The rules your school answers to
October 12, 2026 · Abdulkareem H. Ali
A school in Manchester and a school in Riyadh both take attendance, answer requests for personal data and keep records for years. The rules behind those jobs are not the same, and neither are the deadlines. Until now Tawaasal treated every school alike. From 2.7, it knows which rules your school answers to.
One country, set once
Every school now records its country, its region where the rules differ inside a country, and its type: state, independent or international. You give it when you sign up, and it becomes the school's compliance profile. Settings → Compliance shows the profile and every rule it applies, each with a link to its source.
The country lives in one place: the address in Settings → School now has a country list, and it is the same country the Compliance tab reads. Changing it shows you what would switch on and off for your school and asks you to type the school code to confirm; the change is then a request that we approve. Changing the type of school applies straight away.
Schools already on Tawaasal have been given a proposed profile from the country they already hold, and work exactly as before until it is confirmed.
For every school: data requests and record keeping
Two things now follow your profile wherever you are:
- Data requests. The deadline for a subject access request comes from your school's rules and is counted on your school's own calendar day. For a confirmed school in England that is one calendar month from receipt, extendable once by up to two further months. Other schools keep the 30 days they have today.
- Retention. Where your rules set a minimum period for keeping a kind of record, the Retention tab shows it beside each policy, with its source, and a period shorter than a confirmed minimum is refused. Records made under one country's rules keep the period those rules required, even if the school later moves.
For schools in England: the register, the DfE way
Schools in England must take a register every morning and every afternoon with the Department for Education's national codes. Tawaasal now does exactly that, on the web and on the phone.
Type a code on a pupil's mark and it is written and moves on, so a form can be taken from the keyboard; Mark everyone present fills in the rest. Saving is all or nothing: if a colleague marked a pupil first, nothing is overwritten, their mark stands and you see who made it. A saved mark changes only with a reason, and every change is kept. Codes that need more detail, such as an approved educational activity, ask for it.
Your daily attendance is still worked out from the two sessions, so reports, alerts and the parent app carry on as before. Parents hear when a day gets worse, never when a correction improves it. On the phone, marks can be taken offline and are sent when it reconnects.
!The morning and afternoon register for a class, with Mark everyone present and Save register
The SLASC census, without the spreadsheet
Independent schools in England send the DfE a census every January: the School Level Annual School Census. Data → Statutory returns now prepares it. Tawaasal fills in your pupils on roll and the range of day fees for you to check; the rest goes into a form laid out like the DfE's own, with the totals worked out for you.
Before the file is produced, every figure is checked against the DfE's published rules, and anything that would be rejected is pointed out next to the figure. Then Tawaasal generates the XML file that you upload to COLLECT. A generated return is frozen; correcting it starts a new submission from the last one.
Only people your school chooses can open it: an administrator by default, and a bursar or data manager if you give them the new permission.
The admission register, if you want it here
A school in England can also keep its statutory admission register in Tawaasal. Switch on the registers pack under Settings → Compliance: entries are encrypted, every change is kept, and the New Pupil Return for your local authority comes out as CSV or PDF. Parents are the guardians already linked to each pupil, so there is nothing to type twice. Parents see their own child's entry, read-only, and can ask the school to correct it; the request waits under Approvals → Register corrections.
If your school keeps its register in another system, you simply tell us which.
Included in every plan, with more to come
Statutory returns are a job you do once or twice a year, so they are included in every plan. England is the first country with its own profile and returns. Every other school follows the general rules it always has, and more countries' templates will follow.
New versions of the iOS and Android apps have been pushed to the app stores alongside 2.7.
Step-by-step guides are at docs.tawaasal.app, for the compliance profile, the England register and statutory returns. To see it working, [try the demo](/en/demo?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=feature_compliance_profiles), or [ask us](/en/contact) what it means for your school.