News

System updates for each development release, such as new functionality, features and bug fixes and other non development news items relating to Get Information about Schools (GIAS).

These are news items that are no more than 6 months old. Select news archive if you want to see news items older than 6 months.

All news items show what was originally displayed at the time of publication, therefore some links in these news items may no longer work.

News archive


System update
25 January 2022

An updated version of the Get Information about Schools (GIAS) service has been released to all users. You do not need to take any specific action unless otherwise indicated below.

This release includes the following improvements:

  • Bug fixes and fine-tuning to improve the overall user experience, including:
    • Adding Terms of Use to the GIAS help page.
    • Changing all occurrences of the Academies Financial Handbook to the Academy Trust Handbook.
    • Editing and repositioning the buttons on all governance type records.
    • Fix all the broken links to Schools Financial Benchmarking.

System update
7 December 2021

An updated version of the Get Information about Schools (GIAS) service has been released to all users. You do not need to take any specific action unless otherwise indicated below.

This release includes the following improvements:

  • Bug fixes and fine-tuning to improve the overall user experience, including:
    • Labelling update for the back links within the create establishment admin tool, to ensure consistency across the site and compliance with GDS style guide standards.
    • Update to the tool tip for the percentage of children eligible for free school meals field to improve understanding for users providing and viewing the data.
    • Update to the layout of the Frequently Asked Questions page to ensure consistency with other similar GIAS pages.
    • Update to the search page to ensure user preferences for displaying only open schools are retained when returning to that page from the results page.

In future releases we plan to include:

  • Further user experience and data quality improvements.
  • An updated home page to help new and existing users better understand the purpose of GIAS and aide navigation around the site.
  • A beta version of a new Rest API to replace the current web service tool.

System update
4 November 2021

An updated version of the Get information about schools (GIAS) service has been released to all users. You do not need to take any specific action unless otherwise indicated below.

This release includes the following improvements:

  • Bug fixes and fine-tuning to improve the overall user experience, including:
    • Fix for a bug causing the scroll bar to scroll past the footer on some pages when viewed in certain browsers.
    • Fix to correct an error in the Companies House API feed that was affecting the generation of some reports.
    • Removal of the obsolete “census ward” field. Please see the earlier news article for further details of the impact of this change.
    • Accessibility update to ensure permitted non-JS enabled users are still able to use the create establishment feature.
    • Update to the layout of the fields on the establishment group details page, to ensure consistency with similar pages across the site. There will be no change to the order of fields/columns in downloads.
    • Update to ensure consistent behaviour of the back to top links on different pages.
    • Addition of an automated routine to archive the web address of schools that have been closed for more than 6 months, to avoid confusion when those unsupported domains become repurposed by other organisations.

In future releases we plan to include:

  • Additional details to help users better understand and use the different daily downloads provided on the downloads page.
  • Improvements to the file format options offered to users when downloading search results or pre-prepared downloads.
  • Updated home page to help new and existing users better understand the purpose of GIAS and aide navigation around the site.

Advance notice - Archiving of Census Ward field as part of system release v4.41
w/c 1 November 2021

The geographic location field “Census Ward” is no longer used and is being archived as part of the next system release scheduled for the week commencing Monday 1 November 2021.

Please note - on the GIAS web site the field name is “Census Ward”. In downloads and extracts it has two paired columns titled the “CensusAreaStatisticWard (name)” and “CensusAreaStatisticWard (code)”.

  • The impact of this change:
    • This change will affect any download or scheduled extract file which contains these two paired data entities / fields “CensusAreaStatisticWard (name)” and the “CensusAreaStatisticWard (code)”. For example, the “All establishment data” download.
    • When the “Census Ward” field is archived the “CensusAreaStatisticWard (name)” and “CensusAreaStatisticWard (code)” columns will disappear from the table and depending if only one or both data entities exist on the same file, all subsequent columns to the right will shift left by either one or two columns, i.e., MSOA. LSOA etc. will move to the left on the table.

Further information

Should you require any additional support with reference to this change or any other query regarding GIAS, please visit the contact page and complete a service request.

System update
22 September 2021

An updated version of the Get information about schools (GIAS) service has been released to all users. You do not need to take any specific action unless otherwise indicated below.

