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Administration and finance

School Census – Checklist

Use this check list to tick off each of the tasks once they have been completed.

1. Early Years Portal – schools with early years children

  • Complete the Early Years Portal Task as the pupils will be checked against your census. The Early Years portal collection is based on the same week as census which is from Sunday 14th to Saturday 20th January 2024.

2. COLLECT

  • Check your COLLECT access by logging in to the DfE sign in page.  If you have forgotten your password or username please contact the Department of Education immediately.

3. Sims

  • Ensure you upgrade to SIMS version 7.214 or later as soon as possible to enable dry runs to be carried out. If you are a hosted school, Scomis will apply this automatically for you.
  • Scomis webpage advises that the latest fileset 2604 is available on Solus and will be applied automatically to hosted schools.  Guidance is available via the Scomis fileset webpage. If you encounter any difficulties, please contact Scomis on 01392 385300. Non hosted schools need to download the filesets from the Scomis website and apply themselves, see the Scomis fileset webpage for further information. For the latest SIMS census information go to: Spring 2024 Census Bulletin – SCOMIS.
  • Carry out a dry run to determine what information needs to be updated, check our Census Quick Guide for further information.

4. Preparing the census data

  • Check school level information e.g. establishment details, school email address, URN etc.
  • Ensure leavers and re-admissions are recorded and any student records created in error are deleted.
  • Check students’ basic details, e.g. name, date of birth, gender, enrolment status, year taught in, UPN, home address, free school meal eligibility, first language, ethnicity & service child indicator.
  • Special Educational Needs – check SEN status, member of SEN Unit / Resources Provision indicators and Top Up Funding indicator (plus for the spring census only SEN need and rank). The detailed ‘SEN Report’ in the census routine is useful to pass to your SEN co-ordinator for consideration.
  • Exclusions / Suspensions – this census captures Summer term 22/23 and Autumn term 23/24 exclusions/suspensions. Please ensure exclusion / suspension records have been added against pupil records. E codes in attendance need to match the associated exclusion / suspension record.
  • Attendance – deal with any missing marks and investigate any ‘N’ codes (reason for absence is not yet known).
  • Early Years children – check Hours at Setting, Funded Hours (2, 3 & 4-year olds), Extended Childcare Hours (3 & 4 year olds), 30 Hour Code, Disability Access Fund.  (For Spring census, check 2 year old eligibility and basis for funding and early years pupil premium eligibility and basis for funding).
  • Classes (Spring Census only) – ensure they reflect your selected period on census day. Primary schools: remember to record the correct Key Stage and activity for your class.  Do you have any infant classes with 31 or more pupils?  if yes, is there an admitted exception or teacher on PPA time?
  • Post 16 Learning Aims (autumn census only) – check all student level data and learning aims data has been entered correctly, this impacts on your school’s funding.
  • Learner Funding and Monitoring – have you recorded all pupils who are either receiving tutoring via the national tutoring programme, or for post 16, repeating a final year or receiving tuition via the 16 to 19 tuition fund?

5. Producing the census

  • Run through the school census routine in sims, remember to ‘create and validate’, check and resolve errors and queries.
  • Run the detailed reports and summary report to assist you with checking your data and resolving any errors and queries.
  • Once your Head Teacher is satisfied the data is correct authorise the return (print reports for your records).

6. Return to COLLECT

  • Upload and submit your return to the DfE COLLECT data collection website via the DfE Sign In Portal.
  • Check for errors and queries in COLLECT and add the appropriate acceptable notes, which can be found on the DfE census webpages.

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