Guides
The parts of choosing a school that the published figures do not explain.
Most of this site is data: what the Department for Education and Ofsted publish about each school, arranged so you can compare it. These are the questions that data raises and cannot answer. What a Progress 8 score of −0.3 actually means. Why the school two streets away turned you down. What an appeal panel is allowed to consider, and what it must ignore however good the reason.
How to appeal a refused school place
The deadline, the independent panel, the two-stage test, and why infant class size cases are different from every other appeal.
How catchment areas really work
Why most schools do not have a catchment area at all, what last distance offered actually means, and the mistakes that cost families a place.
How to read the new Ofsted report cards
The single-word grade is gone. What replaced it, what the five-point scale means, and why most schools still show an old grade.
What Progress 8 actually measures
Why a school with ordinary GCSE results can have excellent Progress 8, how the score is built, and why there is no figure at all for 2025 or 2026.