Why are the School and MAT MIS figures different?

This article explains why student numbers and attendance figures may differ between the School MIS and MAT MIS. It outlines four main reasons for discrepancies: delayed updates in MAT MIS, redundant marks affecting attendance counts, differences in demographic indicators, and varying enrolment dates. Recommendations for resolving these issues are also provided.

Usually, figures for Student Numbers and Attendance in the MAT MIS should match the School MIS. You can find more information about how the data is calculated on the MAT MIS here: Analyse aggregate data on the MAT MIS.

For example, here is an example School MIS (above) and MAT MIS (below).

Sometimes you may find, when looking at similar reports on the School MIS and MAT MIS, that your statistics aren't identical. There are four reasons why data on the School MIS might not match data on the MAT MIS exactly.

The MAT MIS figures haven't updated yet

It can take up to 30 minutes for records to be updated in the background, so you'll need to wait a little bit between changing data on the School MIS, and seeing the data updated on the MAT MIS.

Redundant marks

There may be a slight difference in figures if student enrolments have been deleted without resolving the Redundant Marks: 

• On the School MIS, attendance figures include students who have had an enrolment into the current academic year, and include Redundant Marks.
• On the MAT MIS, attendance figures include Redundant Marks for all students, whether they have had an enrolment into the current academic year or not.

In order to resolve this discrepancy, we recommend you remove the redundant attendance marks.

Demographic indicators

Demographic indicators are used in Arbor to mark students as e.g. Pupil Premium or Compulsory School Age, based on their background and identity information.

• On the School MIS, these are checked each day, so a student will, for example, stop having the Looked After (In Care) tag the day after the Looked After (In Care) status ends. They'll only show in reporting that covers a date on which they had this tag.
• On the MAT MIS, students who belonged to the demographic at any point during the academic year are counted, as if it were for the whole year in the aggregated statistics. This means there can be tiny differences in cohort sizes for some demographics, such as Compulsory School Age.

We are currently considering how we can improve on this, so if you have any feedback, please submit it here: MAT MIS Improvements.

Enrolment figures taken from different dates

At the end of the year, you may see differences in your enrolment figures if students are off-rolled before the last day of the academic year. Ensure you take any enrolment figures from the last day students were enrolled, rather than the last day of the year.