Guidance

School census 2026 to 2027: technical information

Technical specification for submitting 2026 to 2027 school census data.

• From: Department for Education
• Published: 23 February 2026
• Last updated: 20 May 2026 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

School census 2026 to 2027: business and technical specification

PDF, 1.29 MB, 109 pages

School census 2026 to 2027: annexes

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 118 KB

School census 2026 to 2027: validation rules

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 152 KB

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.

Published 23 February 2026

Last updated 20 May 2026 + show all updates

1. 20 May 2026

   Added 'School census 2026 to 2027: validation rules' document.

2. 23 February 2026

   First published.