Discover CO4|Colchester

Each open school is located by the postcode of its GIAS record, so it belongs to exactly one postcode district, ward, built-up area, constituency, council and so on. A school is counted where it is, not where its pupils live; pupils often cross boundaries. Children's centres are excluded. Phase and type are the GIAS labels grouped for display.

FSM, SEN and absence percentages are school-level figures averaged with school roll (January 2026 census) as the weight; KS2 and KS4 measures are averaged with the number of eligible pupils (KS2) or the KS4 cohort as the weight. This equals the share of pupils in the area's schools, not of pupils living in the area. The England value uses the same method on the same files and is the comparator. Suppressed school values are skipped, so coverage differs by measure (the number of schools used is in the notes). Ofsted outcomes are the latest overall grade on record at 31 August 2026; schools inspected under the new report-card framework may carry no single grade.

Events are dated records from public registers: company insolvency notices in The Gazette (loaded from July 2025, so the window is under 24 months), charity registrations and removals (Charity Commission register events), and school opening and closing dates (GIAS), where academy conversions, relaunches and mergers are labelled separately from genuine new schools and closures. They are located at the registered office, registered address or school premises, which is not necessarily where an organisation operates or where affected people live. Each council shows only its most recent events per type (cap per type); wards show all loaded events. The Gazette feed carries insolvency notices only, not planning, licensing or other notices. A notice is an event on the register, not a judgement about the organisation. No individuals' names are stored.

FSM, SEN and absence percentages are school-level figures averaged with school roll (January 2026 census) as the weight; KS2 and KS4 measures are averaged with the number of eligible pupils (KS2) or the KS4 cohort as the weight. This equals the share of pupils in the area's schools, not of pupils living in the area. The England value uses the same method on the same files and is the comparator. Suppressed school values are skipped, so coverage differs by measure (the number of schools used is in the notes). Ofsted outcomes are the latest overall grade on record at 31 August 2026; schools inspected under the new report-card framework may carry no single grade.

Wales held its census on the same day as England (21 March 2021) with the same questions, so the figures are directly comparable. For Wales we use the published local authority tables. Tenure counts shared ownership with owners; "private rented" includes people who live rent free, as in the England figures. Overcrowding is an occupancy rating of -1 or less for bedrooms. Qualifications are for people aged 16 and over; "no qualifications" and "Level 4 or above" (degree level and above) are shares of all those people. Counts are rounded by random adjustment, so tiny differences from other tables are expected. Wales households per local authority are not split to small areas here.