Picking the right school for your child

Choosing a school for your child can be an extremely daunting challenge. Of course it`s not a task that should be particularly easy. You will be selecting an establishment that will shape your child`s future in so many ways, not just academically, but socially too. Our experiences at school shape who we will become, and help set us on a path for life. With that in mind selecting a school for your child certainly should be difficult, but there are certainly ways you can make this process a little easier.

The first thing to do is work out what kind of school you are actually looking for. Private or state? religious or secular? Single sex or coed? Once these broad categories are decided you will narrow down your search considerably. Are certain sports important - some schools will for example favour rugby over football. If your child is especially artistic you will want to investigate the creative facilities offered by different schools. What are the drama and music departments like? Is art accorded as much important as other academic subjects? Or is it a sideline option, and not granted much importance?

Proximity to home will of course be a determining factor, but there may well be dozens of schools within your catchment area. How can you best decide which one is right for your child? Perhaps you have friends or family who have attended one of them. Spend some time viewing the websites for those schools you are interested in, and not down what impressions you get.

Does your child require special needs provisions? Every school is legally required to employ their best efforts to ensure those children with SEN get the support they require. Inevitably some schools will be better than others at providing this requisite assistance, and online research may provide testimonies from pupils and parents attesting (or decrying) the level of help in some of the schools you are considering.

The School`s Guide offers information that is `Unbiased and updated daily` with their abundance of data being aggregated from `official sources` such as Ofsted, the Department for Education, the School Inspection Service, Independent Schools Council, Education Scotland, Estyn (Wales),  the Department of Education (Northern Ireland), and the Welsh Government. The School`s Guide also has specific cartographical information relating to catchment areas, just so you can be sure which schools you can actually apply to, based on your residential location.

The next thing to do is visit each of the schools you are considering. You can read all the analytics in the world, pour through testimonials, scour pages of statistics, but there`s no substitute for actually visiting a school. Each of them will have official open days, so be sure to check far in advance, so you don`t end up missing out. Trust your instincts when you are on site. Does the school feel welcoming, friendly, a place you can see your child reaching their full potential and being happy?

If possible you should make these school visits well in advance - as much as a year or more would be prudent, for this will give you the opportunity to make repeat visits, and also bring your child along to the set of schools you have shortlisted. Ask them how they feel about each school, and whether they think they would be happy there. Remember, they will be the one potentially spending the best part of a decade there; if they aren`t happy at school they may not reach their full academic potential.

Tutor Hunt has a comprehensive Schools Page, where we have collated a vast amount of detailed information for every school in the United Kingdom. Here you will find listed the number of pupils in each school, the ratio of pupils to teachers, and grade comparisons with the regional and national averages, and much else besides. The full Ofsted report for each school will also be available.