2026 Post-Enumeration Audit: Updated Guidance for Schools

Updated NCCD guidelines will apply from 2026 onwards. These refined guidelines aim to improve clarity, consistency and evidence practices across schools. While the core NCCD process remains unchanged, the 2026 guidelines place a stronger emphasis on documentation. 

Schools will need clearer documentation of parent/carer consultation, evidence of adjustments, and decision-making where disability is imputed. These updates are intended to support more transparent data collection and ensure schools can clearly demonstrate how students with disability are identified and supported through reasonable adjustments.  

The updated guidance also strengthens expectations around consultation with parents or carers. In 2025, consultation with parent/care was required; however, from 2026, if consultation doesn’t occur, school must document the reason and retain supporting evidence. This reflects a stronger compliance expectation, with an audit trail required even where exceptions apply. 

• Extensive adjustments – clearer requirements: The updated guidelines clarify that to report a student at the Extensive level, adjustments must:  

• be provided continuously during the 10-week period (i.e. must be made for the whole day, every day within the 10-week period) 

• occur across 10 consecutive weeks 

• take place within a single school term, unless the school term is less than ten weeks – in which case the school can include weeks immediately before or after the term break. 

Auditors will assess whether the adjustments claimed for each student meet the required threshold.  

• Stronger evidence requirements: Schools must clearly show that adjustments address the functional impact of a student’s disability. Evidence should show that adjustments relate to the disability itself, not other factors such as academic gaps, student behavior, home circumstances, trauma or other external factors (except to the extent to which these other factors affect the student’s disability). Evidence should also focus on the frequency and intensity of adjustments.   

• New templates (2026): New evidence templates, an  updated quick guide and more online resources have been released.  This should make audits easier, but expectations for documenting evidence are now higher. 

• Evidence must be student specific: Whole-school adjustments are only enough if you can clearly show what each student got, when, how and how often. Evidence will not be sufficient unless they clearly show what the named student received, when and how it was provided, and the frequency and intensity of the adjustments.  
• Show learning impact: Evidence must show how the adjustments helped the student’s learning. Adjustments made for a student’s health and/or wellbeing only count if the evidence explicitly links them to the student’s learning outcomes.  

More information on NCCD Guidelines: 2026 Onward. 

Please contact Elspeth Adamson to discuss the 2026 NCCD Guidelines and their implications in more detail or contact Nigel Bartlett and Ksenija Krasova to discuss the funding implications for schools. We also encourage relevant staff in your schools to participate in ISV’s NCCD Moderation workshops and Individual Learning Needs Network meetings during Term Two.