Get ready for the Key Stage 5 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 KS5 Track will help ensure that your organisation can maximise the attainment data returned to you through your KS5 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 post-16 outreach programmes.

All data to be included in the KS5 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 KS5 Track extract.

Who’s included in the KS5 Track 2026 exam cohort?

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

• They were expected to have sat their KS5 (A level or equivalent level 3) exams in Summer 2026 based on their date of birth or based on their Expected HE Entry Year
• They have a ‘Complete’ record and ‘Permission to Track’ = Yes
• They are attached to an Outreach/Partnership Activity while in Year 12 (2024/25) to Year 13 (2025/26)

The image below shows the KS5 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, you can use the following link to the Student area of the database (members only). Please note that the search link uses the ‘Date of Birth’ criterion only, but filters can be changed from ‘Date of Birth’ to ‘Expected HE Entry Year’ of 2026 if required.

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 post-16 outreach (see timeline above).

Review Checklist

Apart from the basic KS5 Track eligibility checks listed above, we recommend you review the following in your export to maximise the usefulness of your KS5 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 KS5 Track eligible participants you have for Descriptors and Programme Titles you want to evaluate. In your KS5 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 prior attainment 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).

Get the most out of the HEAT Track

Did you know that the same deadline to prepare your data applies to the Key Stage 4 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 4 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.