Spring 2024 – School Census Bulletin

Leaving dates in holidays

ESS have advised the following in regard to Student Leaving Dates in Holiday times that are triggering error 2510 in Census

As you may know it has been previously understood that leaving dates during holidays is best avoided. However, following a recent conversation with the DfE we now understand that there are situations where this cannot be avoided.

As you may know, setting a leaving date in a holiday can trigger DfE validation errors, e.g. Error 2510 in School Census Spring 2024. In such a situation we suggest that you contact the DfE and explain why you believe the DfE should OK the error/query.

Fileset 2605

The fileset 2605 has been released and was rolled out to Hosted Schools last night 25/01/2024

Contact Time for PRU phase schools

ESS have confirmed the following information for PRU phase schools:

Census guidance for PRUs states:  Time in Unit, also referred to as Contact Time, is the total number of expected hours that a child spends at a Pupil Referral Unit in Census Week.  The ‘Time in Unit’ must be recorded for all pupil/students who are on-roll on Census Day.

Please note that Contact Time is only collected for PRU phase schools.

ESS have contacted the DfE for more guidance on how it should be reported, and they have indicated the following.

• Lunch time should not be included.
• Only whole hours can be collected, and any decimal places should be rounded up.

Fileset 2605 currently in the process of being checked by ESS and should be released soon.

ESS have informed us Fileset 2506 will provide corrections to two calculated totals in the SIMS attendance detail report and some small improvements in the DfE validation for School Census 2024

It corrects the two calculated totals in SIMS attendance details report, as below:

• In the example shown above the calculation for the total of (A) is one more that it should be as it included a pupil who joined the school before census reference day, who should have been excluded from the count as they joined after attendance collection period.
• The total for (B) above ‘inherits’ the mistake in (A) above, as it is derived by subtracting the total for (A) from the total number of students where attendance is being reported.
• Although the totals reported in the attendance detail report are very confusing where this applies, the data provided to the DfE is not affected by this mistake.

Query 2983Q – School Time is missing, when uploading to Collect

ESS have informed us this query can be corrected in Collect

If you have uploaded your Census in Collect and get the additional Query 2983Q because your School hours are missing – The hours can be input in the School Details section within Collect.

Validation Error 2378 

ESS have informed us of the following validation error

Error 2378: School arranged alternative provision (AP) placement leaving date is outside of the collection period

Please note that the DfE have acknowledge that there is a mistake in their coding of Error 2378 which results in the validation be triggered for a start date of 05/10/2023, when that date is acceptable.

SPRING SCHOOL CENSUS DAY – Today

Wishing all Schools the very best today with your Census

DfE Known Issue regarding ‘School time is missing’

ESS’s current position is not to provide Fileset 2605 to provide version 2024.1.6 of the DfE validation files, as they do not consider the following two impacts sufficiently serious to justify the provision of Fileset 2605.

Schools that are expected to provide school time to the DfE.

2983Q: If School time is missing.  This query will not trigger in SIMS but will trigger when uploaded to Collect

2982Q: If School time is out of range.  This query will trigger in SIMS –  School time should be within the range of 25.00 to 40.00 – Please check school time entered is in expected range.

To enter your Schools Time you need to go to Focus | School | School Details and enter School Time (shows on right under Main Contact)

Changes to DfE specifications compared School Census Spring 2023

ESS have informed us of the following information

• Sex is collected as ‘sex’ rather than as ‘gender’. Gender identity continues NOT to be collected.
• The DfE validation has been extensively updated to take account of collecting sex as ‘sex’ rather than as ‘gender’. The DfE has also improved and corrected its validation.
• The DfE summary report has been updated to take account of collecting sex as ‘sex’ rather than as gender
• The SIMS detail reports have been extensively updated to take account of the DfE collecting sex as ‘sex’ rather than gender

Some schools may be surprised that no changes have been necessary to take account of the expansion in the DfE funding of nursery hours, but that expansion is not reflected in school census until School Census Summer 2024 onwards.

Fileset 2604

Fileset 2604 has been released by ESS and will be applied to hosted schools today (5/1/24) and released in SOLUS for non hosted schools.

The DfE’s Class information for the School Census is available – Click here

Class Information

The DfE require details of all classes running at the selected time on spring census day.

If different parts of the school use different timetable structures, then systems should allow the school to return class information for the timetable structure that applies to key stage 1.

Where the selected time is not appropriate to the school timetable, for example, where the selected time is when the whole school or a large proportion of the school is in an assembly with the head teacher; schools can choose an hour / period that reflects a ‘normal’ class situation that applies at the selected time each Thursday of the term.

Concrete issue for some schools in the autumn term 

ESS have informed us of the following:

If your school is going to use attendance code Y (Unable to attend due to exceptional circumstances) or # (Planned whole or partial school closure) for a year group closure, we recommend that a full explanation is provided in the description section of the entry screen. This description will not be picked up by the school census but may be helpful if the DfE enquires about the attendance data they receive in the census.

Focus | Attendance | Exceptional Circumstances