any recommendations on school consultants?

[WreckOfTheHesperus]

We are trying to weigh up our options for DD at the moment (private vs state, London vs elsewhere), and would like some advice. Has anyone used a good consultant?

Seriously? Choosing a school is like buying a house - you just know the right one when you see it. You can get all the advice in the world but it comes down to gut feeling. Save your £££ and do a pros and cons list.

The plan is that we'd like to get the advice and then we'll go with gut feeling

Unless you have specific needs (many friends have used the Good Schools Guide consultancy service) then buying Good Schools Guide and then visiting the schools is the best way.

If your child has a particular interest, need (social or educational), gift, SEN, they can't add much value but I'm sure many would take your money for stuff you could find on the internet.

another vote for going with the good schools guide and their consultants.

What do you expect the consultant to do? Most won't do any more than know the Good Schools Guide back to front and spend a bit of time getting to know your child.

What's more important when choosing a school is figuring out what's important to you, what kind of envionment you think your DC will thrive in and any limitations you have on location, cost etc.

Once you've worked that out you can make a shortlist, talk to the schools and see what floats your boat.

Heck, post it here and people will probably be able to give you more advice than a consultant ever could purely because of the breadth of experience.

Agree with everything that has been said. Is your child sporty, shy, academic, do you want day, full boarding, weekly boarding, single sex or co-ed,what about faith schools? You will have some idea of this already. The Good Schools Guide is all you will need or alternatively post on here and someone will come along.
We have two boys, one in prep and one just about to start at his senior school (boarding). For us it was the right choice, not so sure about our younger son, very home oriented so might have to move house to get nearer to some day schools when the time comes.

Why would a schools consultant know any more than you do?

First of all - can you afford the duration of a private education should redundancy happen, calculating 10% increase of fees yearly

then it looks like you have to understand what the whole family wants/enjoys to decide on London/outside London

do you like going to the theatre/concets etc, would that be important to have at your door step or 2 hour drive or even an overnight stay

there are lovely pockets of London or outskirts with excellent schools (both types) yet 30 min by train to central london

How old is your dd?

I think I will become a property and education consultant seems to be a gap in the market. How much should I charge? I will even fill in all the registration fee forms so you don't even have to lift a finger, maybe I could offer tutoring too to with a hefty success fee if they get through the exam...

Not sure I agree with the redundancy issue - you could say this about anything that you choose to buy, a nice holiday, a bigger house etc. Of ocurse redundancy is a factor but sometimes one can be too cautious.

We are half way through educating our children privately and there have been wobbles and worries along the way, however I dont regret for a moment what we have done. Somehow you find the money. For us we have about 2 years of school fees in savings should one of us be made redundant but a lot of equity in the house. So, the worst case scenario is that we would move to release some equity but we have managed it so far....

Also, I am confident that as we live in the South East neither of us would be out of work for too long - I guess I am a glass half full person.... I have worked for my current employer for over 25 years (not government) so should be OK for the future.

I used the Gabbitas service for mine. I was abroad at the time and moving to the UK so couldn't go traipsing around schools or calling up each one, plus my children have a variety of needs and I really wanted one school that suited all of them.

Their knowledge (and GSG) tends to focus on private schools - if you're shelling out that much, you want to be sure it's the right one, not based on your own snapshot view from a single visit but from someone who knows the education field and has worked in some of the schools.

I found that they have far more knowledge than what you'd find online, the one we used had been working in the field for years and had personal contacts with many of the schools. He was able to advise how to prepare for interview based on personal knowledge of the tutor, so it was well worth it imo.

DD is currently 2.6, so we've got a while, but are trying to think about the long-term as well as the short term.

Just need someone to help us with the decision as to what to do with our lives! If someone came up with a place that we wanted to move to, where we could get gainfuo employment and that had excellent state education then they'd be worth every penny

Trouble is that at 2.6 it's hard to know what she's going to be like.