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Financial Benchmarking and Insights Tool

Special Educational Needs - Dimension Data

The CFR data is processed along with a few dimension data to create the downstream dataset named maintained_schools_master_list and an accompanying transparency file. These dimension data are:

  • Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) & Alternative Provision (AP)
  • School Census
  • General Hospital schools
  • Get Information About School (GIAS)
  • Special Education Needs (SEN)
  • School Workforce Census

SEN data is taken from the School Census produced by the Department of Education and published in the Special educational needs in England - GOV.UK School Education statistic website, this data is updated annually by June.

Getting SEN Data

Special Educational Needs Dimension Data

  1. Click on URL link to download special-educational-needs-in-england_20YY-yy zipped folder to local folder, where 20YY-yy represents the reporting academic year. For instance,special-educational-needs-in-england_2024-25 when generating 2024-2025 CFR downstream dataset.

  2. In the supporting-files sub-folder of the special-educational-needs-in-england_20YY-YY zipped folder, access the
    sen_school_level_underlying_data.csv file.

  3. Clean data by replacing any value returned as z to 0.00 (zero)

  4. Save and rename file to Dim_SENSchoolLevel_20YY.csv where 20YY is the end of current reporting academic year. For instance, Save As Dim_SchoolLevelPupilCensus_2025.csv for reporting academic year 2024-2025.

Special Educational Needs Slowly Changing Dimension Data

  1. In the page view of the Special educational needs in England - GOV.UK School Education statistic website, navigate to Releases in this series to expand on the View releases button where last reporting academic year (current academic year minus one) data can be accessed.

  2. For SEN SCD data, access the previous data by clicking on Academic year 20yy/yy link where 20yy/yy represents the previous reporting academic year. For instance, Academic year 2023/24 would be accessed to download special-educational-needs-in-england_2023-24 zipped folder when generating 2024-2025 CFR downstream dataset.

  3. Repeat step 2 and 3 as listed above.

  4. Save and rename file to Dim_SENSchoolLevel_20YY.csv where 20YY is the downloaded academic year. For instance, Save As Dim_SENSchoolLevel_2024.csv when generating 2024-2025 CFR downstream dataset.

Flat File Ingestion into CFRyy Local Database

Using a database GUI Tool, ingest both flat files as a tables into the created local database
- Confirm that the two destination table names reflect their respective reporting academic years
- Confirm schema name for both destination tables is dbo
- In the Modify Columns tab, confirm column data type matches with GIAS Fields Data Type as detailed below

Special Educational Needs Fields Data Type

Column Name Data type
time_period float
time_identifier nvarchar
geographic_level nvarchar
country_code nvarchar
country_name nvarchar
region_name nvarchar
region_code nvarchar
old_la_code float
new_la_code nvarchar
la_name nvarchar
URN float
estab float
school_name nvarchar
laestab float
open_date datetime
sex_of_school_description nvarchar
phase_type_grouping nvarchar
type_of_establishment nvarchar
middle_school nvarchar
all_through nvarchar
hospital_school nvarchar
denomination nvarchar
admissions_policy nvarchar
district_administrative_code nvarchar
district_administrative_name nvarchar
parlc_code nvarchar
parlc_name nvarchar
ward_code nvarchar
ward_name nvarchar
urban_rural nvarchar
school_postcode nvarchar
LSOA11 nvarchar
Total pupils float
SEN support float
EHC plan float
EHC_Primary_need_spld float
EHC_Primary_need_mld float
EHC_Primary_need_sld float
EHC_Primary_need_pmld float
EHC_Primary_need_semh float
EHC_Primary_need_slcn float
EHC_Primary_need_hi float
EHC_Primary_need_vi float
EHC_Primary_need_msi float
EHC_Primary_need_pd float
EHC_Primary_need_asd float
EHC_Primary_need_oth float
EHC_Primary_need_nsa float
SUP_Primary_need_spld float
SUP_Primary_need_mld float
SUP_Primary_need_sld float
SUP_Primary_need_pmld float
SUP_Primary_need_semh float
SUP_Primary_need_slcn float
SUP_Primary_need_hi float
SUP_Primary_need_vi float
SUP_Primary_need_msi float
SUP_Primary_need_pd float
SUP_Primary_need_asd float
SUP_Primary_need_oth float
SUP_Primary_need_nsa float
Prov_SPLD float
Prov_MLD float
Prov_SLD float
Prov_PMLD float
Prov_SEMH float
prov_slcn float
prov_hi float
prov_vi float
prov_msi float
prov_pd float
prov_asd float
prov_oth float
SEN_Unit float
RP_Unit float