ESS have produced a help guide which addresses a variety of errors…should you encounter any.  These errors are listed by their error code in the document attached and correspond with the one shown in SIMS in the errors and queries section of your return. Click here to see the document.

Stockton Borough Council – Submitting to Information and Improvement

Click here for instructions on preparing for your census.

Please contact Information and Improvement if you’re unsure how to submit your census to them.

Academies and Collect

For Academies please note that you need to submit your file to DfE via collect as well as the local authority. Information can be found in the appropriate completing the census in SIMS document. DfE guidance can be found here.

Click here to view acceptable notepad entries for Collect.

07/03/2024

Early Years Funding

Except for the COVID-19 years, the summer term school census is normally the simplest school census of the academic year both for suppliers of MIS and for schools to deal with, as they don’t normally contain any new elements for the summer census that have not already been introduced for the preceding school censuses of the academic year. However, for schools that cater for early years children there are two import changes related to DfE funding.

1. ‘Expanded’ DfE funding for early years 

School Census Summer 2024 is the first school census where data will be collected that includes children receiving the ‘expanded’ DfE funding of early years.

We have partially redesigned Tools | Statutory Returns tools | Update Early Years and the Early Years panel of Routines | Statutory Returns | Schools so that Expanded Funded Hours can be entered for two-year-old children with an Eligibility Code. This partial redesign is suitable for School Census Summer 2024. However, a further redesign will be needed for School Census Autumn 2024 to take account of Expanded Funded Hours being further expanded to take account of children as young as 9 months.

Although a two-year-old child could be eligible for both Funded Hours and Expanded Funded Hours, up until the end of academic year 2024/25, the DfE will not accept the sum of the two sources of funded hours for the child to exceed 15. This restriction to 15 hours in total is expected to be lifted for academic year 2025/26 onwards, which means that total funded hours for two-year-old children could then be up to 30 hours.

2. Two-year-old basis for funding

Previously, two-year-old basis for funding was only collected on a yearly basis via School Census Spring. However, starting with School Census Summer 2024, two-year-old basis for funding will be collected on a termly basis via each of the three School Censuses of the academic year.

Now that there are two different ‘sources’ of two-year-old funded nursery hours, i.e. Funded Hours and Expanded Funded Hours, schools will need to remember that the choice of ‘two-year-old basis for funding’ relates to Funded Hours and NOT to Expanded Funded Hours. 

15/09/2023

Filesets relevant to School Census Autumn 2023

Fileset 2503

This fileset includes version 1.0 of the DfE validation and summary report files for School Census Autumn 2023. Version 1.0 is known as the baseline and should be regarded as the minimum version for finalising a School Census Autumn 2023 return file. Which means that Fileset 2503 should be regarded as the minimum fileset for finalised a School Census Autumn 2023 return file.

Fileset 2503 has been created and has completed its first stage of testing. If all goes to plan, we expect to be able to provide the fileset during week beginning the 18th of September.

Fileset 2504

This fileset will include version 1.1 of the DfE validation and summary report files for School Census Autumn 2023. Version 1.1 corrects flaws in DfE validation errors 2492 and 3125 and corrects the heading for Table 14 of the DfE summary report.

Fileset 2504 is now being planned and I will provide an indication of the likely release data as soon as that information is available.

Attendance Code ‘X’

As you know, Attendance Code ‘X’ should only be applied for pupils where their age at the preceding 31st August indicates that they are not of compulsory school age. Or to put it another way, Attendance Code ‘X’ should only be used for pupils who were aged 4 or below or were aged 16 or above on the preceding 31st August.

The DfE has added validation error 2492 to check for this misuse of Attendance Code ‘X’. However, the DfE’s first attempt at coding this new validation in their baseline validation file is flawed in that it will trigger where ‘X’ has been used for pupils aged 16 or above on the preceding 31st August of the term being reported.

Fileset 2503 includes the DfE baseline validation, but we will include a corrected version of the DfE validation in Fileset 2504. As Fileset 2503 provides the DfE baseline validation, the DfE will be happy for schools to finalise their school census return when they have imported Fileset 2503 rather than waiting for Filest 2504. The DfE will also be correcting validation error 2492 on DfE COLLECT.

11/09/2023

Permanent Exclusion Final Review Date

Following receipt of a revised DfE specification for inclusion of permanent exclusion, as described below, we have taken account of the change via CDP 2 (or above) and Fileset 2503 (or above). Links to the newsfeeds for these two areas is provided via the ‘buttons’ above.

As you may know, the DfE has provided guidance to schools indicating that a permanent exclusion can be included in the return even if its final review date is after the specified date range for inclusion of permanent exclusions, if it is before the census reference date.

We have asked the DfE to add this caveat to its specification for School Census Autumn 2023. The DfE hasn’t provided this update in time for us to take it into account for the SIMS Summer Release 2023. However, once the revised specification is provided by the DfE, we will provide a patch to bring our functionality in line with the DfE’s revised specification.

This issue is not as serious as it might seem, as the DfE collects exclusion data twice and if a permanent exclusion is missed out for the autumn collection of the data it will still be included for the spring collection of the data.

Although the DfE has not yet been able to provide us with an update to its specification, due to a change of its accessibility software, we have received an email from the DfE that the update will soon be provided in line with the following example.

• If a pupil was permanently excluded during the summer term 2023, with the exclusion being upheld prior to census reference day for the School Census Autumn 2023, it is expected that the permanent exclusion is returned for the first time in the School Census Autumn 2023.
• If a pupil was permanently excluded during the summer term 2023, with the exclusion being upheld on or after census reference day for the School Census Autumn 2023, but prior to census reference day for the School Census Spring 2024, it is expected that the permanent exclusion will be returned for the first time in the School Census Spring 2024.

Our Business Analyst, Ruth Vincent, has suggested the following wording for the DfE specification, which has clarified the DfE position very well for the development team and me.

If a pupil was permanently excluded during the exclusions collection period, but the final governor review decision to uphold the exclusion was made after the exclusions collection period but prior to census day, the DfE expect the permanent exclusion to be returned in that census.