Seeking Advice: What Criteria Do You Consider When Choosing Schools?

[YesCorrect]

Hello!
As I embark on the journey of selecting a school for my child, I'm feeling a tad overwhelmed with all the information and choices out there. I'd really appreciate hearing from experienced parents on what data or criteria you've found most useful when deciding between schools.

1. Are there specific factors or statistics you prioritise (e.g., exam results, class size, extracurricular offerings)?
2. How much weight do you place on the school's ethos or values versus their academic performance?
3. Can anyone recommend reliable school review websites, maybe with parents feedback or resources? I've come across a few, but would love to know which ones you found most insightful.

Thank you in advance for your wisdom and guidance!

Primary or Secondary?

For Secondary, the things I was interested in:
Music provision
Extracurricular Offer
Do they stream or set? Which subjects?
What percentage get 5+ in English & Maths
What percentage are getting a straight run of 9s
SEN provision
Discipline - are they liberal or draconian
Vibe - do the kids seem happy (do I want my DD to be like the kids taking us on the tour?), Are the teachers open to answering question? Do the staff interact well with the kids? Is there flexibility or are they 'this is how we do things'?
Ease of travel

Then looked at Ofsted/Progress 8 etc and read everything I could find online.

I went and looked at a LOT of schools starting in Y5.

You need to know what your child needs and suits and pick the right school for them rather than 'best on paper'.

I had a very musical, bright kid with dyslexia and ADHD, so draconian was never going to work, nor a school without a decent Arts offer.

Obviously in some places you won't have many options - where we actually live there are only 2 possible schools and neither appealed. We targeted music aptitude places where distance didn't matter and applied for every single one that was an easy-ish commute, so that opened up hugely more options.

Websites - the gov one has lots of data, Locrating was useful, Good Schools Guide was useful. Visiting and online forums were the best source of info.

Agree with the previous poster. It’s mostly about finding a school that suits your child.

Most state primary schools only have the resources to do one or two cocurricular activities really well so explore what that is- languages, music, art, drama, sport. Even in primary, schools differ regarding approach to behaviour management, homework, SEN, general ethos etc too.

Value add scores are a better indication of teaching quality but total performance matters too. I wouldn’t choose a school where most kids weren’t doing well even if the value add was high. If you think your child is particularly bright, a school with a disproportionately high ability cohort might suit better which you can also see in historical data trends.

Bigger schools without many vacancies are better resourced, and given where state school budgets are, that’s very important. An active PTA that’s also good at fund raising is also another big bonus that can really make a difference. Ask about this on tours.

When touring also ask about parent engagement- do they run curriculum evening and workshops for parents?

For primary - there's a real value to being close to the school so unless your nearest is terrible, go for that one.

For senior, the most useful stats are where the value-added attainment-8 and progress-8 scores are broken down by demographic factors and you can look at the performance for the categories your child will be in.

The overall statistics of what percentage of pupils get good gcses are meaningless without this. A school with a low percentage overall might have brilliant results for children who don't have any additional challenges but the overall percentage is brought down because of the intake. Their results might even out-perform the scores of a school that has a higher overall percentage of good gcse attainment but that's solely because of an easier intake

But stats only take you so far, and aren't very useful because they only tell you averages and no child is really average - each one is unique, so gut feelings are more important than stats.

Location

If tie break is on distance, you need to include realistic choices.

Plus you need to think about what the journey is really like at peak school run hours.

Primary - nearest school, unless you have a family reason to avoid (siblings at another school, wanting to have/avoid a church school, not on your route to work, too far from your child’s other main carers, insufficient wrap-around care, ex-MIL works there…)

Secondary - look at every school your child could reasonably get to in the morning, preferably under their own steam. Put the ones where they are most likely to be happy as your top preferences - they have to go there every day and you don’t want a daily battle to get them there.
However, you should also put a nearby school that you stand a high chance of getting as a “banker” on your preference list. Unless you realistically can go private or home educate, better to have a less favoured school nearby than a less favoured school a long way away.

Ignore Ofsted grades, especially if the report is more than a couple of years old or the headteacher has changed. A school that has a Requires Improvement label may actually be better than a school coasting along with a decade-old Outstanding grade. Read the report and see whether the criticisms are things that will actually affect your child.

Basically, match the school to your family for primary and match the school to your child for secondary. If you are trying to find the greatest factor in how well your child will do at school then look in a mirror.

Thank you all! Really helpful. Are the goverment websites good for getting some data mentioned above?

Is there like a TrustPilot for schools where one can see parents reviews? Would this be useful? I went on schools tours where deputy head was chewing gum.... wanted to tell them but would find it easier to leave feedback.

https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/

Is the main data source.

Review websites are useless - people only use them to moan and what use are 3 parents moaning in a sentence when a school could have 400 kids in a year group?

Best to talk to actual parents in forums or in person.

Also what works - or doesn't - for one parent may not work for you.

I wouldn't have cared at all about gum chewing for example.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow

Review websites are useless - people only use them to moan and what use are 3 parents moaning in a sentence when a school could have 400 kids in a year group?

I havent found any. Which one did you come across? I personally find them useful as it's possible to determine potential issues. Are there any where schools can reply?

I found a few online - forget which they were, of the 'google review' type thing.

Tended to be a single badly written sentence about how their child had been discriminated against. Schools didn't bother responding but could have done if they had wanted to.

To be honest, if you are looking at state schools you don't really get any actual choice unless you are planning to target aptitude tests and massively widen the pool. So you are better off looking at local FB groups for the area and seeing what gets said, talking to local parents and seeing what you think of each one on a visit.

Even then, it's all pretty much guess work and you don't really know until child starts. With secondary, you don't really have much to do with the school as a parent either, so a lot comes down to how communicative your child is (or isn't)... mine apparently did 'nothing' all day or couldn't remember for the whole of primary...

@YesCorrect I have never heard of a school replying to parents (or others) on a public forum. They really shouldn’t either. They have more important things to do.

You also seem to think you will “select” a school. Many schools have catchment areas and fill up with Dc from within it. You might like that school but if you don’t live in catchment, you won’t get in. Others, such as faith schools, select you - by your commitment to that faith. Often they have a tiny catchment but then select on religion.

Therefore your best strategy is to know which at school you will get a place. Which one is catchment? Do others ever have spaces for non catchment? What about other factors regarding admission? Do you qualify?

The next step after identifying realistic schools is to compare them. Catchment makes a huge difference to sats results. So does great teaching, especially when dc make a lot of progress. Also the amount of Dc going to private schools can reduce the number of bright Dc in the state sector.

Look at the government web site and look for sats results and performance data. At secondary, results and progress 8 are useful. As is a recent Ofsted report. Then decide if the school meets expectations for clubs, sport, behaviour, art, drama etc. Plus, do the parents you meet like the schools or shun them? Would you find parents like you at the schools you shortlist? Would dc fit in and be happy with the ethos of the school?

I think you start with the child and then match the school to them.

A school with several sports teams is going to match a sporty child more than one who hates sport.

In an ideal world schools would be more individual to fit different children better.

When looking at the stats like progress 8 look to see any reasons the score is higher or lower than you expect and think about what your child will achieve.

@sashh This wax tried with specialist schools around 20 years ago. However if places are held back for sporty types or arty types snd Dc in catchment don’t get in, that’s a disaster for them. All schools teach the NC but selecting on specialism goes down like a lead balloon if it excludes local Dc from an excellent school. The notion of choice is wrong too. Parents express a preference. Not much choice at all for many.

I know on a practical level it is difficult.