What's New in Nexus?
- Updates to KS4
- Collection of additional school census items
- Kinship Care
- Managed Move
- FSM Category
- Updates to FSM Eligibility
KS4 Updates
Following the Department for Education's (DfE) decision to remove the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) from headline school performance measures, we have updated KS4 reporting across Nexus from the 2025/26 academic year onwards. EBacc indicators, including EBacc APS, EBacc Entry, and EBacc Achievement measures, will no longer appear in reports, data views, or dashboards when viewing 2026 data. All historical data for years prior to 2026 remains fully accessible and unchanged.
In place of EBacc-derived measures, we have introduced standalone English and Maths attainment indicators at three thresholds: 4+ (standard pass), 5+ (strong pass), and a new 7+ (high attainment) level. A combined "Basics 7+" measure (English and Maths combined at grade 7 or above) has also been added. These new measures align with the DfE's updated accountability framework and give you a clearer, more direct view of English and Maths outcomes without the dependency on EBacc methodology.
Nova
Within Nova, two reports have been removed entirely from 2026 onwards: the KS4 English Baccalaureate Benchmark and the KS4 Standard vs Strong Gap report, as their content was predominantly EBacc-focused and no longer relevant. A further 15 reports have been updated. EBacc indicator options have been removed from dropdowns (e.g. Gap, Trend reports), and EBacc columns or rows have been replaced with the new standalone English, Maths, and Basics measures in structural reports such as KS4 on a Page, KS4 Performance Indicators, and the Pupil List reports.
If you use batch reporting, your existing saved books will continue to work without any action on your part. Updated report versions have been substituted automatically, preserving your saved filters. Any reports that have been removed will no longer appear in your batch selections.
Insight
Across Insight, all EBacc indicator cards and references have been removed from Headlines, Intelligence, Pupil Groups, Tables, and Cohort pages for the 2025/26 academic year onwards. In their place, you will see new English 4+, English 5+, English 7+, Maths 4+, Maths 5+, Maths 7+, and English & Maths 7+ indicators throughout these areas. These appear in indicator cards, Strengths and Challenges lists, Performance dropdowns, and table-building options, giving you consistent and relevant measures across all Insight views.
For Cohort pages (School Census, CLA, CIN, and SEN2), EBacc prior attainment indicators will be removed progressively by NC Year from 2026/27 onwards as each cohort reaches Key Stage 5 without EBacc headline data. This ensures prior attainment sections only display measures that are meaningful for that cohort's reporting year.
Looking ahead
Although the DfE have announced that EBacc measures will be removed from 2026 onwards, we are mindful that until the final data checking files and performance tables are published, there remains the possibility that these plans could change, either partially or in full. With this in mind, we have implemented the KS4 reporting changes in a way that allows EBacc reporting and indicators to be reinstated quickly across Nova and Insight should the DfE revise its current position.
New Census Items
From the Autumn 2026 census onwards, Nexus is introducing several key updates to align with new DfE statutory requirements. When importing census files, the system will now automatically extract and store Kinship Care statuses, Managed Move details (such as start dates and destination URNs), and new FSM-related fields including the eligibility verification date and FSM category. To provide direct visibility of this data, new dedicated columns for Kinship Care, Managed Moves, and FSM verification have been added to the Keypas census grids from Result Year 2026/2027 onwards, ensuring all newly imported statutory indicators are easily accessible alongside existing pupil records.
FSM Eligibility
From September 2026, the DfE is expanding Free School Meals eligibility to include all children in households receiving Universal Credit, removing the existing £7,400 annual income threshold and making an estimated 500,000 additional pupils eligible. However, to preserve the integrity of existing funding and accountability mechanisms, the expanded cohort is split into two categories: Targeted FSM (pupils in UC households earning no more than £7,400, who continue to count towards FSM6, Pupil Premium, deprivation funding, Home to School Transport, and the HAF programme) and Expanded FSM (all other UC households, who receive meals only but do not attract disadvantaged funding or affect the FSM6 cohort). Within Nexus, only Targeted FSM records will drive existing FSM eligibility flags and downstream logic. Expanded FSM data is stored for statutory reporting purposes but does not impact funding calculations or historical records.
Other Updates
- Year Rollover: Nexus has been updated and is ready for the next academic year (2026/27).
- Technical Framework Upgrade: Behind the scenes, Nexus has been upgraded to use the latest .NET framework to ensure Nexus's ongoing compliance with security standards.
- Weekly Attendance - Comparators: Fixed an issue where Statistical Neighbour and Regional Comparators, when used with a term time period filter, excluded LAs whose latest imported week fell outside the selected term.
- Weekly Attendance - Phase Filters: Added a 'Middle Deemed Secondary' option to the school phase filter.
- Weekly Attendance - Trend Chart: Applied a 10-week import threshold to the Last Year trend line to determine whether imported data or an averaged flat trend line is displayed, and fixed an issue where individual term filters were not being applied correctly.
- Nova - CLA KS2 Benchmark Report: Fixed an issue with the aggregation of CLA 12 Months data.
- Keypas - Weekly Attendance Pupils Grid: Updated the pupils grid to display the running total for the year, rather than per term running totals.
- Keypas - Admin - Purge Extra Pupil Fields: Reinstated the 'All Schools' option.