Methodology

This page explains how every fact on this site is sourced, what the badges next to some figures mean, and how often things get refreshed. Read this before you trust a pass mark or a deadline from anywhere on this site.

What the badges mean

Every claim on this site falls into one of four buckets. We try to make which bucket visible, rather than presenting a confirmed fact and an educated guess with the same confidence.

Sourced and confirmed

Drawn directly from a primary source — the school's own published admissions arrangements, a DfE record, or an Ofsted report — and cited. These appear with no badge.

Partly verified

We found a source, but it was secondary rather than primary, or ambiguous enough that we couldn't fully cross-check it.

Sources conflict

Two credible sources gave different figures and we couldn't establish which was current or correct. We report both rather than silently picking one.

Verify with school

We looked and couldn't find a reliable public source. We say so rather than leaving the field blank or filling it with a plausible-sounding guess.

We'd rather show a gap than fill it with a guess — and we hold that line hardest on admissions requirements, pass marks and deadlines, because a wrong number there could cost someone a real application.

Where the facts come from

DfE Get Information About Schools (GIAS)

The government register of every English school — used for URNs, capacity, roll, local authority, and admissions policy status.

Each school's own published admissions arrangements

The primary source for entrance test board, qualifying score, catchment and priority criteria — these are legally required to be published and are re-determined most years, so we date every figure we take from them.

Ofsted reports

Inspection ratings and dates, read from the published report.

DfE performance tables

Published GCSE and A-level results and Progress 8 scores, used for the results tables.

How often this updates

Admissions arrangements are typically re-determined annually — treat any pass mark or deadline on this site as most reliable close to its publication date, and always re-check it against the school's own current admissions page before relying on it for an actual application. Results tables get a scheduled refresh each year once the DfE publishes new performance data.

Corrections

If you work at one of these schools, or you're a parent or applicant who's spotted something wrong, we want to know — see contact. We'd rather fix a mistake than defend one.