Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether all children and parents will receive the same request for data as part of the schools census.

The School Census is the DfE’s primary source of administrative data about pupils attending schools in England and has been running since 2006. It is collected termly from all state schools in England and contains information for each pupil such as their name, address, date of birth, gender, ethnicity, whether they have special education needs. The data collected is vital in supporting a number of the department’s strategic objectives and is widely used by DfE for the purpose of improving, and promoting, the education and well-being of children in England.

The Department publishes a School Census user guide. This guide supports schools in understanding Departmental data requirements and assists schools to meet their statutory duty to complete the school census.

The Census collects the same information for most children; for example, name, age, address. However some data is restricted to children of a certain age or attending certain types of school; for example, “learning aims” are only collected for post-16 pupils. The Census guidance is clear that for the new data items of nationality and country of birth to be collected this year, schools do not need to see any documentation when collecting this information, i.e. they do not need to see passports or other forms of identification. The guidance is also clear that parents and families are also able to refuse to provide this information if they wish. However, the Department is aware that a number of schools have not implemented the collection in accordance with the guidance. We will, therefore, work with the sector to consider how it can better support schools in collecting school census data for future rounds.

To address any uncertainties, I have placed an information note in the House Libraries.

The school census user guide for the 2016 to 2017 academic year is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-census-2016-to-2017-guide-for-schools-and-las.