Short answer: the Department for Education's new Find and Compare School and College Profiles tool, launched on 13 November 2026, makes it much easier to gather school information in one place, but the numbers it shows are starting points, not verdicts. The practical move is to build a simple side-by-side worksheet for two or three schools, record what each field actually measures, label anything missing or not yet available, and turn gaps into questions you ask the school directly.
What the new tool actually offers
According to the GOV.UK Department for Education announcement published on 13 November 2026, the online profiles bring together answers to parents' first questions: a school's location, age range, attendance, results and wider offerings such as free breakfast clubs. For parents of older children, the profiles include secondary schools' GCSE subject entries and the next steps pupils have taken into further education, apprenticeships or employment after year 11.
Note the distinction between the publication date and the tool's ongoing development. The service launched on 13 November 2026 and will continue to develop after launch. A side-by-side comparison feature is currently offered for secondary schools and is planned to roll out to primary schools later. Ofsted reports, described in the announcement as showing where different schools excel, are a future addition launching next year, so do not assume they are live in the profiles yet. Enrichment information is also flagged as a future addition. Keep that scope in mind: what you can compare today is not the same as what the tool will eventually include.
Build a side-by-side sheet before the conversation
Before any school-choice conversation, choose two or three schools and make a sheet with the same fields for each one. Use the profile fields as your column headings: location, age range, attendance, results, GCSE subject entries, destinations after year 11, and wider offerings such as breakfast clubs. Filling in identical fields for every school is what makes comparison fair; a fact noted for one school but not another cannot be weighed.
Then label every entry in one of three ways: a reported fact, a question to verify, or information not yet available. A reported fact is something the official profile states directly. A question to verify is something you read or heard that needs confirmation from the school. Information not yet available covers anything the tool does not currently show, such as Ofsted reports before that feature launches, or primary-side comparison before the rollout reaches primary schools. This labelling habit is the single best defence against treating a partial picture as a complete one.
Every field on the profile measures something specific, and writing that definition next to the number changes how you read it. Attendance is a school-wide figure, so it tells you about the cohort, not about how your individual child will engage. Results summarise attainment across all pupils, which reflects intake and teaching together. GCSE subject entries show the breadth of subjects pupils actually sit, which is different from results grades: a school can have strong grades in a narrow set of subjects or solid grades across a wide range. Destinations after year 11 describe where pupils went next, into further education, apprenticeships or employment, which is a cohort-level outcome shaped by local options as well as the school.
Wider offerings, such as free breakfast clubs, tell you about practical support for families rather than academic outcomes. None of these fields is a verdict on its own, and each one answers a different question. When you write the measure beside the number, you are far less likely to let a single figure dominate the whole decision.
Compare like with like
Comparisons only mean something when the underlying conditions are similar. Compare schools of the same phase: a secondary profile against a secondary profile, and wait for the primary comparison feature rather than improvising across phases. Compare results in the same subjects and the same qualifications, and compare destinations over the same year groups. If one school serves a notably different catchment or age range, note that on the sheet as context rather than adjusting the numbers yourself.
Where the tool's side-by-side feature is available for secondary schools, use it, because it presents the same fields in the same order. Where it is not yet available, your own sheet with identical fields does the same job. The rule is simple: same field, same definition, same period, or the comparison is not a comparison.
Treat results and destinations as context, not promises
A results figure describes what past pupils achieved; it is not a guarantee for your child. A destinations statistic describes where past year 11 pupils went; it is not a promise of where your child will go. Both are useful context, especially when read together with subject entries and wider offerings, but they are backward-looking summaries of whole cohorts.
A practical way to keep this framing is to write one sentence under each number on your sheet: what this measures and for whom. For example, under a destinations figure, note that it covers pupils who finished year 11 at that school in a past year. That small habit keeps the discussion anchored in evidence rather than aspiration, and it gives you a fair basis when you later weigh a school's explanation of its own numbers.
Ask the school follow-up questions about support and enrichment
The profiles cover first questions well, but they cannot tell you how a school will support your specific child or what enrichment runs week to week. Use your sheet's gaps to write one follow-up question about support or enrichment for each school. Useful areas include how additional academic support is organised, how pastoral care works in practice, what clubs, arts, sports or volunteering opportunities run regularly, and how the school communicates with families during the year.
Because enrichment information is a future addition to the profiles, asking directly is currently the only reliable route. Asking the same question of every school on your sheet keeps the answers comparable, and writing the answers into the same sheet keeps the whole picture in one place.
A practical next action
Before your next school-choice conversation, pick two or three schools, open their official profiles, and build one side-by-side sheet with identical fields. Label every entry as a reported fact, a question to verify, or information not yet available, and write one follow-up question about support or enrichment for each school. Then sit down with your child and discuss the whole picture together, rather than letting one result, attendance figure or destination statistic stand in for the decision. This worksheet method is editorial decision support to help you organise evidence; it is not an official ranking and not a recommendation of any school.
中文摘要
英国教育部于2026年11月13日上线“查找并比较学校与学院档案”工具,将学校位置、年龄范围、出勤、成绩、GCSE科目报考人数、11年级毕业后去向以及早餐俱乐部等更广泛的服务汇集一处。本文将该公告转化为一份实用的比较工作表:为两三所学校建立字段相同的并排表格,把每条信息标注为“已报告事实”“待核实问题”或“暂无信息”;记录每个字段实际测量的对象,同类相比;把成绩和去向视为背景而非承诺;并就课程支持与课外活动向学校提出跟进问题。注意工具当前范围:并排比较目前仅覆盖中学,小学功能及Ofsted报告等将在日后推出。建议在择校谈话前完成表格,与孩子一起讨论整体情况,而不是让单一数字成为结论。