School Compass
Find your bearings when choosing a school.
Loading school and early-years data…
How to read this as a parent
Published tables and inspection excerpts help you compare a shortlist. They do not choose a school for you. New here? Use How to use in the header for a short walkthrough. On each Side by side path, open What this tells you for path-specific guidance, and print a shortlist / visit pack when you are ready to go.
What the data can tell you
- How nearby settings compare on the same published measures.
- Whether outcomes sit near, above, or below local / England context.
- Themes inspectors recently highlighted — strengths and next steps.
- Travel distance as a practical filter, not a measure of school quality.
What this is not telling you
- Whether your child will be happy, taught well, or make friends here.
- Admissions chances, catchment, faith criteria, or waiting-list practice.
- Day-to-day ethos, behaviour climate, or SEND support beyond short excerpts.
- A ranked “best school” — tables and reports are one lens, not a verdict.
Fair conclusions you can draw
- Which settings look similar enough to visit side by side.
- Which questions the numbers raise for open days and phone calls.
- Where coverage is thin (missing grades, new academies) so you dig deeper.
How to use this for decisions
- Shortlist a few settings that look plausible on paper and on the map.
- Treat gaps and older inspections as prompts to ask, not automatic rejects.
- Visit (or watch a normal session), talk to staff, and weigh fit for your child.
- Keep notes on what you saw — printed packs are for that, not for league ranks.
Expected standard means pupils met the level expected for the end of primary. Higher standard is a tougher bar. Scaled scores centre on 100. Inspection précis excerpts are verbatim from Ofsted/ISI PDFs — open the full report for context.
Data
School Compass harvests published figures from the DfE Explore Education Statistics API (KS2 and KS4), Ofsted independent-school management information, school coordinates from postcodes.io, and road distances from OSRM — expanded from the collation approach used for Bartley Insight.
Early years: Ofsted childcare day-care inspections; Ofsted grades for state nursery / infant / primary settings with an early-years intake; consented childminder names/addresses (Ofsted quarterly file); plus EYFSP England and local-authority area context (provider-level EYFSP is not published — Ofsted grades and EYFSP area figures answer different questions). State schools: institution-level Key Stage 2 attainment plus local-authority phonics for KS1. Independents: Key Stage 4 tables plus Ofsted non-association inspections. Progress measures are sparse for 2024/25 because of missing KS1 baselines.
Official school pages: compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk.