This is a ‘how to’-style article about comparing schools. So, do read on if you’re at the stage of needing to select a secondary school for your child. In other words, the days of ferrying your children to tuition centres to study an 11 plus course or undertake 11 plus mock exams are behind you. In this article, we’ll be discussing the next phase of your child’s education: secondary school.
In the past, when parents needed to decide which school they wanted to send their children to, they had to rely on reviews from other parents and/ or pupils who had experience of a particular school (or rely on the overall reputation of a particular school). Things have come a long way since then; it is now possible to compare different types of schools using accurate government data on a screen. This article will show you, step-by-step, how to compare secondary schools.
Step 1:
Navigate to https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/
Step 2:
Select ‘local authority’.
For the purpose of this demonstration, let’s select Camden. Those readers who have read the ‘about us’ page will know we moved from Camden to Bexley, so we have some knowledge of some of the schools there.
Step 3:
Input your required filters. So, as a minimum, select secondary schools, and then select any other filters you require (e.g. boys’ school, etc.).
For this example, let’s only filter for secondary schools.
Step 4:
Click the ‘compare results in a table’ link on the right hand side (shown in purple below).
Step 5:
This will show you all the schools within the local authority as per the filter.
Most parents will want to ignore “independent” schools (private), “special” schools (for children with a disability) and “college” (for older children).
One of the most important indicators of how good a school is is the ‘progress 8’ score. However, for the 2026 September Year 7 intake, this information is not available. The government explanation for this is as follows:
“We are not able to calculate Progress 8 scores for academic years 2024/25 and 2025/26. This is because there is no KS2 assessment data available to calculate the baseline for Progress 8 for these years due to Covid-19 disruption. We are also unable to show results broken down by prior attainment. For more information see the KS4 technical guide. Attainment measures show how pupils have performed in tests and assessments but do not take pupils’ starting points into account.
Pupils included in this performance data will have experienced some disruption due to Covid-19 earlier in their schooling, which will have affected individual pupils and schools differently.”
This is very unfortunate because Progress 8 is a very valuable measure. This has been discussed in length in another article, so we won’t get into that in this ‘how to’ article. But there is a silver lining here: we can view the progress 8 score from previous years. Unless a school has totally lost the ability to help children make progress, this data can still be valuable, even though it is slightly old.
Use the ‘looking at’ option to select ‘Progress 8 scores for 2023 and 2024’ to show old previous Progress 8 data.
Step 6:
Once the Progress 8 scores have been selected, you will now be able to see some very important data.
The main thing you’ll want to do is:
- Avoid any schools with ‘below average’ or ‘well below average’ Progress 8 scores
- Try to get your child into an ‘above average’ Progress 8 score school (and if this is not possible, try to go for an ‘average’ Progress 8 score school)
As with any data, there are many things the data doesn’t tell you, which you’ll need to do further research into.
For example, let’s pick out a few things from this Progress 8 table:
- Parliament Hill School is a girls’ school, but this is not obvious from the table. This means the top two schools in Camden are both girls’ schools, which is no good to you if you have a son.
- The top two schools attract a significant amount of pupils from middle class families. Why does this matter? Children from middle class families are more likely to have had access to better educational opportunities (e.g. some may have attended prep schools, some may have had private tutors, etc.)
- Some schools are in the heart of council estates (such as Regent High School). Why does this matter? Given that schools take in pupils from the immediate catchment area, almost all children are more likely to be from low income and/ or persistently disadvantaged households. In theory, if all children are getting roughly the same education (all teachers have equivalent qualifications, all pupils have same quality resources, etc.), in theory the outcomes should be similar, but unfortunately that is not what the reality points to. Pupil backgrounds matter massively, and this is not something the data shows very clearly.
- The progress 8 does not give any indication about the behaviour or inclusiveness of a school. Parents must use other means to find out information about behaviour.
Comparison on schools and the corresponding data is an important step, but it is one of many steps when it comes to selecting a secondary school. You should also take a look at the Ofsted report, which now has a new look. We’ve put out a video explainer as well as an article explaining this previously. One of the most important things to do is to visit schools and speak to pupils and teachers. The good, old fashioned way of speaking to other parents and/ or ex-students of a school is still very valuable.
Overall, this is a huge decision for parents, and one that will impact both the child and parents. For example, if a pupil ends up attending a school where he/she gets bullied, the problem becomes a family problem, not just a pupil problem. Hopefully some of the tips provided in this article is of some use to prospective secondary school parents.
Looking for downloadable resources? Head to our downloads page.