Management Information Sheet

This is a reminder that 2017 Spring Census day is Thursday 19th January 2017. Please ensure that LA Maintained Schools census files are uploaded and submitted to COLLECT no later than Friday 20th January 2017 to ensure that we can review and approve them before the Spring Half-term deadline.

If you are an LA maintained school and have any problems meeting this deadline please email the Business Intelligence and Performance Service (BIPS) at bi@norfolk.gov.uk explaining the problems you are having and when you expect to upload your census file.

WHY IS THIS CENSUS IMPORTANT?

Data provided in this School Census is used by various organisations for many purposes. Among these are:

• Pupil Premium allocations
• Information to be published in school Performance Tables
• Infant Class size information

Therefore it is important that your return is completed accurately and on time.

Additional information on changes this academic year:

For Proficiency in English, Nationality and Language data being collected in the Spring Census return.

If you have been unable to obtain this information by Census day then:

• For Nationality and Country of Birth use code NYO (Not Yet Obtained) rather than NKO (Not Known) as NKO should only be used where a guardian or adoptive parent has taken care of the child and this information is not able to be accessed. For all LA maintained schools where a Nationality and Country of Birth code has been set to NKO the reviewing team may contact the school to verify this is a true code before they approve the return.
• For any child where a Proficiency in English assessment has not been done or fully assessed please use code N (Not yet assessed). As a full assessment should have been completed for these pupils who started in the Autumn Term it is anticipated that, where a large volume of code N exists, the DfE will require comments from the Local Authority as to why this is.

Early checking:

A ‘familiarisation’ release of the 2017 spring school census COLLECT blade is available now, until 4pm on Friday 13th January 2017, at which point the blade will be removed and cleared out ready for the live collection on Thursday 19th January 2017. We strongly recommend that all schools take the chance to load a file output from their management information system (MIS) into the COLLECT familiarisation blade in order to check for any unexpected errors or queries in their data when loaded into COLLECT.

Guidance:

Guidance on submitting your school census and links to DfE support documents can be found at Norfolk Schools website. Please ensure you familiarise yourself with the guidance in advance of the collection date (19/01/17) so that you are able to resolve any data errors or queries as described above, in good time.

If you have already referred to the available guidance but still require clarification on a complex issue, please email the BIPS team via bi@norfolk.gov.uk. A member of the BIPS team will respond to your email as soon as possible. Note that BIPS are not able to assist with queries relating to Secure Access or in respect of your MIS.

Important:

Even though your Management Information System (MIS) indicates there are no errors or queries you may still have errors or queries in COLLECT. You are recommended to upload your file to COLLECT as early as possible and check for any unexpected errors or queries, using the ALL ERRORS button, to allow time to resolve them before the submission deadline.

All errors must be resolved. All queries must be investigated and resolved with appropriate Notepad Entries where necessary. This is the area of Census where most problems occur, so please study the “Collect Minimum Notepad Entries” section (including a Norfolk Common Queries guide) in the Help & DfE Guidance link for more details.