Methodology & data transparency
How we source, score, label and limit the information on this site. We aim to be conservative and to show uncertainty honestly: missing data is shown as unknown, never guessed.
Ofsted has stopped issuing single-word overall judgements (Outstanding / Good / Requires Improvement / Inadequate). Schools are now graded with a report card across multiple areas on a five-point scale — Exceptional, Strong Standard, Expected Standard, Needs Attention, Urgent Improvement — with safeguarding judged separately as Met / Not met. Ofsted states the old single-word grades are not comparable to the new report-card outcomes.
Any single-word Ofsted grade shown on this site is therefore historical: it reflects a school's last inspection under the previous framework and the date of that inspection is shown alongside it. We do not present these grades as current, and we do not rank or filter schools by them as if they were current, comparable outcomes. As schools are re-inspected under the new framework, we show the report-card areas separately and do not convert them into a single grade.
1. Data sources & vintage
Most profile data is drawn from official UK government sources. Practical information such as curriculum pages, care, clubs, fees and leaver destinations can come from the school's own website; those fields are labelled school-published, carry a source link and capture date, and are not described as DfE or Ofsted data. Each figure reflects the most recent release we have imported; where a figure is older, we label its year.
| Dataset | Source | Notes on currency |
|---|---|---|
| School register, status, type, location | GIAS (Get Information About Schools, DfE) | The canonical key is the URN. Schools recorded as closed are labelled as closed and excluded from rankings. |
| Inspection outcomes | Ofsted | Single-word grades are historical (pre-10-Nov-2025) and shown with their inspection date. See the box above. |
| Pupil characteristics (FSM, EAL, ethnicity) | School Census (DfE, annual) | The demographics shown reflect the labelled census year; FSM may differ from the latest census, which is also shown where available. |
| SEN provision & pupil numbers | School Census / SEN release (DfE) | Where a value is suppressed by DfE for small numbers, we show it as suppressed — not as zero. |
| KS2 / KS4 (Attainment 8, Progress 8) / attendance | DfE Performance Tables | 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 are COVID-affected and are not used in trend lines. Small cohorts (<11) are suppressed. |
| KS4 and 16–18 destinations | DfE Explore Education Statistics — April 2026 institution-level releases, 2022-23 leavers observed in 2023-24 | DfE's own published percentages, to 1 decimal place. KS4 covers activity after Year 11; 16–18 measures cover students who completed sixth-form or college study at that institution. Both require six sustained months. Cohorts under 6 are not published and are shown as unknown; “activity not captured” is retained separately. |
| Admissions / catchment distances | Scraped Local Authority admissions arrangements | Fragmentary and approximate — see the catchment section below. |
| Curriculum, care, clubs, facilities, fees and leaver information | School websites and statutory publication pages | 24,640 homepages were checked on 6 August 2026, producing 14,111 useful profiles including 869 progression/leavers links. A link is not proof of a service or outcome. Specific subjects, hours, prices or destinations are shown only on reviewed records, with the source and check date. |
| Local crime, transport, flood and broadband | Police.uk, TfL, Environment Agency and Ofcom | Fetched at runtime for Pro profiles. Crime is a Police.uk local-area incident sample, not a population-adjusted rate. TfL stop distances are available in London; no placeholder national transport score is published. |
| Independent schools | ISC / ISI (partial) | Coverage is partial; some independent schools are unrated or inspected several years ago. |
2. AI-generated summaries & search
Each school page may include an AI-generated summary. These are produced by a large language model from the official data above and are clearly labelled as AI-generated. They are a convenience, not an authoritative source.
- Summaries are generated at build time and carry a data-vintage note; they may not reflect changes since the last data refresh.
- Any Ofsted grade mentioned in a summary is a historical single-word grade (see the box above) and the inspection date is shown.
- We do not use AI to invent strengths, results, or admissions verdicts. The AI search box only converts your words into filters — it does not answer free-form questions or estimate your chances of admission.
- Always verify anything important directly with the school or the local authority.
3. Catchment distances — an approximation, not a prediction
Where we show a "last distance offered", it is the straight-line distance of the furthest child admitted in a recent year under a school's distance criterion, scraped from that local authority's published admissions data. It is:
- an approximation (straight-line, not walking/road distance, and the year is shown);
- not a guaranteed catchment boundary and not a prediction that a child living closer will get a place — distances vary every year;
- not applicable to schools that do not admit primarily on distance. For grammar/selective schools admission is by test and distance is only a tie-breaker among qualifying children; for faith schools religious criteria are applied first; many schools also use designated catchment areas, sibling/feeder priority, banding or random allocation that a distance circle cannot represent. For these schools we suppress the distance circle.
