Do you have a subscription to the Good Schools Guide?

[Isthisoneleft]

If so, is it worth it, would you recommend it?

Or is it worth buying the book?

Or no better than anything you can find on the internet for free anyway?

[Thanks]

You can buy a subscription for one month so no need to buy the book or pay for a whole year. It has reviews of various schools but not all schools so it depends what schools you are interested in. Imho it seems a bit more objective than the Tatler guide but not much.

I've found that it's rarely updated and does very few state school so not much use for them unless you're looking at some of the very top selective state schools.

If you can get the first month free I would use that to get as much info as possible and then rely on other sources. Not really worth the money for an annual membership, although the book is OK for a couple of years at a time so slightly better value.

My local library has an up to date copy of the book so I use that ... not updated significantly I've found

None of the libraries I visited had a copy. I paid for a one month membership shortly after the latest book came out and copied & pasted the infomation on any schools i was (or may possibly end up) considering so I could refer back to it after the month ended. It was £10 from memory. As one resource I found it useful.

Has anyone managed to leave a comment on the GSG website? I have tried a couple of times but my review isn't showing.

I don't subscribe but I have a three year old paper copy. I find it useful as inspiration for judging schools.

I've just bought a subscription.

I did it for a month a few years back to find out about catchment areas and numbers of pupils from areas getting into certain schools etc. I found it really useful and I've never found the depth of detail by just googling.

Also, I'm very confused by exam results. Our local comp has just been cited as having a 39% pass rate A-C at GCSE in our local paper, but the same school are advertising on large bill boards that they had 96% pass rate. Hmmm. I need to do lots and lots of delving and I'm not very used to education speak.

My dd is only in Y4, but we live in an area with no selective grammar schools and I can't stretch to private so I'm starting early!

I would think that means 96% got A-E but only 39 % got A-C. Schools seem to be getting very slick at posting impressive comments or figures on their websites etc that feel to me as if they intended to mislead. Or is that just me being overly sceptical?

Yes Tina, I think you're probably right about the spinning of the GCSE grades. It makes sense. It's a fairly un-satisfactory school, undersubscribed etc. I was thinking 96% of A-C passes was a supernatural improvement