debbie#1

Can anyone tell me how you find out the difference between good and bad schools in an area.

We are hoping to move back in 18 mths with 2 young children who will be 8 and 5 at that time. Not sure where we will end up living depends on where we find good jobs but how on earth do you determine what schools are good or bad - can anyone give me some guidelines.

Thanks

Kath

I do sympathise, when I first started looking at schools I used league tables for senior schools eg. percentage of pupils achieving grade A-C pass at GSCE, I would then look at the feeder schools (primary) for a high performing senior school. You often see a pattern, higher performing schools in good (expensive!) residential areas.

Some say you have to look at each school individually, speak to the head etc. but you need to start somewhere and I think the league tables / ofsted reports give you a fairly good guide.

The ofsted website is www.ofsted.gov.uk

I think league tables can be found on the BBC website and the Times newspaper produces league tables every year.

Good luck!

spottydog

Here is a link to to BBC's website where you can search on schools, best, worst, GCSE results for Secondary, national curriculum results for primary etc.

It may also be worth looking at estate agents in the rough areas where you are thinking of living as houses in the catchment area of a school that is well though of locally will often say in the particulars that they are in the catchment area for X school (houses don't tend to advertise that they are in the catchment area of a bad school!).

HTH

wildmark

There is a very easy way of telling which is good and which is bad, go into the school, if there checking the kids for weapons then its good, if there giving the kids weapons...stay away

Tangram

Try this Deb

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education...es/default.stm

proo

You could ask to have a tour of the school during school hours to see what the teaching/facilities etc are like. Not sure if they'll do that but it won't hurt to ask.

Paul the spark

Hi Debbie

The OFSTED reports are very good but I would post this again when you know the area you will be living. There are a number of really good schools in my area but they all have a different feel and I would recommend a different school depending on the child you are sending there. I'm sure you would get some great feed back when you can limit you query to a smaller area.

Good luck with the job hunting.

Jo

arkon

Hi Debbie, Try this http://www.upmystreet.com/ enter your postcode or area your thinking about and then follow then links on the bottom right for schools and crime etc. This was very accurate for my house that we left in the UK.