Using Nexus for Statutory Returns

This guide is intended to sign-post you to other user guides that will provide the detail necessary to make the best use of Nexus/Keypas in supporting your statutory returns during the key assessment period from June to July each year.

It then goes on to include some additional opportunities to help you get additional benefits from Nexus/Keypas with very little impact on your LA.

Preparing Nexus for statutory returns...

• Ensure that your schools are aware of the deadlines (DfE and local), methods of submission and that all schools have checked they are running the most up to date version of their school MIS software to generate files in the correct formats.
• Ensure all of your users who will be supporting the processes have access to Nexus/Keypas and the correct permissions. See the Keypas Admin Guide.
• Ensure that all necessary users have access to School2School (provided by the DfE), use of which is outside of the scope of this guidance.
• Adjust system settings for ease of use, including the grid page size (also covered in the Keypas Admin Guide).
• Import your expected cohort sizes for EYFSP, Phonics, KS1 and potentially KS2 TA to Keypas as a useful check that you are receiving the complete set of results from your schools.
  Please Note that Year 2 phonics expected cohort figures are provided by the DfE in April/May to a designated LA contact, though these can be somewhat inaccurate.
  Imports for these are covered in the Keypas User Guide within the ‘Expected Cohort Import Sizes’ section.
• Collate your January census files into a single ZIP format file per the guidance in the Census Import guide.
• Update your schools within Nexus to ensure that all schools, academies and PVIs have the correct details, ready for the data collection process.

Keypas for data collections, imports, cleaning and exports...

• Schools will submit their assessment files at various phases to the LA from their MIS systems. The LA will then process and clean the data before submitting them to the DfE via Collect. For EYFSP and Phonics this is a statutory duty for the LA. KS2 Teacher Assessment is optional and only some LAs will receive files from their schools based on local agreements as the schools can submit directly to STA via NCA Tools.
• The import process and file specifications for each Key Stage are covered in the Keypas User Guide in the ‘Importing Data into Keypas’ section.
• Once the data has been imported, it needs to be checked and cleaned. Keypas has a number of inbuilt reports for each Key Stage to help with this process. This is covered in the Keypas User Guide in the ‘Data Cleaning’ section.
• Errors that are identified should – for reasons of accountability and ownership – be communicated back to the school for them to make changes in their MIS and submit a new file.

• Once the data for your schools is cleaned and validated, you can use Keypas to export DFE Returns for EYFSP and Phonics to submit to the DfE. Details on creating these returns can be found in the ‘DFE Returns’ section of the Keypas User Guide.

Running moderation and other reports for LA staff and schools...

• Nova offer reports that may be useful to moderation activity. Moderators can be granted access to Nova reports to allow them to query the emerging data as it arrives or you can provide reports for them. Nova reporting is covered in the Nova Reporting Guide.
• Exports may also be useful to moderation managers and/or other colleagues who need to check the accuracy of what was agreed with schools in terms of teacher assessment judgements compared to what the school ultimately submitted. Exports are covered in the Keypas User Guide.
• Any of these reports can also be shared with schools as appropriate to your local arrangements

Non-statutory Items...

By completing earlier steps in this document, your LA has imported and cleaned data covering at least 3 primary phase assessments. These are automatically contributing to the NCER emerging national figures as LAs across the country add their data to Nexus. In addition to statutory tasks, there are a number of other items of work that members of the NCER community all benefit from – including your own LA and schools - if they are actioned promptly. These are capabilities that deliver on the collective power of the NCER community of Local Authorities.

• Loading census files – adds most of the contextual indicators in the primary phase. The more LAs that load their census files to Keypas, the more robust/accurate the emerging national figures at pupil group level become. Loading these files is covered in the Census Import guide. The census files also populate the NCER National Attendance and (from 2020) Exclusions reporting 
• Pupil premium files – adds the ‘Disadvantaged’ indicator to pupil records and therefore forms the key accountability group. The more LAs that load their pupil premium files to Keypas the more robust/accurate the emerging national figures at this pupil group level become.
  Loading these files is covered in the Pupil Premium Data guide.
  Please Note – Pupil premium data has not generally been available until late July in recent years - after schools have broken up - but in 2019 it did arrive earlier and so is worth checking for.
• KS2 from DFE files – In July each year (typically the second Tuesday of the month), the DFE release a full file for all schools in the LA containing KS2 test and teacher assessment results. If loaded into Keypas, not only does this file benefit the LA who receives it, but it also contributes to the NCER Emerging National figures for Key Stage 2 and the KS1 to KS2 Early Progress reporting. LAs are strongly encouraged to load this data as soon as possible followed by their census files as described above (KS1 to KS2 Early progress may require additional files to be loaded to fill in any gaps within the data) as detailed in the Early KS1 to KS2 Progress Analysis guide.
• Reloading data – It is no longer the case that census files need to be reloaded after results files (and reloaded when these are updated). Keypas now holds the census data once loaded and re-uses it. However, you may need to reload any additional pupil fields that you make use of as these are paired with the results sets. This is covered in the Extra Pupil Fields guide