Guidance
School census 2026 to 2027: technical information
Technical specification for submitting 2026 to 2027 school census data.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
This is technical information about submitting data for the school census for 2026 to 2027.
It is for those who:
- supply software for school management information systems (MIS)
- use school MIS software
The specification shows:
- changes to the previous year’s census collection
- 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
You should also read the common basic data set. This defines common data items that schools use in MIS software and we use in our data collections.
Updates to this page
Published 23 February 2026