The Good Schools Guide

About the number one UK trusted school guide.

The Good Schools Guide is the UK’s number one school guide, helping parents in every aspect of choosing the best education for their children.

Trusted by parents for 35 years, our guides include impartial and candid school reviews as well as in-depth articles on education-related issues. Our reviews are available in print, online to subscribers or through The Good Schools Guide’s expert consultants.

Uniquely, each school is selected on merit alone. No one can buy their way into The Good Schools Guide’s good books. And from famous names to local treasures, our writers visit every single school, interview the head, speak to pupils and parents, analyse academic performance and challenge the marketing hype. Result? The fearsomely frank and funny reviews for which we are famous.

Some 1,300 schools are currently reviewed. In addition, our website has details of all 30,000+ schools in the UK, plus a wealth of insightful information on virtually all English schools - even if our writers have not actually visited and reviewed them.

The Good Schools Guide website also provides a comprehensive collection of advice and education data on state and independent schools, tutors, special needs, university choice and much more. In addition, our name is known worldwide for tailor-made advice and support given by educational consultants who help individual families as they make important decisions on school choices.

The Good Schools Guide is independent, forthright, well-informed and unbiased, which gives it unique authority and has earned the trust of parents and educational organisations worldwide. 

More about the school reviews

The Good Schools Guide reviews 1,300 schools, covering state and independent, boarding and day, mainstream and special sectors. If a school is not reviewed in The Guide this does not necessarily mean it is not a good school – our editors' selection of schools is a personal one. Moreover, we are in the process of gently expanding our coverage to include more good local schools. If you know of one that has been missed, please let us know: it’s parents like you who have made The Guide as good as it is.

Our write-ups are intended to be portraits of the schools, not inventories of their assets and achievements. The schools’ prospectuses and their websites are the best sources of the factual background.

Call: 0800 368 7694 (UK) +44 203 286 6824 (from overseas)
Email: [email protected]

Catchment maps explained

Catchment areas can and do change. Living in catchment one year does not guarantee admission to a school in future years. Always check with the school's own admissions authority for the current admissions criteria. Admissions criteria may include, but is not exclusive to: siblings, faith, ability, distance from school, SEN. Read more

Contact us

General enquiries: 0203 286 6824; Email: [email protected]

Press enquiries: Francis Hamlyn 07760 161373 [email protected]

Advertising enquiries: Charlotte Hollingshead 01395 576829 or 07747 614090; [email protected]

Fair comment

There are three elements to fair comment: It must concern something of which you can have personal knowledge; It must be comment; It must be fair. We may refuse to accept your comment if it does not fit with the Fair Comment guidance below. You are allowed to defame a school if what you are saying is fair/honest comment, we will support your right to do so if you stay within the law.

FAQs about subscribing

By subscribing to the Good Schools Guide online you can access our detailed, in-depth and often amusing reviews of over 1,000 schools we've visited, analysed and investigated (a mix of state schools, private schools and special schools).

FAQs from schools

The Good Schools Guide is an independent guide (we do not charge schools for their entries). The choice of schools for The Guide is a personal one, based on recommendations of parents and others who know the schools well. We periodically review schools included in The Guide and reconsider those schools not currently included but on the 'suggested list' to see if they should be added.

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GDPR Privacy Policy

Lucas Publications Limited (‘we’ or ‘us’ or ‘our’) gather and process your personal information in accordance with this privacy notice and in compliance with the relevant data protection regulation and laws. This notice provides you with the necessary information regarding your rights and our obligations. It explains how, why and when we process your personal data.

How to use the Good Schools Guide

Beneath its elegant exterior The Good Schools Guide website is bursting with facts, figures and feisty opinions on all aspects of education. In addition to over 1,000 witty, informative reviews – written by parents, for parents – there are statistical data (pupil numbers, exam results, university destinations, qualifications from BTEC to Pre-U) and much more. Whether you’re a wordsmith or a number cruncher, there’s something for everyone. To help you get the most out of what our website has to offer we’ve put together a brief guide.

Independent Schools Show - Parents Forum talks

In 2020, The Good Schools Guide is once again partnering with the Independent Schools Show in order to help parents find the best school for their child.

Building up to the annual London event, we are delighted to be co-presenting a series of three online events, each one dealing with key questions relating to independent schools. The Good Schools Guide Parents Forum is organised by the Independent Schools Show in partnership with The Good Schools Guide.

