Rightmove School Checker – review thread – find out what MNers think! NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

This is the feedback thread for the MN testers putting the Rightmove School Checker to the test.

The team at Rightmove say “find the right home near the right school with Rightmove’s School Checker. School Checker gives you access to admissions criteria and academic inspection reports for primary and secondary schools across Great Britain. Now on every property, School Checker lets you discover previous admissions areas and Ofsted ratings to easily compare local schools. Visit www.rightmove.co.uk/schools.html to learn more.
Once you’ve found the right home, simply click on the ‘School Checker’ tab to find the right school. Available on both desktop or mobile.”

Did you use School Checker on your computer or on a mobile device or tablet?
How old are your children if you have any?
How important are schools to you when planning to move home?
Would you consider moving home to get into a good school?

From the Rightmove schools page (www.rightmove.co.uk/schools.html) was School Checker tab easy to find?
How easy did you find School Checker to use and understand?
Did you find School Checker useful? Would you use School Checker when considering a move? What did you find most useful about School Checker? Any improvements you’d like to see?
Would you recommend School Checker to other parents and why?
Any other comments?

All selected testers who share feedback will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher for the store of their choice.

Thanks
MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

Did you use School Checker on your computer or on a mobile device or tablet?
Mobile smartphone

How old are your children if you have any?
1 and 4

How important are schools to you when planning to move home?
Essential.

Would you consider moving home to get into a good school?
Yes.

From the Rightmove schools page (www.rightmove.co.uk/schools.html) was School Checker tab easy to find?
Yes. Having used Rightmove in the past I had an idea of where to look.

How easy did you find School Checker to use and understand?
Very easy.

Did you find School Checker useful? Would you use School Checker when considering a move? What did you find most useful about School Checker? Any improvements you’d like to see?
Definitely found it useful. I like the range of information that is collated - saves having to visit several different websites to get the same info.

Would you recommend School Checker to other parents and why?
Yes. It provides an excellent snapshot of the local schools, a great starting point for research.

Any other comments?

Did you use School Checker on your computer or on a mobile device or tablet?

Computer

How old are your children if you have any?

Primary school age

How important are schools to you when planning to move home?

Super important, one of the most important criteria for us

Would you consider moving home to get into a good school?

Yes, if no suitable options available

From the Rightmove schools page (www.rightmove.co.uk/schools.html) was School Checker tab easy to find?

Very easy to find

How easy did you find School Checker to use and understand?

It took around 3 min for me to play around with it and get to the information I needed

Did you find School Checker useful? Would you use School Checker when considering a move? What did you find most useful about School Checker? Any improvements you’d like to see?

Yes I did find it helpful. I think it could be clearer if the categories were split into State and Independent schools alongside primary/secondary categories.

Would you recommend School Checker to other parents and why?
Any other comments?

Yes, it is a useful addition to the search for a new home.

Did you use School Checker on your computer or on a mobile device or tablet?
Mobile

How old are your children if you have any?
3 and 1

How important are schools to you when planning to move home?
Very important

Would you consider moving home to get into a good school?
Not unless we were really desperate

From the Rightmove schools page (www.rightmove.co.uk/schools.html) was School Checker tab easy to find?
Yes, no problem

How easy did you find School Checker to use and understand?
User-friendly and logical

Did you find School Checker useful?
Very

Would you use School Checker when considering a move?
Definitely

What did you find most useful about School Checker?
It did what it said on the tin - I liked that it was easy to see the schools on a map too

Any improvements you’d like to see?
In our area we have first, middle and high schools - it would be good to see the tabs split between those three rather than just primary and secondary

Would you recommend School Checker to other parents and why?
Absolutely - very useful add-on

Any other comments?
I don't think it's well-advertised enough! I wound never have heard of it other than for MN.

Did you use School Checker on your computer or on a mobile device or tablet?

On a mobile device (my mobile!)

How old are your children if you have any?

4 and 1

How important are schools to you when planning to move home?

Very. We were actively househunting prior to the school application deadline for DD1.

Would you consider moving home to get into a good school?

Yes.

From the Rightmove schools page (www.rightmove.co.uk/schools.html) was School Checker tab easy to find?

Yes

How easy did you find School Checker to use and understand?

Yes.

Did you find School Checker useful?

I did and do, I've used it before on the mobile app too.

Would you use School Checker when considering a move?

Yes.

What did you find most useful about School Checker?

The fact that it has previously admitted distance data in a map format.

Any improvements you’d like to see?

It would be good to be able to search for properties by (for example) admissions distance to X school(s) in the past Yno years - so basically searching property by school admission area.

The data on Academy entry is a bit sparse but I suspect that's a data issue rather than the website's fault.

Where religious schools are concerned it would also be good to break down how many children are offered places as a religious priority and how far down the list they go - I.e whether ANY non-denominational places were offered at all.

Would you recommend School Checker to other parents and why?

I would, with the caveat that the data is a blunt tool and there are discrepancies they need to be aware of - for example, bulge classes artificially inflating the catchment area.

Did you use School Checker on your computer or on a mobile device or tablet?

Computer

How old are your children if you have any?

3 and 1

How important are schools to you when planning to move home?

Very for both primary and secondary when the time comes.

Would you consider moving home to get into a good school?

Possibly, yes.

From the Rightmove schools page (www.rightmove.co.uk/schools.html) was School Checker tab easy to find?

Yes

How easy did you find School Checker to use and understand?

Easy and informative. I liked it.

Did you find School Checker useful?

Yes

Would you use School Checker when considering a move?

Difficult to say as we are unlikely to move to an area away from where we know. If we were to move locally, I wouldn't use it. If we were to move away, yes, I'd rely on this definitely.

