The Good Schools Guide / School Guide.co.uk / etc worth it?

[PandaDad2013]

Looking at senior schools for our first born (considering both independent and state), and wonder if anyone shelled out for a subscription to TGSG, or Schoolguide dot co dot uk, or any of their competitors, and if so, whether it was worth it?

I got a 3 month subscription to TGSG, read everything, made spreadsheets and kept copies of the info on schools that were on our long-list.

It was vaguely helpful, but wouldn't say it's essential unless you are looking at a very wide geographic area (say interested in every co-ed full boarding school in the UK), aren't based in the UK or are just an obsessive researcher (guilty).

If you're just interested in schools in a 10 mile radius of Bromley you can probably find better info through a combo of Mumsnet, Gov websites and a general google trawl.

The GSG is quite entertainingly written at least.

I also tag-teamed with a friend who had a similar wish list to ours and we divvied up school visits. That was vv helpful and saved a lot of schlepping about. Reckon we could have applied to TGSG by the end as reviewers!

I didn't bother because the number of commutable schools we could consider was low enough that I could go to all the open days. My sister did because as they live in London the number of schools they could consider was enormous and they needed help to narrow down the options.

You can access basic info on GSG advanced search without a subscription but can't access reviews there. You can usually get reviews for free elsewhere including here on mn.

I signed up for school guide a week or so ago and have found it interesting but not that useful. It wasn’t even very good at showing me the 20 closest schools.

Thanks all! It's the reviews I'm after in the main, so will scour mumsnet and save my pennies!

I bought the books for north and south London but didn’t bother with the website

Hi - did you find the north London report/book any useful? Does it have any review comments? Thx