Information and guidance on how schools access and use the DfE's S2S secure data transfer system.
DfE S2S site: Uploading and downloading instructions to schools
This is a reminder to all schools to download files from S2S as soon as you receive the ‘DfE sign-in e-mail’ notification that a file is waiting for collection by your school.
Common Transfer Files (CTFs) will only be left on the DfE S2S site for 2 months before they are deleted by the local authority. Therefore, you need to ensure all files for your school have been collected as soon as possible.
Academy schools
When generating a file for an academy school, especially those which have just changed to academy status, please ensure you are using the correct DfE Number. If you send your CTF using the school’s old DfE Number, it will not be collected and will just sit on the S2S site. If this happens you could be contacted by the local authority and asked to generate another CTF with the correct DfE Number.
If you are using Integris MIS, you will need to set up the academy school in your list of destination schools with its new DfE Number (if it has a new one), therefore ensuring the file is sent to the correct location. If you require assistance with this, please contact the School Support Team on 01629 536789.
Independent schools
If any pupils are leaving your school to go to an independent school, you will need to generate a file with the 7 M’s (MMMMMMM) and upload it to the S2S site. Independent schools do not use the DfE S2S portal. Refer to page 15 of the DfE S2S guidance.
Some examples of these schools are: -
- Trent College
- St Peter and St Paul’s
- Barlborough Hall School
- St Wystan’s School
- Eastwood Grange School
- High Grange School
- Mount St Mary’s College
- Abbotsholme School
We have spoken to all the independent schools that have CTFs regularly generated for them. They have asked if schools will contact them when a child is leaving a local authority maintained school to attend their school. At this point the independent school will let the local authority school know what information, if any, they will require sending to them via e-mail or post.
Help and support
Schools who use Integris as their MIS, and are experiencing issues when generating CTFs for any destination; please get in touch with School Support (01629 536789) who will be happy to talk you through the process.
Schools using any other systems will need to contact their own MIS Software Support Desk for help with generating CTF files.
For further information, please see DfE's S2S guidance.
New staff
Please ensure that if any nominated users of the S2S site are due to leave the school, new users are set up with access as soon as possible. Schools are always required to have someone with access to the S2S site to upload and download the necessary CTF, Children Missing Leaver (CML) and Children Missing Joiner (CMJ) files.