Frequently Asked Questions

• Addition of Spring 2024 data for schools in England.  NB: Pupils on roll are not available at this time, but will be added once available
• Inclusion of Scottish schools data where this is available
• Inclusion of Welsh schools data where this is available
• Inclusion of Northern Ireland schools data where this is available
• Addition of top parent filter of “Country”, outside of Region and Authority, to allow for drilling data down to schools in England/Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland/Other.

The PowerBI dashboard can be expanded by clicking on the double headed arrow at the bottom right-hand side to make it full screen

• Addition of data from every Census effective from Summer 2017 (previously data was only in place for the Autumn census each year).  This additional data allows us to see trends more clearly over time, as seen on the MIS changes page where you can see the shift in the markets from one census to the next
• Rebuilding of data model.  Ensuring that all census data is linked to the correct establishment, and that establishment links to establishment groups are all current and correct based on latest information from Get Information about Schools – GOV.UK (get-information-schools.service.gov.uk)
• Addition of MIS changes page.  This allows us to see the % split of MIS for periods on display.  It also helps us to see the breakdown of leavers and joiners for each MIS for the latest period selected compared to the previous period
• Addition of Group Details page.  This page allows you to filter Groups based on their type (Federation / Sponsor / Trust), and also based on the number of establishments associated with the establishment Group.  Eg you can view the MIS split for all Trusts of size 10-19 establishments.  You can also filter to look at a specific Group (e.g. Plymouth CAST) to see specific information concerning the group, such as the schools making up the group, their split by Phase, the dates they joined the group, the split of MIS over time

Further development plans are to be confirmed, but some ideas include:

• Inclusion of future projections for growth/decline of MIS market splits
• Ability to identify average time period between schools converting to Academy status vs moving to different MIS
• Once looking at your own establishment, to be presented with other “similar” establishments and what they are doing
• To view breakdowns of schools which have changed MIS within the most recent census period
• MIS Ownership changes over time – e.g. SIMS was Capita, now ESS
• Use of questionnaire within MIS Trends website to in turn present a tailored view of the PBI report (e.g. are you primary/secondary, pupil banding, academy/maintained, part of a trust/federation, if so of how many establishments), therefore here are schools which are “similar” to yours

The data comes from public records via FOI requests

The data is refreshed three times a year.

The original ‘MIS Challenge’ site was created by Graham Reed and has been taken on with kind permission.  The concept and this site is now maintained by Scomis, part of Devon County Council.

Our hope is that this free resource gives benefit to the wider education community in the United Kingdom.

We accept no responsibility for how visitors to this site use this publicly available data and in no way is the data presentation intended to form or infer a recommendation for a particular product.