ARBOR – Quick Summary Guide – Pre-checks and Generating School Census
This FAQ is a quick check list for updating information before Census.
For Schools wanting the latest documentation for Census and using Arbor – Click here to jump to the relevant section.
Census Date: Thursday 2nd October 2025
DfE return date Wednesday 29th October 2025
Dry Run opens 18th September 2025
PRE-CHECKS BEFORE YOU START YOUR CENSUS
NOTE: Dry Run for Census opens 18th September, 2025 – (a banner will appear on your MIS when open as a reminder)
Access to areas listed below are subject to Permissions – if not available speak to your Administrator
| Check School Details |
School >School Details – Ensure that your LA is filled in, Establishment Number, School telephone number and email address, Intake Gender, School phase, School type, Governance type, Intake type and URN all have information present (especially important to check if you have recently become an Academy). |
| Check you have added Childcare details |
School > School Details – Whether you provide childcare or not, details need to be added |
| School Time for Weekly Hours Open | School > School Details – Fill in the Weekly Hours Open field |
| Young Carer | From Student Profile / Background section – Record which students are Young Carers |
| Alternative Provision (AP) Placements | Record which students have had placements: |
| Providers – School > Linked Organisations > Educational Institutions | |
| Placements – Education & Employment > Status History section of the Student profile (Depending on your school setup, this section may be titled Education History instead) | |
| National Tutoring Programme | Students > All Students > Bulk Update > Bulk Update National Tutoring Programme Hours – Have you added funding records and teaching hours? |
| Permanent Exclusions | Student > Behaviour > Permanent Exclusions – (For every permanent exclusion, an exclusion review must be undertaken and recorded) |
| Check New Student Details | Check you have added all your newest students to Arbor |
| Check Leavers Details | Check all recent school leavers have been recorded in Arbor – The date of leaving should be the date they last attended school. Student Profile > Enrolment (from the left-hand menu) – then click on Current Enrolment. In the slide over box select the orange ‘Unenroll Student’ and enter the leaving date, leaving reason and grounds for removal from the available options listed. |
| Resolve Duplicate Student | School > Data > Data Quality Dashboard > Suspected Duplicates > Students – Make sure there are no duplicate student records in Arbor |
| Check for Data Gaps | School > Data > Data Quality Dashboard – check and fill in any gaps in Student data / Demographics / Identity UPN / Identity UCI (ULN) |
| Attendance N Codes | Students > Attendance > Admin > Raw Attendance Marks. (In the Specific Marks field, leave the default to look at N codes) |
| Attendance Missing Marks | Students > Attendance > Admin > Raw Attendance Marks. (In the Specific Marks field, click the X to leave this field blank and look at only unfilled marks) |
| If unsure of what to include or what is needed in Census check DfE | Complete the school census – Data items 2025 to 2026 – Guidance – GOV.UK |
CREATING CENSUS
| Create Census | You will need to create a Dry Run (this will be available 2 weeks before the Census date) – Go to School > Data > Export > Data Returns |
| You may be asked to fill in Missing Data, this will need to be done before you can continue | |
| Select Census date on left when dry run is open. Select and then click Generate this will generate the dry run of your Census in the background and you will get a notification in top right when completed. | |
| Working on Census | To open your newly generated dry run of your Census – go to School > Data > Export > Data – Select your newly created dry run Census then choose the grey button to view School Census or View and Fix Errors and start working on your errors and queries. (You can re-generate your Census at any time and return to fixing your errors and queries, when you return to your Census it will open the latest dry run you have worked on) |
| On Census Day | Once Census day arrives you will need to make sure that On or After Census day you have ‘generated’ your census file at least once because the DfE will not accept a dry run. You will do this by going to School > Data > Export > Data Returns > Select Census – choose the School Census grey button and select ‘Generate Census’ |
| You will need to clear Arbor errors and DfE generated errors before you Census can be completed and once you have cleared all errors, please re-generate your Census. | |
| Census Reports | To review the information in your Census, before you download you final copy for sending to Collect, you need to go to School > Data > Export > Data Returns – Select Census and then click on grey button ‘School Census’ to open Census – then Select the ‘DfE Census Summary Inspection’ |
| Summary Report | From the School > Data > Export > Data Returns – Select Census and then click on grey button ‘School Census’ to open Census – you can download the Summary by clicking on ‘Download DfE Summary’ |
| Download your Census | Once you have checked your ‘DfE Summary’ and checked your ‘DfE Census Summary Inspection’ and are satisfied the information is correct your can then download your Census.
From the School > Data > Export > Data Returns – Select Census and then click on grey button ‘School Census’ to open Census – you can Download your completed Census ready to upload to your LA and/or DfE – This will be an XML file |
Documentation – Arbor
- Thursday 2nd October 2025 is census day
- Spring Census Dry Run opens 2 weeks before Census Day
- Wednesday 29th October 2025 is your census submission deadline (unless otherwise advised by your Local Authority)
Please find a link to Arbor’s main overview census page here and a link to Arbor guide, errors and FAQ’s here.
Census guide – School Census guides – Arbor
Errors guide – School Error guides – Arbor
For further information preparation for the upcoming Census click: How can I prepare data and be ready for the School Census Return?