We wouldn’t want anyone getting bored over half-term so we’ve updated our Schools Like Yours tool. The update adds a couple of new features, as well as new data for mainstream secondary schools.

If you haven’t come across it yet, Schools Like Yours lets you find schools similar to your own – where you define what similar means.

New features

Firstly, new in Schools Like Yours is the ability to save your settings. This allows you to save the settings you have applied, and go off and try finding new ways of finding schools similar to your own without worrying that you won’t be able to get back to your original settings. If the feature proves popular, in a later release we’ll add the ability to make multiple saves.

Secondly, up till now you could only choose a single local authority when filtering by LA. Now you can choose multiple local authorities.

New data

Provisional 2019 Key Stage 4 data has been added. This includes Progress 8, Attainment 8, the percentage of pupils achieving ‘standard’ (9-4) passes in English and maths and the percentage of pupils entering all of the EBacc subjects.

Only a limited set of 2019 data is currently available. Further data (e.g. on the attainment of disadvantaged pupils) will be added when updated performance tables are published in January.

We’ve also added in 2019 data on pupil characteristics like free school meal eligibility, first language other than English and ethnic background. Data for 2019 on the percentage of disadvantaged pupils at each school is not currently available in any of the data sources we use.

Primary and special schools

We will add 2019 data to the site for primary and special schools when the Key Stage 2 performance tables are published in December.

Try Schools Like Yours now, and let us know what you make of it.

Want to stay up-to-date with the latest research from FFT Education Datalab? Sign up to Datalab’s mailing list to get notifications about new blogposts, or to receive the team’s half-termly newsletter.