Licensing and advertising information

Charlotte Hollingshead

Publishing Matters, Friston Studios, Coreway, Sidford, Sidmouth, Devon EX10 9SE

www.publishingmatters.co.uk; [email protected]

Permission to use The Good Schools Guide logo

Schools that have been reviewed by The Good Schools Guide are permitted to add a Good Schools Guide logo to their site, and will find this is an excellent way for parents to quickly view exam performance, GSG review and catchment maps. You can customise your code so the logo links directly to your school page on the Good Schools Guide by adding in your schools URL.

If you have been reviewed by The Good Schools Guide and want prospective parents to read your review via your site, you will need to license your review. Please Contact Charlotte Hollingshead for information on licences: [email protected]

School data explained

The school data we publish comes from a number of government sources and, because of the effort involved in collecting and collating this information, is typically made available to us in the year after it is collected. We therefore refer to data by the year in which it was collected – this may not be the current year but it should be the latest available.

Terms & Conditions

for the Sale of Goods and the Provision of Services by Lucas Publications Ltd on this Website

INTRODUCTION

1. Please read these terms and conditions very carefully before ordering any goods and/or services from our website.

• Part One sets out the terms and conditions you agree to when you buy goods from our website.
• Part Two sets out the terms and conditions you agree to when you buy services from our website
• Part Three sets out  an outline of terms and conditions applicable if you wish to make use of our Education Consultants service.
• Part Four sets out the terms and conditions you agree to when you license our basic schools data.
• Part Five sets out the general conditions which apply in addition to Parts One, Two Three and Four.

Terms & Conditions for competitions

Terms and conditions relating to online competitions held by The Good Schools Guide.

Terms and Conditions SurveyMonkey questionnaire

We will use your answers to the questions below to inform our description of the services that the company provides, and to feed back to the company information which they can use to improve those services. By responding to this questionnaire you grant us permission to do this.

The Good Schools Guide accessibility policy

The Good Schools Guide (GSG) aim to make our websites accessible and usable for people of all abilities and disabilities, including older audiences, and those with visual, hearing, cognitive or motor impairments. Many people use assisting technologies to allow them, for example, to view websites in easier-to-read colours, with larger fonts or as spoken text, or to navigate around a site using the keyboard only.

The Good Schools Guide charter

We take our independence very seriously and the separation of commercial and editorial content is absolute. No school can pay to be included in (or choose to be excluded from) The Good Schools Guide, and we do not charge schools for reviews.

The Good Schools Guide cookie policy

Our site uses cookies to keep track of how often you visit our site, previous purchases and to deliver content specific to your interests. (A cookie is a piece of information that is stored on your computer's hard drive by your web browser which tracks your movements within websites.)

The Good Schools Guide newsletter

More than seven weeks into home schooling, we hope all our readers are holding up in their new combined roles of teacher, referee, pastoral mentor, children’s entertainer and canteen worker. The majority of us still don’t know when our children will return to school, so our advice is to accept the current situation as the ‘new normal’ and keep going as best you can, taking care not to be too hard on yourself or your offspring.

The Good Schools Guide Partners

The Good Schools Guide partners include 192, Netmums, angels & urchins, Independent School Show, Equestrian Index, Fulbright Commission, Gresham Books, Knight Frank, Microsoft Bing, and many others. If you would like to explore the opportunity of becoming a partner with The Good Schools Guide please contact: [email protected]

The Good Schools Guide partnership with Netmums

We’re delighted to announce that The Good Schools Guide has teamed up with the UK’s biggest parenting website, Netmums, to help parents find out everything they ever wanted to know about UK schools. Netmums’ new look school search will be powered by The Good Schools Guide’s comprehensive database, providing parents with the latest available information on all UK schools and summaries of all the Guide’s reviews.

The Good Schools Guide reviews

Since 1986, The Good Schools Guide has visited and published unbiased and candid reviews of the UK’s leading state and independent schools. What started off as a book of 250 school reviews, now includes more than 1,200 entries and can be found in print and online.

The Good Schools Guide to tutors

Everything you need to know about choosing a tutor for your child.

Website access terms

Standard terms and conditions for website access. Your access to and use of this site, provided by Lucas Publications is subject to these terms and conditions. Your use of this site constitutes your acceptance of these terms and conditions. Lucas Publications reserves the right to change these terms and conditions at any time by posting the changes on the site.

Write for The Good Schools Guide

The Good Schools Guide is looking for great writers with a passion for schools and education to join its team of school reviewers.