Get ready for the Key Stage 4 Attainment Track extract for the 2026 Exam Year

Your evaluation is most valuable when it is supported by accurate and complete data. Taking the time now to upload, clean and review your data for the KS4 Track will help ensure that your organisation can maximise the GCSE attainment data returned to you through your KS4 Track dataset for the 2026 exam year, and gain a clearer understanding of the impact your work has on those you have engaged in your pre-16 outreach programmes.

All data to be included in the KS4 Track for the 2026 exam cohort must be on the database by Monday 30^th November 2026. This Data Update contains all the information you need to prepare your data for the KS4 Track extract.

Who’s included in the KS4 Track 2026 Exam Cohort?

For Students to be included in the extract, they must meet all the following criteria:

• They were expected to have sat their KS4 (GCSE) exams in Summer 2026 based on their date of birth
• They have a ‘Complete’ record and ‘Permission to Track’ = Yes
• They are attached to an Outreach/Partnership Activity while in Year 7 (2021/22) to Year 11 (2025/26)

The image below shows the KS4 Track timeline for the 2026 exam cohort:

How do I go about preparing my data?

To get your records ready for tracking, you will need to ensure all relevant data is uploaded to the database and is checked for accuracy and completeness by the end of November deadline.

To see which Student records currently meet the tracking criteria and are therefore due for extraction, please use the following link to the Student area of the database (members only). 

To check your Students are also attached to an Activity for tracking, we recommend you run a Student Export including Activities and filter for Outreach/Partnership activities delivered in the relevant Academic Years for possible pre-16 outreach (see timeline above).

Review Checklist

Apart from the basic KS4 Track eligibility checks listed above, we recommend you review the following in your export to maximise the usefulness of your KS4 Track data:

• Activity Descriptors and Programme Titles: Ensure that all Activities have been labelled with the correct ‘Descriptor’ and ‘Programme Title’ to support your organisation’s reporting and evaluation approach.
• Cohort sizes and suppression: Review how many KS4 Track eligible participants you have for Descriptors and Programme Titles you want to evaluate. In your KS4 Track data, we have to suppress attainment outcomes for groups smaller than 10, which means you may not get data for small groups of students, or you may not be able to benefit from sex* and/or disadvantage breakdowns, which can really add value to your evaluation.
• Evaluation Groups and attendance: Check that your Activity participants are recorded as Evaluation Group ‘Participant’ and Attended ‘Yes’, while any Students records you wish to use as a comparator are marked as Evaluation Group ‘Comparison’ or ‘Control’ on the relevant Activity record(s).

* Please note that for the 2025 and 2026 KS4 exam cohorts, prior attainment breakdowns are not available. For more information, please refer to the Advance notice of changes to Key Stage 4 Attainment Track data for the 2025 and 2026 Exam Years Data Update.

If you have any feedback or queries regarding the content of this update, please contact HEAT Support.

Get the most out the HEAT Track

Did you know that the same deadline to prepare your data applies to the Key Stage 5 Attainment Track and the Higher Education Track? If you’d like to have your data extracted for these tracking datasets, please see the Data Updates linked below.

• Get ready for the Key Stage 5 Attainment Track extract for the 2026 exam year
• Get ready for the Higher Education Track extract for the 2025 cycle

If you have any feedback or queries regarding the content of this update, please contact HEAT Support.