Always check the admitting authority's current published arrangements before relying on any distance.
4. The Schools Near Me score & insights
Our composite score (0–100) and the insights derived from it (rankings, "improving fastest", percentile badges) are computed from the official data above. Here is the exact formula.
The four components
Each component is expressed on a 0–100 scale and combined using these weights:
| Component | Weight | What it uses |
|---|---|---|
| Inspection | 30% | The last overall inspection grade: Outstanding 100, Good 75, Requires Improvement 35, Inadequate 0. |
| Exam results | 40% | The phase-appropriate attainment measure — GCSE Attainment 8 for secondaries, KS2 reading/writing/maths for primaries, A-level average point score for sixth forms. |
| Attendance | 15% | Overall absence rate; lower is better. |
| Class size | 15% | Pupil–teacher ratio; lower is better. |
How the scales are set
The three continuous measures are not scored against fixed thresholds picked by us. Each is mapped onto 0–100 by straight-line interpolation between the 5th and 95th percentile of the actual national distribution for that measure, and clamped at the ends. The scale therefore re-calibrates itself on every data refresh rather than drifting against hard-coded constants. Absence and pupil–teacher ratio are calibrated separately for primary and secondary phases, because a figure that is ordinary at a secondary is not ordinary at an infant school.
Schools missing a component
A school is scored on the components it actually has, with the remaining weights rescaled to sum to 100%. A missing input is never counted as a zero — that would publish "this school is bad" when we only mean "we do not know". We do require at least two components, covering at least 45% of the weighting, before we call something a composite: with only an inspection grade the "score" would just be that grade restated as a number, implying a precision it does not have.
Where we publish no score at all
The current score coverage is reported in the live inventory below rather than hard-coded here, so it updates with every release. Profiles without a defensible composite show "Not scored" (or "—" in compact tables) everywhere on the site. That label means the official inputs are not comparable or sufficient; it is not a zero. Common reasons include:
- not enough current score inputs to form a defensible composite, including at many independent schools;
- special schools without a mainstream-comparable attainment measure—their inspection, SEN provision and other published data are still shown;
- schools inspected outside the comparable England framework, including Estyn-inspected Welsh schools;
- hospital schools, pupil referral units and other alternative provision with small or transient cohorts;
- school-specific data-integrity corrections where a newer official record conflicts with an older input.
- "Top X% nationally" badges are computed from the actual national distribution of the current data, recomputed on every refresh.
- Closed schools are excluded from all rankings and recommendations.
- The score is not an Ofsted rating and is not endorsed by Ofsted or the DfE.
Comparable schools and next-stage options
Comparable schools are a derived navigation aid, not a ranking. A school must first match the same sector or provision family and age stage. Candidates are then ordered using age range, current pupil roll, FSM, EAL, SEN and geographic distance where those inputs are published. Inspection grades, exam results and Schools Near Me scores never influence the match. Each profile shows the concrete reasons for its matches.
Nearby next-stage schools are selected only because they are open, geographically close and serve the next relevant age range. They are labelled as options and must not be interpreted as feeder schools, destinations or evidence of an admissions relationship. A leaver destination is shown as such only when the school publishes it, and the profile states when counts or cohort rates are unavailable.
5. Coverage
Inspection and performance data on this site are England-centric. GIAS and Ofsted cover England; Wales is inspected by Estyn and Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate systems. Welsh schools may appear in search but do not carry Ofsted ratings or DfE England performance data and are not scored. Independent-school coverage is partial (via ISC/ISI). We are explicit about these gaps rather than implying complete UK coverage.
Every school profile reports how many of these eight areas are available for that school. An unavailable area stays visibly unavailable: it is never inferred, scored as zero, or silently omitted.
The inventory below is generated from the same school records used by the live profiles. It includes aggregate counts for Pro fields, but does not expose those fields for individual schools.
Loading the current coverage inventory…
6. Data-quality commitments
- Missing data is shown as unknown and never interpolated or defaulted.
- Suppressed (small-number) and COVID-affected values are never presented as normal results.
- The published export is reconciled against the authoritative register before release; closed/duplicate/identity issues are caught by an automated gate.
- Found an error? Email hello@schoolsnearme.ai and we will correct it.