Student background data collection for independent schools

About the collection

ACARA collects student background data (SBD) for all Australian schools to calculate Socio-Educational Advantage (SEA) and Disadvantaged Language Background other than English (DLBOTE).  The Data standards manual: Student background characteristics – 2022 edition (PDF 301 kb) provides guidance on the collection of student background data.

Data utilisation

The Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) is used to report school NAPLAN performance against students with similar backgrounds.

The proportions of students in the lower two quarters of Socio-Educational Advantage are used by the Australian Government Department of Education (AGDE) to calculate the socio‑educational disadvantage loadings. The proportion of DLBOTE students is used to calculate the low English proficiency loading. For further information, please see Section 18 of the Australian Education Regulation 2013. 

ICSEA values for schools are increasingly being used by government and non-government organisations for determining which schools qualify for special assistance.

What information is collected

Each students’ date of birth, gender, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander status and Language other than English spoken at home.
Each parent/guardian/carers’ school education, non-school education, occupation group and Language other than English spoken at home.

Submission due date

This years SBD collection for Independent schools was open from 2 March to 4 May 2023. For schools that are yet to submit or wish to resubmit, please contact us on the email below.

Contact us

For assistance in preparing the template or submitting the data, please review the frequently asked questions below or contact ACARA via: [email protected] or 1300 895 563   (extension 2 for My School including Principals Portal).

Frequently asked questions

General

Is this compulsory?

The submission of student background data to ACARA is mandatory, as of 2020 under an amendment of the Australian Education Regulation 2013, with a new section 56(f) added, that works in conjunction with section 52(3) requiring all schools provide ACARA with all student information.
Schools are asked to participate in order to improve the quality of the socio-educational and language background other than English estimates for schools that are used both in school funding and reporting.
In previous years, NAPLAN enrolment data (for years 3, 5, 7, and 9) has been used to estimate these parameters for the whole school community. Participating in this collection is beneficial as these results will not only reflect the entire school, but ensure estimates become more stable over time.

How frequently should Student Background Data be collected?

For many schools it is impractical and resource-intensive to continually update the student background data for all students. Ideally, schools should attempt to update parental information for existing students every few years, particularly if the school profile is changing over time. However, it is more important that every effort is made to collect data where it is missing. It is more likely that data is not being accurately collected from parents with poor English skills and low education levels. Therefore, whilst the model used to calculate the SEA distribution for all schools will compensate for missing data to some degree, there is a likelihood that large numbers of missing values may overstate the socio-educational advantage at such schools.

Is this compulsory for Majority Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander schools (MATSIS), special schools and special assistance schools?

From 2021, all schools are expected to provide their full cohort SBD to ACARA, to abide with the Australian Education Regulation 2013.

Is there a manual that provides guidance on the collection of student background data?

 The Data standards manual: Student background characteristics – 2022 edition (PDF 301 kb)  provides guidance on the collection of student background data. the 2022 SBD submission instructions provides details how to submit your data.

Should a privacy notice about the data collected be provided to parents?

ACARA does not issue a privacy notice for distribution to parents regarding the annual SBD collection. Schools or school systems must have their own privacy policies in order to collect personal information from students. This policy must also state what will be done with the data collected, including sharing de-identified personal information with a Commonwealth Agency such as ACARA. When collecting student information at the time of enrolment or during their schooling, schools must comply with Federal privacy legislation and the associated Australian Privacy Principles that apply to nongovernment schools. The Privacy Compliance Manual jointly published by the National Catholic Education Commission and Independent Schools Australia provides guidance. A copy of the manual can be downloaded from the Independent Schools Australia site. The collection of this information should be accompanied by a privacy notice advising parents of the collection, storage, use and disclosure of personal information about them and their children.

What students to include

Does this request include all students in all grades?

Yes. All students in all grades must be included in the template to ensure that the data reflect the entire school community.

Do we include exchange students and/or full-fee paying overseas students in our SBD template?

Yes, if they meet the following 2 conditions:

If immediately prior to coming to Australia, a student was enrolled and active at a school in their own (or another) country

AND they are in Australia for a 12-month (or longer) period

We have parents who have requested that their child’s data be omitted from our school’s submission, how can we do this?

