Dataset details: CRDA/13/DS/5/1997

This dataset comprises data gathered from all schools in England during the Schools' Census conducted by the Department for Education in 1997. The enumeration date was the third Thursday in January, 16th January 1997. Most of the data reflects the position in schools on that date, though some questions required schools to supply data for different periods. For example, primary and secondary schools were asked to give the numbers of teaching staff and the hours worked by non-teaching staff during the week beginning 13th January 1997.

The 1997 dataset contains the following types of data in six tables:

(1) All Schools 1997

This table contains data on the school, pupils, classes, and teaching staff.

• Data on the school: Its LEA and region; the type of school; Form 7 school type, school group and school type indicator; the status code of the school, which indicates the form of its governance; any denominational affiliation of the school; the sex of the school (boys, girls or mixed); and the status and organisation of special schools.
• Data on pupils: numbers of pupils on the registers of schools on the enumeration date by sex, by whether pupils were full-time or part-time, and by age at 31st August 1996.
• Numbers of pupils in designated nursery classes in primary schools.
• Numbers of boarding pupils, by sex.
• Numbers of pupils aged 4 years old on the register, by term.
• Numbers of sixth form pupils, by sex and year (first or second).
• School meals: numbers of pupils who received free school meals or bought a school meal; and the numbers of day pupils who were eligible for a free school meal.
• Pupils with statements of special educational needs (SEN), according to their age. The table also includes dually registered pupils with or without statements, by age.
• Data on teachers: Numbers of qualified teachers, by sex, whether full-time or part-time; totals of full-time and full-time equivalents; totals of full-time and part-time graduates; and numbers of full-time and part-time teachers with qualifications for SEN. More information on Teachers is in the table Teaching staff 1997.
• Data on classes: Hours of lesson time per week Key Stages 1-4.

Ethnicity of pupils: this section had been added to the Census in 1996, following changes made after 19th September 1995. For 1997, the question was expanded to show the numbers of pupils by ethnic group, and the section collected more detailed information than that contained in the 1996 Schools' Census. The ethnic categories used in the earlier ethnic monitoring survey remained broadly the same, except that the 'white' category was subdivided. For definitions of the terms 'White UK Heritage', 'White European' and 'White other', see for example p 6 of the Form 7 Notes For Completion, reference CRDA/13/DD/1/1997/9 in the Dataset Documentation Catalogue. This part of the survey also sought numbers of pupils for whom English is a second language. The resulting detail is reflected in the 49 new ethnicity fields in the 1997 dataset. The minority ethnic monitoring aspect of the survey is also reflected in sections of the data tables for Teaching staff 1997 and Non-teaching staff 1997 (see below).

Permanent Exclusions: schools indicated (by a yes or no answer) whether any pupils were permanently excluded from the school during the 1995-96 academic year. Additionally, the forms sought detail on the gender, age (as at 31st August 1995), ethnicity and statement of special educational needs of the excluded pupils. If an excluded pupil had been reinstated following an appeal, they were not counted in the survey. However, the results of the Exclusions survey do not form part of the 1997 dataset.

Information on new admissions to primary, middle and secondary schools was sought on the questionnaires, but does not appear to be included in this dataset.

Completion time: the headteacher, and other persons in the school who assisted in the completion of the form, entered the time it took them to complete the form (rounded to the nearest whole hour).

(2) Pupils 1997

This table contains totals of full-time and part-time boy and girl pupils; totals of full-time and part-time boy and girl pupils in nursery classes in primary schools; and data on dually and solely registered pupils. The field AGE_C, which contains 24 values which correspond to the age ranges as usually set out on the Form 7 forms, allows greater flexibility in the analysis of the data.

(3) Courses of study 1997

The table contains information on courses of study followed by older pupils for secondary schools (including Independent schools and City Technology Colleges). This table shows numbers of pupils aged between 16-19 and over on 31st August 1996, analysed by course of study. Types of course (including Post Advanced level, 'AS' courses, GCSE, National Vocational Qualification, BTEC Certificates and Diplomas) are listed in the field COURSE_C.

(4) Teaching staff 1997

Total numbers of male and female teaching staff, by type of teacher, and whether full-time or part-time; and data on the full-time equivalents of part-time staff. The four fields TCHRTYP_1, TCHRTYP_2, TCHRTYP_3 and TCHRTYP_4, containing between them the names of 15 teacher types, allow for flexibility in the analysis of the data. Among the teacher types are teachers of minority ethnic pupils who were employed to 'meet the particular needs' of such pupils, or as 'teachers of English as a second language'.

