A school pupil data quality checklist should test seven things before September: identity, roll and classes, SEND status, contacts, attendance, transfers, and ownership of every exception.
Reconcile each field with its authoritative source. Correct the source first, confirm the change has reached connected systems, and keep a dated exception list for anything unresolved.
This guide is for schools in England and is accurate on 21 July 2026. It supports sound record keeping, but it is not legal advice.
Why run the checks before September?
Rollover can make a tidy error look official. A pupil placed in the wrong class, linked to an old contact or left with a stale SEND status may then appear consistently wrong in every connected view.
The Department for Education's school data-protection guidance was updated on 9 July 2026. It retains accuracy, data minimisation, storage limitation and accountability as practical duties for school records.
The Information Commissioner's Office says inaccurate or misleading personal data should be corrected or erased without delay. It also recommends recording the source of data and noting challenges to accuracy.
A summer check creates space to fix causes rather than repaint symptoms. September has enough moving parts already; it does not need a duplicate Year 8 assembled from a spreadsheet and optimism.
The seven-check pupil data quality checklist
1. Match each pupil to one trusted identity
Check legal name, preferred name, date of birth, unique pupil number and MIS identifier. Look for duplicates, reused identifiers, transposed dates and records without a clear source.
Do not merge two records because their names look similar. Confirm identity against the admission record and follow the school's correction process, with restricted access to any special-category data.
2. Reconcile roll, year group and teaching classes
Compare admissions, leavers, dual registrations, year groups, registration groups and teaching classes. Identify future starters and leavers separately from pupils currently on roll.
The DfE's 2026 to 2027 census specification defines the pupil-level data expected from school MIS software. Use its validation rules as a useful control, not as the only test of whether a record makes sense.
3. Test SEND status against current evidence
Compare MIS SEN provision codes with the working SEND register, current plans, review decisions and known transfers. Keep local monitoring labels distinct from statutory census codes.
A mismatch needs a named decision, not a bulk overwrite. The SENCo should confirm the current status while preserving the history that explains earlier support.
Use the separate 12-check SEND register audit when the exception concerns plans, provision or review evidence rather than the MIS field alone.
4. Verify contacts and relationships safely
Check priority contacts, relationship, parental responsibility, address, telephone, email, emergency contact order and any restrictions staff must understand. Ask the authorised owner to resolve conflicts.
A recent reply from an address does not prove that every stored detail is current. Record the source and verification date, and do not copy sensitive notes into a general contact field merely because it is conveniently nearby.
5. Close the attendance year without flattening it
Confirm sessions, attendance codes, join and leave dates, part-time timetable context and dual-registration arrangements. Check that totals agree with the underlying sessions.
The DfE says schools must correct census errors, while unusual values may remain valid queries that need explanation. Do not change a truthful outlier merely to make a report quieter.
Attendance percentages should remain linked to the dates and codes behind them. Review the wider attendance workflow when the exception needs follow-up beyond the MIS.
6. Trace leavers, starters and transfer files
Record the receiving or previous school, transfer route, date sent or received, and any acknowledgement. Keep child-protection transfers separate and follow safeguarding procedures.
DfE guidance requires secure, traceable transfer of the common transfer file and educational record when a pupil changes school. CTF 26 must be implemented in school systems from August 2026 and before 1 September.
Check supplier readiness, but do not manually edit a transfer file to imitate the new specification. Technical ingenuity is admirable; unaudited pupil-record surgery is less so.
7. Give every exception an owner and review date
Finish with a short exception register. For each issue, record the pupil identifier, affected field, source checked, owner, action, risk, target date and verification result.
Separate source corrections from sync failures. The MIS owner fixes an incorrect source; the integration owner investigates a correct source that has not reached another system.
Use one control table
| Check | Authoritative evidence | Owner | Pass condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Identity | Admission record and MIS | Admissions or data lead | One verified pupil identity |
| Roll and classes | Admission register and timetable | MIS or timetable lead | Dates and memberships agree |
| SEND | Decision record, plan and register | SENCo | Current code and evidence agree |
| Contacts | Verified family update and restrictions | Office lead | Priority and authority are clear |
| Attendance | Session-level register | Attendance lead | Totals reconcile to sessions |
| Transfers | CTF and traceable receipt | Admissions or DSL | Secure handover is evidenced |
| Exceptions | Dated issue register | Named system owner | Action and review date exist |
The connected-data view
Consider a fictional composite pupil whose September class is wrong in one dashboard. The MIS is correct, but the connected view still shows last year's group. That signal points to a sync exception, not an admission error.
The SENCo then sees a stale SEND status and an attendance total that stops before the pupil's leave date. Together, these do not prove that the pupil record is broadly wrong. They show three fields need separate source checks.
The professional question is: which system owns each fact, when was it last verified, and did the correction cross the integration boundary? The action is to fix the source, rerun the authorised sync and sample the result.
In Student Radar, authorised leaders can compare current pupil identity, class, SEND and attendance context in connected views. Account Connections is available only where enabled, so schools should not assume every account has that view.
What the data cannot prove
A mismatch cannot tell you which value is true. A missing contact does not show that a family is disengaged. An attendance change does not explain its cause, and a SEND code cannot replace assessment or professional judgement.
Automated checks can find blanks, conflicts and unusual patterns. They cannot decide that an opinion is inaccurate, infer parental responsibility, or rewrite history without an accountable human decision.
Next actions for the SENCo and data lead
- Agree the seven sources of truth and a named owner for each.
- Run exception reports before rollover, then sample records after it.
- Correct source systems first and record every material challenge.
- Confirm CTF 26 readiness with the MIS supplier before 1 September.
- Carry unresolved exceptions into a dated first-week review.
For a connected view of SEND, attendance and pupil context, request a focused Student Radar walkthrough.
Sources and further reading
- Department for Education, Data protection in schools, published 3 February 2023, updated 9 July 2026.
- Information Commissioner's Office, Principle (d): Accuracy, current guidance accessed 21 July 2026.
- Department for Education, School census 2026 to 2027: technical information, published 23 February 2026, updated 20 May 2026.
- Department for Education, Complete the school census: Check your data, published 30 July 2019, updated 18 March 2026.
- Department for Education, Common transfer file 26: specification, published June 2026.
- Department for Education, Data protection in schools: Sharing personal data, published 3 February 2023, updated 9 July 2026.