Records for such students should be included in the submission without the student and parent attributes, only the school ID, school name, calendar year, student ID and grade of enrolment. All other fields can remain unknown or missing. The modelling process will allow for missing information.

Data related questions

More than 50% completeness rate requirement

From 2022, AGDE expects all schools to provide SBD on every enrolled student, to ensure compliance with the Australian Education Regulation 2013, and has agreed with ACARA to a requirement for completeness rates of 50% or more to ensure estimates are reliable. Completeness rates refer to the percentage of complete student records in an SBD submission. A complete student record has at least one parent with all information provided (level of school education, level of non-school education and occupation).
The examples below show;
Row 2 - Complete data on both parents (resulting in a complete student record)
Row 3 - Complete data on one parent (resulting in a complete student record)
Row 4 & 5 - Incomplete student data on both parents (resulting in an incomplete student record)

ACARA SML ID

Your schools ACARA SML ID can be found on the Australian Schools List site under the ID heading.

School Name

If you are getting a data error relating to your school’s name, please ensure it matches the school name listed on the Australian Schools List site exactly.

Jurisdiction Student IDs

“Jurisdiction Student ID” is the school or system student ID that uniquely identifies a student. It can be the student ID issued by the school or a system-level identifier. It must uniquely identify a student at each school or campus (i.e. only one instance of a Student ID per ACARA_SML_ID). If your school doesn’t have such identifiers, a row number from 1 to the total count of students can be used. However, if you need to correct any data after your submission has been made, it will be necessary to link this number to your database of students.

Grade

Does this collection include all students in all grades?

Yes. All students in all grades must be included in the template to ensure that the data reflects the entire school community.

Should students in year one minus one, year one minus two and year one minus three be included in the student background data?

The year prior to Year One (year one minus one) has different names in different jurisdictions. It is nationally referred to as Foundation and is also known as Kindergarten (ACT and NSW), Preparatory or Prep (Qld, Tas and Vic), Reception (SA), Pre-Primary (WA) or Transition (NT).
All students in year one minus one should be included in the student background data.
Some schools will also offer a year prior to Foundation (year one minus two). In most jurisdictions, year one minus two students form a separate stream that is funded by both State and Commonwealth departments as “childcare” and the students are not eligible to receive funding as school students. In these jurisdictions, year one minus two students should not be included in the student background data. However, in some schools - particularly in WA, these students receive state funding as school students, as they are regarded as part of the school community. In this situation, year one minus two students should be included in the student background data.
Year one minus three (3 year olds) are out of scope for this collection.

Gender

The terms “Sex” and “Gender” are often used synonymously. From 2023, the word “Gender” should be used in the question wording for enrolment questionnaires.

Language other than English spoken at home

This field refers to the ‘Language other than English spoken at home’. If there are several languages other than English spoken, list the one spoken most often. More information on languages can be found in  The Data standards manual: Student background characteristics – 2022 edition (PDF 301 kb) and in the DataDictionary Tab of the Student Background Template.

Parental Data

Are we penalised in any way when the information for only 1 parent/guardian is supplied as opposed to 2?

If data is not available or difficult to obtain for one parent, the socio-educational model uses whatever data is available to produce estimates of students in each SEA quarter. However, having the most complete set of data will more accurately reflect the socio-educational background of students at the school, which is why ACARA request that every effort is made to provide complete data. If data cannot be obtained, please enter the ‘unknown/not stated’ codes detailed in the DataDictionary tab of the Student Background Template.

Parental data for students not living with biological parents

Parental background data is collected to assess the impact of each student’s natural parents on their learning outcomes, therefore ACARA’s preference is to receive the background data of the parents if it is known (including if the student does not live with the parents or if the parents are deceased). If information is not available for the natural parents’, the background data of the custodial guardian(s) should be provided. In instances where this is also unavailable, please enter the ‘unknown/not stated’ codes detailed in the DataDictionary tab of the Student Background Template.

Late submissions

To ensure the SEA loading continues to be included in payments to schools from AGDE, a completed student background data (SBD) template must be submitted to ACARA by the deadline. Data submitted after the deadline may be used later to inform potential adjustments to school payments. If a school does not provide their SBD data for the current year to ACARA, AGDE are unable to calculate their loading and may apply a ‘zero’ value in the funding model until the SBD information is provided.