Information about teachers on long-term paid absence, and relief teachers providing cover for short-term absence, was sought on the questionnaires but does not appear to be included in this dataset. The same applies to information concerning advertised teacher vacancies in schools on the census date.

(5) Non-teaching staff 1997

This table gives total numbers of support staff (unlike previous datasets in this series), and also provides information on their categories and working hours, and whether full-time or part-time. The categories of non-teaching staff include Education Support Staff (E.S.S.) (eg nursery assistants, special needs support staff, bilingual assistants); Other Education Support Staff (O.E.S.S.) (matrons and nurses, medical staff, librarians etc); and administrative/clerical staff (eg secretaries, bursars). Education Support Staff includes staff employed to meet the needs of minority ethnic pupils (eg bilingual assistants). These categories are coded in the field ASCODE2_C. For each category of non-teaching staff, the table records the full-time equivalents based on the number of hours worked by staff in the census week.

(6) Classes as taught 1997

Schools were asked to provide information on classes as taught during a selected period on the day of enumeration. The data in this table is analysed by class type, class number, numbers of pupils, numbers of teachers, class size breakdown, and numbers of teachers and non-teaching staff in class. Data on Key Stage and Activity of the class is also available.

The dataset contains a number of derived fields, ie fields whose values were calculated by the Department using information supplied by the school. For example, primary and secondary schools were required to record on their forms the total "directed" hours per week of part-time teaching staff and the hours worked per week by full-time and part-time non-teaching staff; from this the full-time equivalents of staff were calculated by the Department.

For further information on the Schools' Census, see the Series Catalogue.

The data received on 29th June 2007 was in Qstat format. It was exported into csv format using the export function in Qstat (version 2.11 for Windows). The files then had their line endings changed from the DOS to the Unix standards.

A QStat data dictionary was also transferred for each of the tables within this dataset, providing descriptions of the fields. These existed in non-encoded, plain text format.

The 1997 dataset, and the accompanying 1997 documentation, are public records and are open without restriction.

NDAD holds 37 examples of documentation used in the 1997 Schools' Census. These include blank copies of Form 7 for LEA and grant-maintained primary, middle and secondary schools, and City Technology Colleges; Form 7M for special schools; Form 7H for general hospital schools; Form 11 for nursery schools; and Form 101A for registered independent schools. NDAD also holds copies of Notes For Completion (formerly called Instructions) for most of the forms, and in some cases copies of blank Working Sheets. See the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, references CRDA/13/DD/1/1996/1-37.

Additional documentation which may be of interest includes a blank copy of Form 7R (Pupil Referral Units) 1997, and instructions for completion. However, it is not known if any data gathered using this form is included in the 1997 dataset.

The dataset comprises the following table(s):

The datasets were transferred with a data dictionary which included original field descriptions. Unlike some tables in this series, the field descriptions for tables in this dataset showed no signs of truncation. Some fields contained abbreviations: explanatory notes have been added by NDAD, using information from other Schools' Census datasets and documentation.

In the All schools 1997 table (SCSC97VB), the field LEA97 contains 21,755 records which are not a valid choice, and field LEA98 has 20,630 records which are not a valid choice. These fields only have codes for those LEAs that changed following a local government reorganisation, and they do not include codes for the vast number of LEAs that remained the same, hence the large number of invalid choices. There are two records which have the value '99' in one or more of the fields BURDEN1, BURDEN2, BURDEN3, BURDEN4, BURDEN5 and BURDEN6. Although this may indicate the time spent it is more likely that it was used as a 'not applicable' code. Users should also bear this in mind if analysing the field BURDTOT, which is the total of these fields.

In the table Teaching staff 1997 (SCTC97VB) a number of fields contain records which are not valid choices. Field TCHRTYPE_1 has 16,218 such records, TCHRTYPE_2 has 69,438, TCHRTYPE_3 has 67,000, and field TCHRTYPE_4 has 67,568. The explanation for this is that the codes and values for teacher types have been split (somewhat arbitrarily) between these four fields. When queried, it becomes clear that all four fields in fact contain the same data, whether expressed in code or in text. This small anomaly accounts for the large number of invalid choices.

In the Classes as taught 1997 table (SCCL97VB), there are 129,621 records where the field CLASIZE2 is not a valid choice. This field holds the actual class size which is also held in the field PUPILS. The codes and values in the data dictionary only coded for classes from size 26 to 40, which explains the large number of invalid choices.

Some simple statistical functions (mean, counts) were performed on the original data files using QStat, and the results were compared with the newly created CSV files. No differences were found.