School preference data collections: guide to submitting data

Overview

The school preference data collections are statutory collections. You must complete statutory collections by law unless there’s a good reason not to.

These collections take place every year in March and April. They gather information about the total number of primary or secondary school places available in your area.

They also collect the following information forabout every child in your area:

• their parents’ preferences
• the school place offer they received
• some personal information,information eg- for example, their address and date of birth

TheseThe collections cover all schools that are part of your co-ordinated admissions process, including:

• academies
• free schools
• community schools (schools controlled by a local authority and not influenced by business or religious groups)
• foundation schools (schools where the governing body is the employer and admissions authority, and where the land and buildings are either owned by the governing body or by a charity)
• voluntary-controlled and voluntary-aided schools (schools established by a religious organisation, and partly or entirely funded by a local authority)
• special schools (schools for children with special educational needs or disabilities)

Important dates

The 20222023 to 20232024 collection deadlines are:

• secondary school national offer dayday: -Friday Wednesday 1 March 20232024
• deadline for submitting secondary school datadata: -Thursday Tuesday 7 March 20232024
• primary school national offer dayday: -Tuesday Monday16 17 April 20232024
• deadline for submitting primary school datadata: -Monday Friday22 21 April 20232024

You must base collections on the appropriate national offer day, but you have 5 days to make your submission.

Submit your data

You’ll need to:

• register and log in with DfE Sign-in
• use COLLECT to submit your data

PleaseContact contact your school or local authority approver,approver if:

• you want to request a DfE Sign-in username or password so you can access COLLECT
• ‘school preference data’ is not on the list of collections you can see in COLLECT

Get help using DfE Sign-in

If you do not know who your approver is, please use the DfE Sign-in requesthelp form.

If you’ve forgotten your password, use DfE Sign-in to reset it. You will need to click ‘Start now’ and then the ‘I’ve forgotten my password’ link.

NoteWe’ll that we’ll only be able to change the status of your data submission to ‘authorised’ once you’ve cleared all errors in the data in COLLECT.

CollectionRefer to the collection documents

Our guidance will help you complete the school preference collections:

• guide for local authorities
• 20232024 technical specification
• COLLECT guides

DoResolve youquestions needor help?offer feedback

Submitting data

PleaseYou can use the servicefeedback request form if you have any questions about your data.data Weor aimwish to answermake youra questioncomment within 5 working days.

Feedback

Please use the feedback form if you have any comments about our data collection service, including about COLLECT and the helpdeskhelpdesk. service.We aim to respond within 5 working days.