URN/DFE Establishment Number changes are often needed as part of events such as academisation, school mergers, LA merges and closures/reopens.
In order to change your URN or DfE Establishment number your Headteacher will need to contact your Support Team -
- If your school is supported by Scholarpack directly, click the 'Contact Us' button in the top right of the Help Centre
- If your school uses a Support Partner, please contact them. Click their name in the top right of your Scholarpack above the search box, for their contact details.
We will require from the Headteacher:
- The school name (and any name change if appropriate, plus an indication if you require a new URL to reflect the name change)
- The old URN and the new URN
- The old DfE Establishment number and the new DfE Establishment number (if appropriate)
- The date that the change applies from
Please note that a URN or DFfE Establishment Number change, once processed, is final, and care must be paid to ensure the correct details are provided as well as to read the below information as we cannot revert any changes once made.
Where a DfE Establishment Number change request is made we will need permission from the Headteacher to amend student records as outlined below.
A few things to be aware of once if the DFE Establishment Number changes:
(These are only if the DFE Establishment Number is changed and do not affect URN only changes)
- Entry dates for students will be changed to the date this changes apply. This follows DFE guidance outlined here, in particular:
- "Where a new school opens with a new establishment number all pupils are given a new entry date (the day that they start at the new school) and consequently any historical exclusions and attendance data from predecessor school is not returned for the new establishment."
- School histories will be added with the previous school name as the last attended school. You can view this in the Ancillary tab of the Student Profile
- If any current student is then off rolled, the new school details will be recorded in the school histories
- If the DFE Establishment Number change date is not the start of the academic year, then attendance history summarising the sessions present and absent (authorised/unauthorised) will show from the start of the academic year to the date of DFE Establishment Number change.
- The attendance marks data for the students prior to the DFE Establishment Number change date will become hidden in the front-end as your school has become a new establishment. Attendance summary (sessions present and absent, authorised or unauthorised) can be viewed for the students in the attendance history in the students profile. Therefore, any attendance report ran will not include attendance marks (herringbone) for these students prior to the DFE Establishment Number change date.
Keeping you in the know about your data
Due to the changes in the system, you may wish to print off a few reports before entry dates of pupils are changed. We would recommend running reports such as the ones below to ensure there is full attendance data for you to analyse historically. These can be found in Reporting>Reports>Attendance tab.
After the DfE number change has been made, with new student entry dates, you will not be able to run historic attendance reports prior to the date of academisation as in effect you have become a new school.
- Historic Attendance Comparison - select as many available cohorts as possible at the top before running.
- Custom Attendance Report - selecting ‘Group Student By’ for each option in turn if required.
- Student Attendance Report (Bulk) - You can run this for all students, either by year, form or individual. Please note, this summary will not be available on the student profiles once the students entry date has changed.