This page contains the following guidance for completing the Autumn 2025 School Census. It will be updated as and when we receive updates from DfE.
- Important Dates
- Known Issues
- Resolved Issues
- Read DfE Guidance
- Book onto a Census Webinar
- Read the Bromcom Guidance
- Watch Webinar Recordings
- Post 16 Preparation Tasks
- Additional Guidance
Access: The permissions required to run and troubleshoot the Autumn Census are found in the Census Module of Config>Setup>Roles and Permissions. Each tick box on the right determines which functions are visible/available on the page for users with the selected Role.
See also: How to get started with Roles & Permissions
Important Dates
Census Date – Thursday 2nd October 2025
Return Date – Wednesday 29th October 2025
Known Issues
03.03.26
- CAS-464644-P4Z0T6 – Census: Autumn Census file including previous Qual and non qual hours where these = 0 for T Level students (T Level students shouldn’t any Qual or non qual hours for current or previous academic year) Thanks
03.10.25:
- The DfE have advised of an issue that causes the error code 2493 to trigger incorrectly on the MIS for students who are under 15 years old, when this error code should only trigger for students who were aged 15-16 years old during the period of attendance being collected for the Autumn Census (born between 01/09/2008 and 31/08/2009), typically those in Year 11 in the 24/25 academic year. Please ignore this error code if it appears on your census return in Bromcom for students born after 31/08/2009, the DfE have assured us that this error will not be triggered incorrectly on the COLLECT site when submitting your Autumn 2025 Census.
20.10.25:
- CAS-443343-L4Y4P2 – In Census Summary Table 14, the field for Percentage of 4 year old pupils with at least one absence in the 2025 summer term in the Total Summer Term column is being calculated incorrectly. It should instead be calculated as (Number of 4 Year Old Pupils with at least one absence in the 2025 summer term divided by Number of 4 year old pupils on roll for at least one session in the 2025 summer term) multiplied by 100.
21.10.2025:
- CAS-439963-J6W0L8 – Query 2550Q is triggering incorrectly indicating no unauthorised sessions are present, when unauthorised sessions have been recorded.
27.10.2025:
- CAS-443496-P8H0J0 – If Save is pressed on the Additional Details tab of the Student Details pop-up without selecting a value in the Post Looked After Arrangements field, the default value of Not Declared is recorded. For more information on correctly updating this field please see School Census Error 1871 & 1874
- CAS-439218-H3T1L5 – Census Error 2585 is triggering incorrectly where a Student is recorded as having the Enrolment Status of Guest in the first half of the summer term and then changed to an Enrolment Status of Single Registration in the second half of the summer term. Sessions possible should not be returned for the first half of the summer term, when the Student is on roll as a Guest, however they are being returned, causing the error to trigger incorrectly.
Resolved Issues
03.10.25: CAS-439430-N1W1M1 – Student Consolidation Discrepancy Report (found under Reports > Census) will cause an error message to appear when attempting to run the report after selecting the “List students who are listed in a class at the time of Census but who are not showing as being on roll” option is selected.
Please contact Bromcom’s Helpdesk in order for them to provide a workaround should you need to run this report.
01.10.25 The latest validation files from the DfE have been applied to the MIS. This will clear the following errors and queries that were being triggered incorrectly;
1859, 3032, 2775Q, 3030Q and 1925Q
In addition this update also resolved issues with errors 4043 & 4044 to ensure these trigger correctly when multiple Learner FAM records of type MMH and EMH exists per pupil.
Please re-run your census to clear any errors caused by the previous version of the files.
24.09.25 4 year old Reception students showing in Pupil Reconciliation on the Census. This was causing the census to produce errors 5170 and 5190 for the students.
Read DfE Guidance
DfE guidance about the Census is published here including the main changes compared to previous years.
For DfE guidance on generating and submitting a return see here.
Book onto a Census Webinar
You can book onto one of our free Census Webinars below, there are several dates available for each session. Click on the links below;
Book onto Pre Census Checks
Primary Dates
- Tuesday 23rd September – 9.30am to 10.30am
- Wednesday 1st October – 9.30am to 10.30am
Secondary Dates
- Wednesday 24th September – 9.30am to 10.30am
- Tuesday 30th September – 9.30am to 10.30am
Book onto How to Generate a Census
Primary Dates
- Tuesday 23rd September – 11.00am to 12.00pm
- Wednesday 1st October – 11.00am to 12.00pm
Secondary Dates
- Wednesday 24th September – 11.00am to 12.00pm
- Tuesday 30th September – 11.00am to 12.00pm
Book onto Post 16 Learning Aims (Secondary)
- Thursday 25th September – 9.30am to 11.00am
- Monday 29th September – 1.30pm to 3.00pm
*If using our new training platform, eFront, the course can be found in the Course Catalogue under the ‘Statutory’ category.*
Read the Bromcom Guidance
Click on the links below for Bromcom School Census Autumn 2025 guidance.
Autumn 2025 School Census Guide
Autumn 2025 Error Resolutions Guide
In addition to the above guidance you can now search for detailed guidance on resolving the most common errors or queries in our Help Centre.
Simply type in the Error or Query Number into the Search box
Watch Webinar Recordings
Click the links below to watch a recording of our Autumn 2025 sessions. You will need to enter your name and email address to view the recording.
Primary Pre Census Checks 2025
Primary How to Generate a Census 2025
Secondary Pre Census Checks 2025
Secondary How to Generate a Census 2025
Post-16 Preparation Tasks
How to set Student Prior Attainment
Additional Guidance
For recording children receiving free school meals under the criteria for families with no recourse to public funds (NRPF) See DfE guidance Free School Meal eligibility.
For Census Reporting see How to View Census Reports
For Pupil Premium see How to Manage Pupil Premium Students
For Attendance Reporting see How to Access Attendance Analysis Exports and How to Access Attendance Reports