Choosing A School - Air Pollution

[StrugglingWithJuggling]

Hello - did anyone look at / consider air pollution / air quality at or in the streets the school when making their choice please?
If you did - how did you go about this? By asking the school or local authority (or someone else) what the figure for particles (pm) is or by looking it up?

And if you did, did it impact your choice in any way? Do you think it should be something that Ofsted should include in reports for information (obviously it is a figure that can go up or down so it would be for information on the dates of inspection). I realised this will be long way down the list of priorities for most people but it mattered to us and it was very hard to get info...

I didn't pick a primary school that has very poor air quality readings on road next to it. I did the same secondary wise for a school whose playing fields are right next to motorway.
I found the data on various websites.. Clean air and local councils.. Ring up the local EHO and ask for data

Interesting question. We live in the London suburbs and we had options very far in town, slightly further in, near us and further out. We did rule out the very far in ones due to horrible road pollution. We were not scientific about it like checking actual measurements but it was based on the experience of the visit.

The one further in set my chest off with fits of coughing and the smuts left on clothes was telling. Horrid. Slightly further in option was in a built up area and on busy roads so that one went at the bottom of the list. The one in deepest Kent was lovely and greener but a longer journey. We thought tiredness wasn’t a good option either. We decided on the one nearby. So yes we took it into consideration but from a location with fairly good environment and not very scientifically. Main criteria though was best fit for DD, fortunately best fit didn’t have the bad location so we didn’t have to weigh that up with the pollution issue.

Measures might be good but what about the parents who don’t have a choice. Do they end up full of angst - another stick to beat themselves up with if their child ends up at a school with a bad air quality rating. How much can be done to improve it and would this rating actually mean energy was put into improving air quality?

Thanks HappyToday and PettsWood - really good points and suggestions.

If you search the Guardian website, you should find a piece they did a couple of years ago where you could look up schools and find out the level of pollution at each.

I think it's important to consider this, as your child will be spending a lot of time there. You probably don't need to measure levels though - if the school is near a busy road there will be more pollution than if it isn't. You can just stand outside it for a while to get a feel for it. We left one school off our list because of this.