Schools Database

Getting Started

1. Request Access

To use the Schools Database, you need to be logged in as a superuser.

• Click the "Login" link in the top navigation
• If you don't have an account, contact the AFR datajournalism team
• Once logged in, you'll have access to all features of the application

2. Import Schools Data

Start by importing school data from the Acara website.

• Navigate to Import in the main menu
• Select a year you want to import for. It should be a year that has not already been imported.
• The system will import the current list of Australian schools from Acara.
• Monitor the import progress in real-time using the task panel

3. Scrape School Data

After importing, run scraping tasks to fetch the latest school information.

• Click on the year you want to scrape, from the table of imported years. The row should open up to reveal the scrape tools.
• Run the scraping tasks for Profile, Finances, and NAPLAN pages
• Monitor progress and view screenshots for each scraping step

4. Search and Export

Use the SQL Query Tool to analyze your processed data.

• Navigate to Query Tool in the main menu
• Write and execute SELECT queries against your data
• View results in a paginated table format
• Export query results to CSV for further analysis
• Use the query history to reuse previous queries

Quick Links

Data Tables

The system manages the following main data entities:

• Schools – Core table for school records and metadata (name, IDs, type, state, etc.)
• Addresses – Physical addresses for each school (city, state, postal code, country, coordinates)
• Import Events – Tracks each CSV import batch (year, timestamp, file, scrape options)
• Import Queue – Queue of scraping tasks for each school in an import (status, progress, retries, notes)
• School Profiles – Yearly profile data for each school (sector, type, staff, enrolments, student background, etc.)
• School Finances – Yearly finances for each school (income, funding, capital expenditure, per-student amounts)
• School NAPLAN – Yearly NAPLAN results for each school (scores, participation rates, national averages, error margins)