Many of the blogposts and reports that we produce here at Datalab are based on analysis of the Department for Education’s National Pupil Database (NPD). But what is it?

What is the NPD?

The NPD is a collection of data relating to education in England compiled by the Department for Education.

The NPD is made up of various distinct datasets collected by the DfE, among them the termly school census, the alternative provision census, and results files for national curriculum tests and other public examinations. A full list of the components can be found here (see ‘NPD data tables’).

The NPD is used by the Department for Education itself to inform policy, with extracts of the NPD also available to other approved users “for the purpose of promoting the education or wellbeing of children in England”: education researchers, news organisations and others. Users agree to constraints on what the data can be used for, and the level of detail in which any analysis based on the data can be published. Details of applications to use NPD data are published by the Department for Education.

Data in the NPD is classified into different tiers, depending on its sensitivity. Different rules on access apply to different tiers of data.

What has it been used for?

Since our launch in 2015, among other topics, we have used NPD data to:

Others have used the data to try to answer questions on topics such as the vast improvement in education standards in London in recent years, school choice [PDF] and the attainment of pupils with education as an additional language [PDF].

Disclosure: FFT Aspire, a subscription data analysis service for schools, local authorities and academy trusts from FFT uses NPD and Analyse School Performance data. Commissioned research from FFT Education Datalab also generally uses NPD data. FFT is a non-profit organisation.

Want to know more?

Further details on the NPD, including a user guide that sets out conditions on access to the data, can be found on the DfE’s website.

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