How we work
Where the data comes from
We collect data from three sources: Local authority admission documents (published under the School Admissions Code), Get Information About Schools (GIAS) — the DfE's official register of all schools in England, and Ofsted inspection outcomes, updated monthly from the Ofsted Management Information dataset. Each year's oversubscription criteria, last qualifying distances, and priority categories come from the relevant council's published supplementary information form or composite prospectus.
Ofsted inspections
For each school we show its most recent Ofsted inspection: the date, the overall judgement where one exists, the individual inspection judgements, and a link to the full report. Since September 2024 Ofsted no longer issues a single overall grade for state schools — newer inspections show separately graded evaluation areas instead, and we present those rather than invent an overall grade. Where we compare a school to others in its borough, that share covers only schools that still have an overall grade, and we say so. The data is a monthly snapshot, so a very recent inspection may not appear until the next release; the inspection date on each page shows how current it is.
How distances are calculated
Distances are measured as the straight-line (crow-flies) distance from a child's home address to the school's main entrance, in miles. This matches how most London councils calculate priority distance. A small number of councils use walking-route distance instead — we flag those cases on the relevant school page.
Data quality
Every data point is extracted from source documents. We don't interpolate or estimate. If a year's data is missing, we say so rather than fill the gap. Where a council publishes a range ("the last child admitted lived 0.4–0.6 miles away"), we record the outer bound.
Update schedule
We aim to update data within 4 weeks of each council publishing its annual admissions report, typically between March and June each year.