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Period 8, March · 2026–27

R08

Aims that will complete this year are now close enough to their planned end dates that the achievement position begins to be visible.

Deadline6 April 2027, 18:00201 days left

Preparation

Preparation for this return normally starts about 10 days out.

Readiness checklist

Generate a checklist scoped to this return, your streams and your role.

Generate it

This date follows the published monthly pattern and is marked provisional in the Academy until it has been reconciled against the official timetable. Confirm it against Data Collection Timetable 2026 to 2027 before planning around it.

Funding year2026–27Awaiting verificationSee the sourcesReport an issue

What this return drives

  • Earnings for March and the point at which the achievement picture for the year starts to form.

What each role should do

MIS or ILR officer

Before

  • Check aims approaching their planned end date and confirm the expected completion position.

After

  • Share the emerging achievement picture with curriculum while it can still be influenced.

Data, BI or performance analyst

Before

  • Model the achievement rate on current data and identify where the risk sits.

After

  • Brief curriculum areas on their emerging achievement position.

Checks before you submit

  1. Aims approaching their planned end date have a realistic expected outcome.
  2. Run validation locally before submitting, and work the errors by rule rather than record by record.
  3. Check learners still recorded as in learning whose planned end date has passed.
  4. Check aims that have ended with no outcome recorded.
  5. Reconcile the funding report for the period against your own expectation, and explain any movement since last period.
  6. Confirm withdrawals notified by curriculum this month have actually been recorded.

Sign-off

  • MIS confirms validation is clean or understood.

After submission

  1. Download and keep the funding reports for the period. They are your record of what the submission earned.
  2. Circulate the reconciliation position to Finance, with the explanation for any movement.
  3. Log any issue you could not resolve in time, so it is picked up rather than forgotten next month.

What commonly goes wrong

  • Planned end dates quietly extended rather than the underlying delivery issue being addressed.

Each of these has a full diagnostic in the error and assurance lookup, with the causes, the investigation, the fix and the control that prevents it.

Sources

These are the official documents this page rests on. Where a figure, a deadline or an exact rule matters, the document is the authority and this page is the explanation.

Qualification achievement rates and minimum standards (opens in a new tab)

GOV.UKOfficial funding documentAwaiting first verification

Data collection timetable 2026 to 2027 (opens in a new tab)

Department for EducationOfficial technical document2026–27Awaiting first verification

Content reused from GOV.UK is Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence. FEFunding is not endorsed by the Department for Education.