School census

The statutory termly return for all maintained nursery, primary, secondary, special schools and academies.

Information collected is used by the Department for Education (DfE) in the calculation of the Dedicated Schools Grant and the Pupil Premium funding allocations and in published

Data collected includes general pupil characteristic information such as gender, free school meal eligibility, special needs, ethnicity and language for all records to be included (those on roll on census dates and any with session attendance in the previous term or with any suspension/ exclusion data in the previous two terms).

Census dates for the 2026/27 academic year

• Autumn - Thursday 1 October 2026 (return by 28/10/26)

• Spring - Thursday 21 January 2027 (return by 10/02/27)

• Summer - Thursday 20 May 2027 (return by 16/06/27)

Note that these are the reference dates used by your MIS to determine which records to include the return and you will have until the deadline dates above (or until your LA/MAT’s deadline if earlier) to complete work on the return.

DfE guidance

• Overview of the return

• Changes for 2026/27

• Definitions of data to be collected

DfE COLLECT

• Guidance for using the COLLECT website

• DfE Sign-in webpage – Login to get to COLLECT