October 2026 Leadership Pack

The October 2026 Leadership Pack puts the month's work in one place: the autumn census, appraisal reports and the first monitoring cycle of the year. This pack also includes a runbook to help your office get the census right first time.

Updated 23 September 2026 with the latest DfE and Ofsted changes: the free school meals expansion and how it shows up in the census, KCSIE 2026 and the information sharing duty from 30 September, Ofsted's September toolkit changes, the teacher pay award position and the October employment law dates. The census runbook now covers the new kinship care, managed moves and free breakfast club attendance fields.

What's inside

• October Leadership Pack 2026 (about 11 pages): the fixed dates for the month, then twelve sections covering the autumn census, the statutory website audit, appraisal reports and pay determinations, the section 175 safeguarding audit, curriculum and monitoring, assessment, the half-year budget, next year's staffing and employment law dates, admissions, premises, families, and what can wait. Each section is a table with columns for Now, Delegate or later, an owner and a tick.
• Autumn census runbook, 1 October 2026 (about 8 pages): who does what, the fortnight of checks beforehand (roll, free school meals, SEN, attendance and early years hours), census day itself, reconciling before the 28 October return, a headline figures record comparing this autumn with last, and a sign-off page.
• 00 How to use this pack: a short guide to getting started.

Format: three editable Word documents in one zip file, delivered as a digital download.

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