This field records the start date of the instance period.

All instances.

This field records the actual date of commencement of the instance period for the student as opposed to the expected date. Instance.COMDATE records the date of commencement of the instance as a whole.

All date fields in the AP student record must be completed using the ISO8601 format of YYYY-MM-DD. The specification of this field falls within the scope of the Aligned Data Definitions and follows the Data Standards in the HESA AP student record.

Instance periods are usually synonymous with the concept of an academic year within providers. It is recognised that not all providers use the same time frames for this concept. Providers should return the dates that align with their internal concept of an academic year.

It is possible for more than one instance period to be present within a HESA reporting period - the presence of InstancePeriod.PERIODSTART and InstancePeriod.PERIODEND permit the analysis of progression in these cases.

Where instance periods cross reporting periods, they should be reported in both, with appropriate InstancePeriod.STULOAD values to indicate intensity of study. In such cases the start date for the instance period should be consistent in both years in which it is returned.

Used to identify the date on which a discrete period of the instance commenced, which allows for the recording of non-standard academic years.