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Guidance: What maintained schools must publish online

Department For Education

April 17
08:30 2023

If youre an academy (including a free school) or FE college, read guidance on what academies and colleges should publish online.

Every local authority-maintained school must publish specific information on its website to comply with the School Information (England) Regulations (2008), as amended by The School Information (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2012 and 2016 and other relevant legislation including the Equality Act 2010 and the Children and Families Act 2014.

This document also outlines where the Department for Education (DfE) expects you to publish certain information, outside of the statutory requirement to do so. These sections do not use the word must, but the department strongly expects schools to follow our guidance around this.

Schools that do not have a website

Even if you do not maintain your own website, you must still publish all of the information which is set out in this guidance online.

You can use an alternative website to host the information, as long as you make the address and details of the website known to parents. For example, you may provide parents with the URL (website address) and any other relevant details.

Contact details

Your schools website must include the following:

  • your schools name
  • your schools postal address
  • your schools telephone number
  • the name of the member of staff who deals with queries from parents and other members of the public
  • the name and contact details of your special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO), unless youre a special school

Admission arrangements

Foundation schools and voluntary-aided schools

As the schools governing body determines your admission arrangements, you must publish them on your website by 15 March each year (as set out in the Admissions Code). You must keep them on your website for the whole of the offer year (the school year in which offers for places are made).

The admissions arrangements must explain:

  • how youll consider applications for each relevant age group at your school - this is the age group at which children are normally admitted to the school
  • what parents should do if they want to apply for their child to attend your school
  • your arrangements for selecting pupils who apply (if you are a selective school)
  • your over-subscription criteria (how you offer places if there are more applicants than places available)

You must also set out how your schools in-year applications will be dealt with by 31 August at the latest each year.

If the schools governing body will manage in-year applications for your school, you must provide a suitable application form to enable parents to apply for an in-year place at your school. You must also provide a supplementary information form where necessary.

If the school is to be a part of the local authoritys in-year co-ordination scheme, you must provide information on where parents can find details of the relevant scheme.

You must also publish a timetable for organising and hearing admission appeals for your school by 28 February each year.

This must:

  • include a deadline for lodging appeals which allows those making an appeal at least 20 school days from the date of notification that their application was unsuccessful to prepare and lodge their written appeal
  • include reasonable deadlines for:
    • those making an appeal to submit additional evidence
    • admission authorities to submit their evidence
    • the clerk to send appeal papers to the panel and parties
  • ensure that those making an appeal receive at least 10 school days notice of their appeal hearing
  • ensure that decision letters are sent within 5 school days of the hearing wherever possible

Community schools and voluntary-controlled schools

As the local authority manages your admissions process, refer parents to the local authority to find out about your schools admission and appeal arrangements.

School uniforms

The department produces statutory guidance on the cost of school uniforms which schools must have regard to when developing and implementing their school uniform policy. This guidance requires schools to publish their uniform policy on their website.

The published uniform policy should be easy to understand and, where a school has a school uniform, should:

  • clearly state whether an item is optional or required
  • make clear if the item will only be worn at certain times of the year (for example, if its summer or winter uniform)
  • make clear whether a generic item will be accepted or if a branded item is required
  • make clear whether an item can only be purchased from a specific retailer or if it can be purchased more widely, including from second-hand retailers

Ofsted reports

You must publish either a copy of your schools most recent Ofsted report or a link to the report on the Ofsted website.

Test, exam and assessment results

Key stage 4 and 16 to 18 performance measures will be published by the Secretary of State for the 2021 to 2022 academic year.

For key stage 4 and 16 to 18 results, you will need to update your website to include the latest measures, which once published, will be based on tests, exams and assessments from the 2021 to 2022 academic year.

Alongside your key stage 4 and 16 to 18 results, you may wish to add the following sentence:

Given the uneven impact of the pandemic on school and college performance data, the government has said you should not make direct comparisons between the performance data for one school or college and another, or to data from previous years.

Key stage 2 (end of primary school) results

You do not need to publish your key stage 2 results for the academic year 2021 to 2022 on your website, as the Secretary of State will not publish this data. This is because statutory assessments returned for the first time since 2019, without adaptations, after disruption caused by the pandemic.

You should continue to display your schools most recent key stage 2 performance measures, as published by the Secretary of State, on your website. For most schools, these will be the performance measures published for the 2018 to 2019 academic year.

You should clearly mark that these performance measures are for the 2018 to 2019 academic year and are not current. For example, you could add the following to your results:

The government will not publish KS2 school level data for the 2021 to 2022 academic year. The last available public data is from the 2018 to 2019 academic year. It is important to note that the data from that year may no longer reflect current performance.

Key stage 4 (end of secondary school) results

You must publish the following details from your schools most recent key stage 4 performance measures as published by the Secretary of State. For most schools, once published, these will be the performance measures for the 2021 to 2022 academic year:

  • Progress 8 score
  • attainment in English and maths - percentage of pupils achieving a grade 5 or above inGCSEEnglish and maths
  • Attainment 8score
  • English Baccalaureate (EBacc) average point score (APS)

We suggest that schools also publish:

  • the percentage of pupils that enter the EBacc, and
  • the percentage of pupils staying in education or going into employment after key stage 4 (pupil destinations)

Key stage 5 (16 to 18) information

If your school operates a sixth form, you must publish themost recent 16 to 18 performance measures,as published by the Secretary of State. For most schools, once published, these

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