What did you find most useful about School Checker? Any improvements you’d like to see?

I liked the summary of helpful info. I can't think of any improvements I'd suggest.

Would you recommend School Checker to other parents and why?

For people moving to a new location, certainly. A lot of people we know move locally though and are quite aware of which locations are likely to get entry into which schools.

Any other comments?

I think it's a great addition to Right Move.

Did you use School Checker on your computer or on a mobile device or tablet?

On my phone (running Android 6.0.1)

How old are your children if you have any?

9 months old

How important are schools to you when planning to move home?

Probably more important than it should be, but he's our Precious First Born! My husband started checking Ofsted ratings of local schools as soon as I had a positive test, ha ha.

Would you consider moving home to get into a good school?

Yes, we hope to move before our boy starts primary school.

, From the Rightmove schools page (www.rightmove.co.uk/schools.html) was School Checker tab easy to find?*

Yes

How easy did you find School Checker to use and understand?

Very easy, everything was pretty intuitive.

Did you find School Checker useful?

Yes, we learnt that that local primary dropped another Ofsted rating at the end of last year, eek...

Would you use School Checker when considering a move?

Yes, it's handy to get the key information quickly. It's also good that there more detailed breakdowns and figures available, albeit in a separate site.

What did you find most useful about School Checker?

Seeing at a glance the rating, catchment, distance and subscription.

Any improvements you’d like to see?
Would you recommend School Checker to other parents and why?

It'd be nice if the Ofsted rating directly linked to the report in question, rather than having to click through other sites to get to it.

The app was easy to find and I accessed it on my mobile and iPad. I preferred it on the iPad. I have 2 children aged nearly 3 and 7 months. We moved to where we are specifically because of the school catchment but I did phone the county and check the postcode would be in the catchment for the schools we wanted our boys to attend on the coming years. I would worry that the app wasn't accurate but 100% feel it is a brilliant feature.

We are most concerned with primary school, for two reasons. The first is because invariably you will feed into the secondary school in the catchment (which for us is also great) and that we may move again before they reach this age.

My friends would also use the tool when looking and I'd recommend it. I would never take an app rightmove or otherwise as a accurate seal of fact in such a matter - id always follow up.
Likewise, slightly off topic, but an OFSTED grading is not everything in determining which school you should send your child to in my opinion.

Did you use School Checker on your computer or on a mobile device or tablet?

• I used the School Checker on my laptop.

How old are your children if you have any?

• I have 3 children, all coming up for their birthdays and will be 2, 8 & 10 years old.

How important are schools to you when planning to move home?

• Schools are very important as we want to be in the catchment areas for good schools.

Would you consider moving home to get into a good school?

• I'm not sure I'd consider moving to get the children into the desired school but it's definitely a big factor to consider when we do decide to move.

From the Rightmove schools page (www.rightmove.co.uk/schools.html) was School Checker tab easy to find?
*Yes it was very easy to find, just with the other property description tabs.

How easy did you find School Checker to use and understand?

• Very simple, pretty self explanatory.

Did you find School Checker useful?

• Yes I did find it useful as I could see what schools are in the are and surrounding area and Ofsted reports and subscription rates.

Would you use School Checker when considering a move?

• Yes definitely, to make sure that the property was within the catchment area/s for our preferred schools.

What did you find most useful about School Checker?

• That it shows if the property is within the schools catchment area.

Any improvements you’d like to see?

• No it seems pretty good to me.

Would you recommend School Checker to other parents and why?

• Yes, it showed me that there are more schools around this area that I could have sent my children to whereas I previously assumed we would be out of area.

Any other comments?

• No :)

computer or on a mobile device or tablet?
I used a mobile device (iPhone 5)

How old are your children if you have any?
2 and 4 weeks
How important are schools to you when planning to move home?
Quite important. We looked at local primaries before we moved.

Would you consider moving home to get into a good school?
We would for a good secondary school but hoping grammar school stops us needing to? (Hoping they get their dad's brains)

From the Rightmove schools page (www.rightmove.co.uk/schools.html) was School Checker tab easy to find?
Yes, was really straight forward

How easy did you find School Checker to use and understand?
Really easy language, no issues with understanding

Did you find School Checker useful?
A bit, I know not to take offsted scores as gospel.

Would you use School Checker when considering a move?
Yes, in the initial stages.

What did you find most useful about School Checker?
Seeing which schools are closest

Any improvements you’d like to see?
No

Would you recommend School Checker to other parents and why?yes

Did you use School Checker on your computer or on a mobile device or tablet?
Mobile.
How old are your children if you have any?
4 and 1.
How important are schools to you when planning to move home?
I considered it when we last moved, it will be a major factor in our next move.
Would you consider moving home to get into a good school?
Yes, if the alternatives were not good
From the Rightmove schools page (www.rightmove.co.uk/schools.html) was School Checker tab easy to find?
Yes very easy.
How easy did you find School Checker to use and understand?
Very easy.
Did you find School Checker useful?
Yes, it was handy to see the information in one place.
Would you use School Checker when considering a move?
Yes, but i would also check with the local authority or school, especially if it was a deciding factor for a move.
What did you find most useful about School Checker?
Seeing which schools were oversubscribed.
Any improvements you’d like to see?
Can't think of any.
Would you recommend School Checker to other parents and why?
Yes as the information is available elsewhere but it's good to see it in one place while looking for a property.
Any other comments?
As far as I know, the details were correct as I found a property on my street, and have just been through school applications for my DD.

Thanks for all the feedback.
Am pleased to say Onedaylikethi5ayear wins the £300 voucher.