Your census return now decides your funding: core aims, retention and the 2026/27 changes

From 2027/28 allocations, the DfE will fund your sixth form on the core aim data exactly as you return it. There is no safety net any more.

Our reviews of this autumn’s Collect reports have found the same problems at several schools. Current Year Students are funded but showing as not retained. Students on wholly vocational aims programmes have no core aim, (or the wrong one set which only impacts cost weighting) . Each of these quietly reduces funding, and from now on the DfE will not correct them for you.

Funded but not retained: half the funding is gone

A student who is funded but not retained can only ever deliver 50% of their funding. The retention factor in the formula is the average of each student’s funding percentage, so every non-retained student pulls the whole factor down.

For census users, retention is judged on the live core aim, meaning the latest core aim set on the student’s record. If that aim is not retained, the student will usually show as not retained. If no core aim is set the DfE funding method is to look for an academic aim to review if no academic aim is present the student is NOT RETAINED .(DfE technical specification 2026/27).

In the reports we have reviewed, many of these students are not genuine leavers. The cause is usually how the programme has been recorded: a missing or wrong core aim, or aim dates and outcomes that do not reflect what the student actually did.

The DfE no longer fixes missing or incorrect core aims

Since the core aim was introduced in 2013, the DfE has run a “core aim fix” every year. Where a school set no core aim for a student who appeared to be on a vocational programme, the DfE tried to identify one, rather than treat the student as academic (DfE, Removing the core aim fix).

The fix was used for the last time for 2026/27 allocations. From 2027/28, the DfE uses core aim data as returned. The flag stays mandatory, but errors will not be reviewed or corrected (DfE Update, 17 September 2025).

Why this matters:

The core aim decides whether a programme is academic or vocational.
For census users, setting a core aim makes the student vocational, even if that aim is an A level.
In the census, you only set a core aim for vocational programmes, or mixed programmes with a vocational core.
The wrong programme type usually means the student shows as not retained, and often gets a lower cost weighting.

Your census return is now the only thing that decides how these students are funded.

A vocational aim not set as core loses its cost weighting

Programme cost weighting (PCW) is based on the sector subject area of each student’s core aim, averaged across your institution and weighted by funded hours (16 to 19 revenue funding allocation guide 2026/27).

If a vocational qualification in a weighted subject area should be the core aim but is not flagged, the student is treated as academic. You lose the uplift that subject area would have attracted.

So one missed flag can cost you twice: the student may show as not retained, and the programme loses its cost weighting.

What changed for 2026/27

The autumn 2026 census, which opened on 1 October 2026, is the first return where the DfE will not review core aim recording or correct significant errors (DfE Update, 30 September 2026).

	Autumn 2025 census	Autumn 2026 census
Feeds allocations for	2026/27	2027/28
Core aim fix applied?	Yes, for the last time	No: data used as returned
Missing core aim on a vocational programme	DfE tried to identify one	Student treated as academic

The rest of the formula is largely unchanged for 2026/27. The DfE has confirmed no planned changes to programme cost weightings this year (16 to 19 funding: information for 2026 to 2027). The change that matters is who is responsible for getting the core aim right: now, only you.

Current students: fix them now, even though 2027/28 is safe

Errors in the current student details report will not reduce your 2027/28 funding, unless you have a similar issue in the previous student details report.

The autumn census gives you two 16 to 19 student detail reports:

Previous academic year (2025/26 students). These students have finished their year, so their retention and cost weighting are what feed 2027/28 allocations. Core aim errors here hit 2027/28 funding directly.
Current academic year (2026/27 students). These students are mid-programme. Their core aim errors do not feed 2027/28 retention or cost weighting.

But it is still highly important to correct current students now. Next autumn, these same records become the previous-year data that drives 2028/29 funding. There will be no core aim fix then either.

An error left in place today becomes next year’s funding loss. Correcting it while the record is live is far easier than unpicking it a year later.