Guidance

Special educational needs person level survey: technical specification

Technical specification and validation rules for local authorities completing returns for the 20242025 and 20252026 special educational needs person level surveysurveys (SEN2).

From:
Department for Education
Published
26 August 2022
Last updated
1124 NovemberJanuary 20242025 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

Special educational needs person level survey 2025:2026: technical specification

PDF, 426443 KB, 2825 pages

Special educational needs person level survey 2025:2026: validation rules

ODS, 28.228.1 KB

This file is in an OpenDocument format

Special educational needs person level survey 2024:2025: technical specification

PDF, 278426 KB, 2728 pages

Special educational needs person level survey 2024:2025: validation rules

ODS, 28.728.2 KB

This file is in an OpenDocument format

Details

The technical specification should be used if you are:

  • responsible for the SEN2 data return
  • a supplier of software for local authority management information systems

The specification contains:

  • a description of what local authorities should supply at local authority and person level
  • how to structure the data in XML
  • how to check the data against the validation rules

You should also read the common basic data set. This defines common data items that we use in our data collections.

Updates to this page

Published 26 August 2022
Last updated 1124 NovemberJanuary 2024 2025 + show all updates

  1. Added the technical specification and validation rules for 2026.

  2. 'Special educational needs person level survey 2025: technical specification' has been updated. Changes are described in the version history.

  4. 'Special educational needs person level technical specification 2025' and 'Special educational needs person level survey 2025: validation rules' have been updated. Changes are described in the version history.

  6. 'Special educational needs person level technical specification 2025' has been updated. Changes are described in the version history.

  8. 'Special educational needs person level survey 2024: validation rules' has been updated. Changes are described in the version history.

  10. Added 'Special educational needs person level survey 2025: validation rules' and 'Special educational needs person level technical specification 2025' documents.

  12. 'Special educational needs person level technical specification 2024' has been updated. Changes are described in the version history.

  14. Added the 2024 special educational needs person level survey validation rules and technical specification.

  16. 'Special educational needs person level survey 2023: validation rules' has been updated. Changes are described in the version history.

  18. '2023 SEN2 person level Annex A validation rules v1.3' has been added, with changes made for v1.2 viewable in the version history.

  20. The special educational needs person level technical specifications and validation rules for SEN2 have been updated for 2023.

  22. First published.

Sign up for emails or print this page