School prospectuses: Useful? Or do they go straight in the recycling?

[parsleyplant]

In the spirit of saving money and the planet, our state secondary school is considering ditching prospectuses for Year 7 and Sixth Form. This seems like a no-brainer to me, because any prospectuses I've been given over the years tend to go straight in the recycling without ever being read. I get the info I need from the school website instead, and from visiting.

Does anyone actually find prospectuses form a key part of their decision making? Are other schools going down the same route?

They seem to be all online anyway. And they don't give you the info you want like 'do staff treat kids as human beings or are they scared of them', 'do staff overall understand autism/ other SEN', 'is communication within the school and with parents good or terrible'.

Recycling.

I didn't know that state schools had printed prospectuses? I've never seen one, only information sheets given out at open evenings. I know that private schools have them but they contain very little useful information other than the printed inserts with application forms and terms & conditions/subjects offered.

I always look online.

I'm looking into sixth forms and find the printed prospectus very useful. However, I do not like the individual cards of students who have done well and what their results are (I can see the results on the tables printed in the prospectus, I don't care who the individual students are) or general schools ones which are really just nice pics with a few blurbs.
I want a list of A level courses and descriptions, I want a table of results, I want fees and scholarships explained, I want what bells and whistles they offer and I want to know what their ethos and USP is.
We now have a stack of them and they act as a good reminder of which is which school as after four or five open days they can get jumbled up. Online brochures help but I want something physical to write notes on and refer to. It doesn't need to be in special folders though - we have a few of those (and one school even gave us a sturdy printed paper shopping bag ith string handles like an upmarket shop for theirs that we store them all in).
I requested a few prospectus's through an online school guide and it was interesting to see who actually responded. KGS only gave us a general brochure (with nice pics and blurbs but I've no better idea about the sixth form), SHS nothing at all. Ashbourne College a really lovely one that turned up the very next day.

Yes must say the schools are all independent though we did get one from Lady Margeret's when we went to the open day.

I do think that 6th form ones can be very useful and agree that's the sort of info I want. (we collected quite a few at specialist events called Moe It and CDMT)

I even sent ours back as we ended up with one in each school Tour. I love a pencil but you can keep the booklets.

We looked at them but online would be fine, just want the information we need accessible.

One school gave us a digital version on a memory stick branded with the school's crest. Still got the memory stick at least.