How do I use Explore Education Statistics?

Explore Education Statistics is the Department for Education's service for all its official statistics. Each release has a summary, charts and downloadable data, and the table tool lets you choose geography, time period and filters to build your own table.

Every table has a permanent link you can cite. There is also an API for the data. See our Explore Education Statistics guide.

Official sources: Explore Education Statistics · Data catalogue

The latest figure

The newest value is at Department for Education (DfE). More on it: Pupils in schools in England.

When is the next figure out?

Annual, usually early June, from the January school census (4 June 2026 for 2025/26). The DfE public statistics API needs a POST query with the national 'Total' filter options; it is not an ONS time series, so the site cannot read it automatically

Every official release due in the next two weeks is on the release calendar.

Terms used in this answer

• Academic year
  The year used in education statistics: usually September to August for schools and August to July for universities.
• Education, health and care plan (EHCP)
  A legal document in England setting out the support a child or young person up to age 25 with special educational needs must receive.
• Persistent absence
  Pupils in England who miss 10% or more of the school sessions they could attend. Missing 50% or more is called severe absence.
• Headcount
  A count of individual people, each counted once regardless of how many hours they work or how many posts they hold.
• Administrative data
  Information collected by organisations while running a service, such as tax records, benefit claims or hospital activity, and then used to produce statistics.
• Forecast and projection
  A forecast is a best estimate of what will happen. A projection shows what would happen if stated assumptions hold, without claiming they will.

Where the figures come from

• Explore education statistics (Department for Education)
  How to use DfE's Explore Education Statistics for pupil numbers, free school meals, teachers, GCSE and SATs results, exclusions, attendance and the API.

Related questions

• How do I find school performance tables?
• Where can I find official GCSE results statistics?
• How many children get free school meals?

This answer says where the official figures are published and how they are defined. It gives no verdict on any claim. To report an error, send a correction request. More questions about schools and education: all Schools and education questions.