Feedback Request: Upcoming deprecation and replacement of the Institution ‘Type’ and ‘Sub-Type’ fields

In the 2024 Winter Update, we are planning improvements to the logic behind the monthly institution data update which draws from the Department for Education’s (DfE) Get Information About Schools (GIAS) record.

Currently, the Institution ‘Type’ and ‘Sub-Type’ fields are provided in separate fields in Exports, but are provided in a merged format as one field on the Institution record, labelled ‘Institution Type’. For example, the The Aldgate School #00000002 Institution ‘Type’ is “State” and the ‘Sub-Type’ is “Voluntary Aided School”, which is displayed on the Institution record in the ‘Institution Type’ field as “Voluntary Aided School (State)”.

This update, which will primarily impact English and Welsh institutions as they are updated via GIAS, will see the archiving of the Institution ‘Type’ and ‘Sub-Type’ fields, as they will be replaced by new ‘Establishment Type Group’ and ‘Type Of Establishment’ fields, drawing from the DfE fields of ‘EstablishmentTypeGroup (name)’ and ‘TypeOfEstablishment (name)’ respectively. A list of the values currently included in the ‘EstablishmentTypeGroup (name)’ field is provided below.

‘EstablishmentTypeGroup (name)’ Current Values

• Academies
• Colleges
• Free Schools
• Independent schools
• Local authority maintained schools
• Online provider
• Other types
• Special schools
• Universities
• Welsh schools

This update will align the format of these new Institution record ‘Type Of Establishment’ and ‘Establishment Type Group’ fields on the HEAT database with the format used in the Institution Export wherein the fields are separate, which will be a change from the merged format for the ‘Institution Type’ field that is currently used on the Institution record.

Why are we making this change?

The reason for this change is that the current Institution ‘Type’ field contains values such as State, State Other, Independent etc. These values are logic based from a previous version of the HEAT database (HEAT1) and it is becoming increasingly difficult to map them to new Institution records. This change ensures that our institution data fields align with the DfE as far as possible, and that updates to the logic will future-proof the content of these fields and keep them reflective of the DfE’s data values.

How will this change impact the database and the Institution record?

Though the new fields will replace and archive the Institution ‘Type’ and Sub-Type’ fields, they will still provide members with the same key context to support their institution profiling.

This update will impact the data values present in the institution data significantly, as they will be updated to align with the DfE’s current approach to overall institution classification. As an example of a change, where an institution may have the value “State” in their Institution ‘Type’ field, following the update, the new ‘Establishment Type Group’ will be populated with the currently used DfE value – this being “Local authority maintained schools”.

This planned change will also ensure that by using the ‘Type Of Establishment’ and ‘Establishment Type Group’ list, any new data values implemented by the DfE will be reflected in the Institution record.

As both the ‘Type’ and ‘Sub-Type’ fields are filters in the Institution record search bar, this update will therefore impact the filter conditions that members can apply. Following this change, the new ‘Establishment Type Group’ and ‘Type Of Establishment’ fields will still be available to use as filters in the Institution record search bar, but will be based on and allow you to filter using the DfE current values.

As an example, following this update The Aldgate School #00000002 new ‘Type Of Establishment’ field value will be “Voluntary aided school”, and the new ‘Establishment Type Group’ field value will be “Local authority maintained schools”.

Will this impact the precision of Institution filtering?

Though this change to the most up to date values will change the filter list from the previously available options, such as ‘State’, ‘State Other’, and ‘State Special’, members will still be able to filter down institutions precisely through combination of the ‘Type Of Establishment’ and ‘Establishment Type Group’ filters. For example, should members wish to filter down the Institution list to just ‘Local authority maintained schools’ which are also ‘Special Schools’, for example, this can be achieved through combination of the two aforementioned filters.