School Comparison Worksheet
A structured worksheet for parents to compare schools objectively across key criteria including academic performance, facilities, ethos, and practical considerations.
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[school_name_1] / [school_name_2] / [school_name_3] SCHOOL COMPARISON WORKSHEET Student: Emma Thompson Year Group: Year 10 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ACADEMIC CRITERIA Criterion School 1 School 2 School 3 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Exam results (GCSE 5+/4+) [XX%] [XX%] [XX%] Exam results (A-Level A*-B) [XX%] [XX%] [XX%] Progress 8 score [X.XX] [X.XX] [X.XX] Student-teacher ratio [X:1] [X:1] [X:1] Ofsted rating [Rating] [Rating] [Rating] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS Criterion School 1 School 2 School 3 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Distance from home [X] miles [X] miles [X] miles School hours [Times] [Times] [Times] Uniform cost £[Amount] £[Amount] £[Amount] School meals cost £[Amount] £[Amount] £[Amount] Transport available [Y/N] [Y/N] [Y/N] After-school clubs [Number] [Number] [Number] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ETHOS AND ENVIRONMENT Criterion School 1 School 2 School 3 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── School ethos [Brief] [Brief] [Brief] Specialisms [List] [List] [List] SEN provision [Summary] [Summary] [Summary] Extracurricular offer [Summary] [Summary] [Summary] Parent involvement [Summary] [Summary] [Summary] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS After visiting each school, note your impressions: School 1: [Your impressions] School 2: [Your impressions] School 3: [Your impressions] Which school felt right for your child? Why? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ KEY DECISION FACTORS List the three most important factors for your decision: 1. 2. 3. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Take your time with this decision. The best school is the one that feels right for your child.
About This Template
A side-by-side worksheet for comparing schools on intake, results, ethos and logistics — supporting admissions decisions or school-choice guidance.
Everything runs in your browser — your school details are sent only when you choose Send. Export the finished document as an A4 or Letter PDF.
Topics this template covers: school comparison · school choice · comparison worksheet · school selection
How to Use This Template
Fill School 1 Name, School 2 Name and School 3 Name, then complete Academic Criteria with each school's Ofsted grade, progress measures and sixth-form outcomes so comparisons use the same yardstick.
Record Practical Considerations (travel time, wraparound care, uniform cost) and Ethos and Environment from open evenings and current-parent conversations, then note Personal Impressions honestly. Finish Key Decision Factors as the two or three things that will actually decide it for Student Name in Year Group, and revisit the sheet before application deadlines.
When to Use This Template
End-of-term reporting
Assemble attendance figures, highlights and action points into one consistent document for leadership or governors at the close of a term.
Ad-hoc status updates
Need to report on a transport review or parent survey on short notice? Fill in the same sections and send a document people already know how to read.
Comparing results term over term
Keep the section headings identical between terms so leadership can compare attendance, outcomes and initiatives side by side without rebuilding the structure each time.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Parent Engagement: How Schools Can Build Stronger Home-School Connections
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