Goods Schools Guide 2008

The Good Schools Guide is the only truly independent guide to over 700 of the UK's top private and state schools. Many other current schools guides are financed by schools advertising or substantially compiled from information provided by schools.

The Good Schools Guide however, is written by parents for parents. The descriptions are vivid and outspoken, with critical analysis of each school's strengths and weaknesses.

The Good Schools Guide was founded in 1985 by Amanda Atha and Sarah Drummond, two parents in search of schools for their own children. With the help of other parents they visited hundreds of schools and wrote up their experiences in the direct and independent style that still characterises the Guide. Nineteen years later there are almost fifty contributors, spread throughout the UK. Most are parents with young children; a few are former heads and senior teachers.

The first edition sold out within a week. Not all the schools listed were pleased with their reviews and banned the editors from their premises, only to find that they were written up anyway on the basis of the reports and opinions of their parents and neighbours.

The guide has three founding principles, 1) to be independent in their judgements and to take no money from the schools directly or indirectly, 2) to use the parent's point of view and to choose schools for the Guide on the basis of what parents say about them and 3) to define good schools as schools that are good for the children and parents that they serve, and not to be too influenced by academic results alone.

The Good Schools Guide Website offers, free of charge, a comprehensive listing of all the public information available on all UK schools - from addresses, head teachers and pupil numbers through to exam results - arranged in as many useful ways as they can devise! The subscription section of the site offers the complete guide in a searchable online form.

The 2008 Good Schools Guide, now in its thirteenth edition, is available from 21st February 2008 directly from The Good Schools Guide Website. A paper copy of the 2008 edition costs £35, subscription to the online version cost £35, and if you purchase both together the cost is £46.

The paper version of the 2008 Good Schools Guide is also available from Amazon.co.uk

The Good Schools Guide also publish A Parent's Guide to Primary School, The Good Schools Guide - Special Educational Needs, and 11+ English: A Parent's Toolkit, available direct from the The Good Schools Guide Website.

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