Bath-based School Guide is one of the most comprehensive resources in the UK for parents looking for the right school for their child and it has joined forces with the UK’s biggest property website Rightmove. Potential home buyers can now access essential in-depth info on which schools are close to a particular property and what they offer.
“School Guide is now exclusive school data provider to Rightmove”
We caught up with School Guide founder Victoria Bond, to find out more about this impressive sounding partnership, what it entails was and what benefits Rightmove users would see…
“School Guide is now exclusive school data provider to Rightmove,” Victoria tells us. “Previously the property portal linked to a number of school resources including Ofsted, but they now present information directly and exclusively from School Guide.
“School Guide collects official data from several sources and presents it in a clear and easy-to-read format. We offer a one-stop-shop experience of Rightmove users looking for information on their local schools.
“’School Checker’ provides a heat map around schools that are likely to have children attending from a given property”
“The cornerstone of the new school service on Rightmove, which they have called ‘School Checker’, are our innovative heat maps. So, Rightmove users first encounter School Guide data via a map which presents heat around schools that are likely to have children attending from a given property.
“These maps have been created using official government pupil data and give a helpful indicator for parents of the likelihood of a pupil attending the school. In short, it links properties and schools and provides hyperlinks to more detailed school information on our site.”
School catchment heat maps
“School Guide has spent the last 12 months creating these heat maps,” adds Victoria, “and is deep in to a big data collection project to enable us to map actual catchment area maps in line with Local Authority information. These maps will be live this summer, and provide another level again of school catchment information.”
School Guide on Rightmove: Find the right property with the right school in one place
The School Checker service has been available on School Guide since March and we wondered what the feedback has been from users so far:
“Very positive,” says Victoria (pictured left)
. “The challenge has been to communicate clearly that this first wave of heat maps are presenting a likelihood of admission to a school based on data of pupils previously admitted from a postcode. They are not actual Local Authority catchment maps – yet.
“School Checker brings together two very emotive aspects of modern life: good homes and good schools”
“School Checker offers a new service and brings together two very emotive aspects of modern life: good homes and good schools. Perhaps inevitably some home owners may like our heat maps to tell a different story but we use official data and, as a specialist school information provider, are highly aware that school admissions can quickly change.
“Catchment areas can alter year on year, and often do, and we have taken on a task a little like painting the Forth Bridge: as soon as we have catchment data, we have to go back and check it again to ensure it is up to date.”
So, what has been Victoria’s favourite thing about pairing up with Rightmove so far? “Rightmove is the largest property portal in the UK, and are unrivalled in the market in terms of trust. From the outset they have made building a relationship based on trust and Plain English straightforward. It’s been a pleasure to build the partnership, just as it was to build our relationship with Mumsnet.”
“We have loved seeing one of the most influential companies in the UK, recently valued at over £3 billion, come to us for our help”
“We have loved seeing one of the most influential companies in the UK, recently valued at over £3 billion, come to us for our help. Rightmove know property, and we know schools. It’s been fantastic to have the opportunity to share three years of solid hard work, research and development on our side.
“Technically, School Guide’s CTO Dan Bartlett, and our team of developers, have also really enjoyed interfacing with a site of great scale. Our traffic has built solidly and consistently since we launched in May 2013 but to see it begin to move to another level as Rightmove consumers come to our site for more detailed school information is undeniably very exciting. It’s been a steep but hugely rewarding journey.”
TV adverts on the way
So what’s next for School Guide? “Publicity around the new School Checker service starts around 18 May,” Victoria tells us. “And there is a TV advert ready to air from the 20th on Channel 4 and 4 On Demand. So that’s quite a lot to look forward to in the next couple of weeks.
“Beyond that, we have the catchment mapping to launch in the early summer and will continue with our core mission to always stay one step ahead. We are constantly looking at new data fields to present and ways to re-think the way school information is presented for parents.
“Ethos and atmosphere is important to parents and we want to reflect that on School Guide”
“We never take for granted that we have the most comprehensive source of data, we’re School Guide and, like any school, we are constantly learning. There are massive changes in testing and performance ratings coming from the government over the next 12 months and we are on it. We also have a project underway to enable us to present more qualitative data alongside the core results and statistics. Ethos and atmosphere is important to parents and we want to reflect that on School Guide.”
Many thanks to Victoria for talking to us at such a busy time! To keep up with developments on School Guide you can follow them on Twitter or check out their excellent School Guide blog
To see more impressive tech projects which originate in the West of England, why not check out Venturefest Bristol & Bath on 9 June.
