Choosing a secondary school on paper

A secondary school can be compared, up to a point, before anyone walks through the gate. The comparison is only as good as the documents you line up. A remark in a group chat, a cousin's memory from several years ago, and a photograph of a new hall are not the same kind of evidence as a policy. For each school you are seriously considering, collect the same set: the admissions rules, the most recent inspection, a page that lists subjects, the results the school itself publishes, and the practical facts about the day, such as start time and how students get there. If one school hands you a glossy booklet and another has a plain page on a website, still hunt for the same lines. The booklet is allowed to look inviting. It is a poor sole source.

Read the admissions rules before you read about the laboratories. Those rules say who is offered a place when more families apply than the school can take. The categories usually appear in order. They might include a brother or sister already there, a distance or a drawn area, a faith requirement, a banding or selective test, a child in public care, or a medical or social reason backed by evidence. The labels differ from place to place. What you need is the order, and the proof each category demands. Living nearby is not always first. Families who assumed the local school would simply have room sometimes find, when offers come out, that distance was far down the list and the list never reached them. For each school, write the category you would actually be considered under, and the paper that category asks for. A sibling's enrolment, a measured distance, and a faith record are not substitutes for one another.

Distance deserves a slow paragraph of its own. One policy measures along the roads it names. Another uses a straight line from a point on the campus to your front door. Another uses a map kept by a local authority. Two schools that feel equally close can put you inside one cutoff and outside the other because the ruler is different. A cutoff published for last year is a clue, not a promise. New housing, a smaller intake, or a crowd of siblings can move the line. Note the figure and the year it belongs to. Then find the application instructions. Some systems use one form with a ranked list. Some require a test entry with an earlier date. Missing a test because you watched only the main deadline is a paper mistake, and it is a common one. Put every date on one line of your notes, including the date you must reply if an offer arrives.

Inspection writing is a public document with a date, and the date is part of the meaning. A report several years old describes a school that may have a different head, a different size, or a different version of the problem the visitors named. Read the headline judgement if there is one, then read the part that says what should improve. That part is often more useful than the praise, because it names something in ordinary language: attendance, a subject, the progress of a group of students, behaviour when classes change over. Look for a later visit that says whether the point was dealt with. If you cannot find one, write "no later visit found" rather than assuming the issue faded. Remember the limit of the form. Inspectors see a sample of days. They are not reviewing your child, and a single word at the top is not a league table even when conversation treats it as one.

Published results need the same patience. A percentage can rise because fewer students were entered, because that year group was unusual, or because the measure itself changed. Look for how many students the figure covers and which subjects are inside it. A strong number in a course your child will not take is weak evidence for your decision. A weak number in a course they care about is a question for a visit, not an automatic no. Compare like with like: the same year, the same kind of figure, across your list. One school's progress score and another's raw pass rate do not belong in the same cell. A chart that mixes them looks exact and means little. If the school publishes a note explaining a dip, read the note, then see whether the next year is there to test it.

The page that lists what is taught answers a different question from last year's scores. Find out when students choose subjects, how many they keep, whether sciences are offered as separate courses, which languages appear, and whether a technical or vocational line sits beside the more academic one. A school that chooses options earlier gives less time to the subjects that get dropped. If a prospectus says "a broad range," look for the actual names. Range, on paper, means the names are printed. Notice what stays compulsory for longer than you expected: a language, a religious studies course, a sports programme that takes a double lesson. Older students doing this reading for themselves should circle the subjects they already want and see whether those subjects are still there in the exam years. A school can be strong overall and still not teach the course that matters for one person.

Practical facts belong on the same sheet, because a place you cannot reach at the start of the day is not a place you hold. Note the published beginning and end of the day. If breakfast or after-school care is described, note the times and any price that is printed. A uniform or kit list with prices is part of the cost of saying yes, even when tuition itself is not charged. Bus routes are often on a local authority page rather than the school's own site. The cost of a pass, and whether the pass is only for the nearest school, can decide a choice the prospectus never mentions. Time the journey you would really do on a wet morning, not the one you did on an open day when you left early and traffic was light. Two schools with similar results and a large difference in travel are not similar for a student who is already short of sleep.

Make one table and force every school into the same rows. Useful rows include: how you apply and by which date, the admission category you fall under, the last published cutoff and its year, the inspection date and the main weakness named, one results figure you have defined the same way for each school, languages offered, when options are chosen, the length of the day, the journey, and any cost the school actually prints. Leave a cell blank rather than filling it with a guess. A blank is a question for the open evening. A guess becomes a fact by dinner and is hard to remove. Keep the table to a page. If it runs long it will sit unused, and the most colourful booklet will win because it is easier to pick up.

The booklet and the open evening have a role, and it is not the role of the policy. They show how the school wishes to be seen: rooms, clubs, a sentence about values. Read them after the table exists, or you will remember an atrium and forget the order of admissions criteria. On a visit, carry three questions the papers could not answer. Where do students eat. How large is an ordinary class in the subject you care about. What happens on the day the homework was not understood. If you can see students moving between lessons, watch that rather than only the empty room on the tour. A scripted walk tells you about the building. The way adults speak, and whether students arrive to the next lesson as if the timetable were real, tells you something about the day. You will not learn everything. You can learn whether the paper and the place argue with each other.

Offers, waiting lists, and refusals are documents too. An offer names a school and usually a date by which you must answer. Read that line. Holding one place while vaguely keeping another can fail if the instructions require a clear reply. A waiting list should say how it is ordered. Often it uses the same criteria as the original admissions, not the order in which people telephoned. A friendly call does not move a distance rule. A refusal should say how far down the list the school got and why you were not in the category that was reached. Check that letter against your table. Mistakes happen: a sibling not recorded, a distance taken from an old address. Those can be raised with evidence. Sadness that a popular school filled is not a mistake in the form.

A school can look excellent in its papers and still be wrong for a particular student. A school with a mixed inspection can still be right. The table does not replace that judgment. It stops the judgment from being only a mood or only a building. Talk about the rows the student can understand: the subjects, the journey, the size of the year if it is published, the hour you spent on the visit. A younger child may only be able to say that one place felt calmer. That sentence can count. It should not be the only thing that counts. Parents sometimes choose the school they themselves once wanted. The rows make that visible. Put the student's subjects and the daily journey first, and see whether the school you are defending still comes out ahead when those two are not allowed to be afterthoughts.

Keep what you downloaded. Rules are revised, and the file you read in the autumn may not be the file applied if you are looking ahead to the next round. Write the date on your copy. If someone at a tour tells you something kinder than the published rule, ask them to point to the line or to send it in writing. A spoken reassurance about a place is not an offer. The offer, when it exists, looks plain: a name, a date, a sentence about how to accept or decline. That plainness is useful. It means the decision has moved from reputation to a page you can accept, refuse, or query with a fact someone else can check.

This page is general information. It is not a policy, a diagnosis, a school place, or a trade.