School Reviewer: Conquering School Like a Boss

The school gates can be a scary and intimidating place. When your child first starts school it’s easy to approach the pack of mums you don’t know with in trepidation, feeling like an outsider, one who has yet to be initiated into this secret club of women who seem to know all the rules, regulations and handshakes.

That’s how I felt, anyway. Having just got to grips with toddlerhood (what a whirlwind that was…) the step up to school two years ago was huge – scary and huge. It introduced a whole world of processes and uncertainty, from actually choosing a school (grown-up decisions klaxon – I spent MANY hours reading OFSTED reports) to getting to grips with the curriculum (what on earth are phonics again?) and working out book bags, PE bags, uniforms, after-school clubs…

I still forget club pickup times on the odd (often) occasion, and I’m terrible at checking bags for important letters and, more essentially, precious stones that have come home from the playground. But I feel like I’ve made the right choices when it comes to my children’s schooling, and am confident in the knowledge that I kind-of know what’s going to get thrown at me at the beginning of each term.

Well, we’ll see shall we?

Because I know how tricky the journey from toddler mum to school mum can be, I was really excited to be asked to look at a new school resource website recently: School Reviewer. Designed to be the ultimate destination for parents seeking information on their children’s schools, the aim of the site is to empower parents with the knowledge they are doing all they can to ensure their child’s educational journey is as happy, fulfilling and rewarding as possible.

Now, I’ve been going through the mill with catchment areas recently as my two go to an out-of-area school, and this is one of the areas that School Reviewer delivers on. It turns out we’re going to have to move before Elfie gets to the next stage of her schooling – a fact I discovered only by lots of digging with mums and ringing round schools – but School Reviewer easily gives you this information instantly and online.

It also provides a huge amount of information on our national curriculum, walking through GCSE questions with added downloadable videos for these as well as SATS, showing you how it’s possible to score 100% on all papers.

School Reviewer also has a really handy section where you can buy and sell school uniforms (wish I’d seen this before splashing out an insane amount on pinafores this July) and offers a forum where parents can get together and chat. There’s also a place to search for tutors and those dreaded OFSTED reports can be downloaded with a click of a button.

OK, so it won’t promise to fix the fact that you always forget it’s recorders on Wednesdays and Gardening club on Mondays but in my mind, any tool that can leave you feeling more confident and empowered about this scary step in your kid’s life is good by me.

You can check out School Reviewer here – have fun, and good luck!

Thanks to School Reviewer for working with MTT.