Guidance: Early years census: technical specification

Department For Education

February 23

10:53 2024

This is technical information about submitting data for the early years census 2024 and 2025.

It is for:

It explains:

changes to the previous years census collection
what data local authorities should supply at establishment level and child level
how to structure the data in XML or CSV format
how to check the data against the validation rules

The validation rules are available in Excel and OpenDocument formats.

Published 21 June 2022
Last updated 23 February 2024 +show all updates

23 February 2024
Added 'Early years census 2025: validation rules'.
31 January 2024
Updated the 'Early years census 2025: business and technical specification' document to amend the heading numbering.
12 January 2024
Added the document 'Early years census 2025: business and technical specification'.
10 October 2023
Updated the 'Early years census 2024: business and technical specification'. Changes are listed in the version history.
14 June 2023
Published documents for the 2024 early years census, replacing the 2023 versions. Changes are listed in the version history.
24 November 2022
'Early years census 2023: validation rules' has been updated. The changes to the document are described in the version history.
16 November 2022
The 'Early years census 2023: validation rules' has been updated. The changes to the document are described in the version history.
22 September 2022
The 'Early years census 2023: validation rules' has been uploaded to the page. The changes in what is required are described in the version history.
21 June 2022
First published.