This release includes the following improvements:

  • Bug fixes and fine-tuning to improve the overall user experience, including:
    • Fix to ensure the correct date format is used in an error message on the academy trust edit page.
    • Addition of age range data to the service children’s education establishment type to meet the needs of the users of this data
    • Update to ensure the Confirm Details option is always visible to applicable users, rather than only appearing when an account reminder notice has been issued, to improve the experience of users who want to review their establishment’s record more frequently than the minimum recommended period.
    • Addition of links on the academy trust group details pages to their equivalent records in the Schools Financial Benchmarking and Compare School and College Performance services, to improve ease of cross-site navigation.
    • Update to the frequently asked questions page to improve ease of navigation.
    • Update to ensure only establishments with the correct status value are included in search results when the “include open schools only” checkbox is selected or unselected, so that search results meet user expectations.

In future releases we plan to include:

  • Additional details to help users better understand and use the different daily downloads provided on the downloads page.
  • Improvements to the file format options offered to users when downloading search results or pre-prepared downloads.
  • Updated home page to help new and existing users better understand the purpose of GIAS and aide navigation around the site.

System update
7 September 2021

An updated version of the Get information about schools (GIAS) service has been released to all users. You do not need to take any specific action unless otherwise indicated below.

This release includes the following improvements:

  • Bug fixes and fine-tuning to improve the overall user experience, including:
    • Update to correct the formatting of some breadcrumb links when the results of an establishment search are downloaded.
    • Addition of a ‘Back to top’ link to lengthy page to improve ease of navigation.
    • Update to ensure the typeahead feature in search fields also works when copied information is pasted into the field.
    • Update to the breadcrumbs across multiple pages to ensure consistency throughout the site.

In future releases we plan to include:

  • Additional details to help users better understand and use the different daily downloads provided on the downloads page.
  • Improvements to the file format options offered to users when downloading search results or pre-prepared downloads.
  • Updated home page to help new and existing users better understand the purpose of GIAS and aide navigation around the site.

Please note we are also scheduling a further release of GIAS at 18:00 on 9 September, during which time GIAS will be unavailable. This will be a non-functional system maintenance release and will not require users to take any specific action.

System update
10 August 2021

An updated version of the Get information about schools (GIAS) service has been released to all users. You do not need to take any specific action unless otherwise indicated below.

This release includes the following improvements:

  • Bug fixes and fine-tuning to improve the overall user experience, including:
    • Additional automation to ensure any changes to the Local Authority field on an establishment’s record trigger an automatic update of the data in the corresponding Government Statistical Service (GSS) local authority code field and the Government Office Region (GOR) field.
    • Formatting update to ensure the accessibility statement aligns with GDS standards.
    • Update to the help page to include a section for the accessibility statement.
    • Update to the order of the footer hyperlinks across each page to ensure consistency across the site.

In future releases we plan to include:

  • Additional details to help users better understand and use the different daily downloads provided on the downloads page.
  • Improvements to the file format options offered to users when downloading search results or pre-prepared downloads.
  • Updated home page to help new and existing users better understand the purpose of GIAS and aide navigation around the site.

System update
27 July 2021

An updated version of the Get information about schools (GIAS) service has been released to all users. You do not need to take any specific action unless otherwise indicated below.

This release includes the following improvements:

  • Bug fixes and fine-tuning to improve the overall user experience, including:
    • Addition of an updated privacy notice and set of privacy FAQs, to maintain data protection compliance and addition of a privacy link to the page footer to ensure compliance with the GDS GOV.UK style guide.
    • Update to some download error messages to ensure synchronicity and consistency across the site.
    • Accessibility update to ensure non-JS enabled users are still able to make use of the approve/reject changes tool where permitted.

In future releases we plan to include:

  • Additional details to help users better understand and use the different daily downloads provided on the downloads page.
  • Improvements to the file format options offered to users when downloading search results or pre-prepared downloads.
  • Updated home page to help new and existing users better understand the purpose of GIAS and aide navigation around the site.

About the Get Information about Schools service

Welcome to the Get Information about Schools service.

This service replaces the previous EduBase system. You can use it to find details about schools, children's centres, academy trusts and sponsors, and school federations in England. Some information about Welsh establishments is also available.

Establishments can also update their records using this service.

All content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherwise stated. The Open Government Licence does not cover personal information as defined in data protection legislation. Any personal information that is processed further by any organisation for other purposes will be subject to the terms of data protection legislation.

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