Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to publish the data from the January 2021 school census.

The spring 2021 census date was 21 January and the window for schools to return census data closed on Wednesday 17 February. The data collection is due to close fully following data cleaning and validation in mid-March.

Spring census data is then released annually, mainly via the four national statistics publications listed below. The weblinks refer to the publications January 2020. The release schedule for January 2021 is expected to follow similar timescales.

• Pupil absence in schools in England: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-pupil-absence last published in May 2020 relating to the Autumn 2019 term.
• Schools, Pupils and their Characteristics: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-school-and-pupil-numbers last published in June 2020.
• Special Educational Needs in England: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-special-educational-needs-sen last published in July 2020.
• Expulsions and suspensions in England: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-exclusions last published in July 2020 and note that this data is collected in arrears such that the upcoming publication will relate to the 2019/20 academic year.

A provisional publication schedule giving anticipated month of publication can be found in the gov.uk research and statistics publication calendar at: https://www.gov.uk/search/research-and-statistics?content_store_document_type=upcoming_statistics&order=release-date-oldest.