census 2018 to 2019: validation rules

ODS, 120 KB

This file is in an OpenDocument format

School census 2018 to 2019: validation rules

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 373 KB

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

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Details

This is technical information about submitting data for the school census 2018 to 2019.

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.