FAQ
Common questions about y.school, how ratings work, and what happens with your data.
General
What is y.school?
y.school is the UK's independent, student-powered school rating platform. Over 25,000 schools in England are rated by students across six core dimensions: Teaching, Culture, Support, Fairness, Environment, and Opportunity. All ratings are anonymous and structured — no text reviews, no accounts required.
Is y.school free?
Yes. Searching, browsing, comparing, rating, and viewing school data is completely free for everyone — students, parents, teachers, and the public.
How is y.school different from Ofsted?
Ofsted provides periodic external inspections by trained inspectors. y.school provides continuous, real-time ratings from the students who experience school every day. Both perspectives are valuable — y.school displays Ofsted data alongside student scores for context, but the two never influence each other.
Who runs y.school?
y.school is an independent platform focused on education transparency and accountability. Our mission is to give students a structured voice in how their schools are evaluated.
Rating a School
How do I rate my school?
Search for your school on y.school, then click "Rate this school." You'll answer a series of branching slider questions covering teaching, culture, support, fairness, environment, and opportunity. The whole process takes about 2 minutes. No sign-up needed.
Do I need an account to rate a school?
No. Ratings are completely anonymous. We don't collect names, email addresses, or any personal information. You can rate your school immediately without creating an account.
Can I rate more than one school?
Yes. If you attend or have attended multiple schools, you can rate each one. However, you cannot rate the same school multiple times — our anti-gaming system prevents duplicate submissions from the same device.
Can I rate teachers?
Yes. After rating your school, you can also rate individual teachers on six dimensions: Clarity, Engagement, Fairness, Support, Control, and Impact. Teacher scores are only displayed after 10 or more students have rated them, to protect against small-sample bias.
Can a school delete my review?
No. Schools cannot remove, edit, or influence student ratings in any way. Ratings can only be down-weighted by our automated anti-gaming system if they exhibit suspicious patterns.
Scores & Rankings
How are school scores calculated?
Scores are computed bottom-up through four layers: atomic scores (weighted averages per dimension), composite scores (groups of related atoms), dimension scores (6 core areas), and a final Student Score out of 10. All calculations use freshness weighting so recent ratings count more. See the full methodology page for details.
What does the confidence level mean?
Confidence reflects how reliable a score is based on four factors: sample size (number of ratings), freshness (how recent), diversity (different year groups and time periods), and consistency (how much raters agree). Tiers range from "Early Signal" to "Strong."
How many reviews does a school need for a score?
A school needs at least 5 reviews and a confidence score of 0.3 or higher to display a Student Score. Teacher scores require at least 10 reviews. This protects against unreliable scores from very small samples.
What are the six dimensions?
Every school is scored across: Teaching (25%), Culture (20%), Opportunity (15%), Support (15%), Fairness (15%), and Environment (10%). Each dimension contains multiple composites and atoms for granular measurement — 164 atomic dimensions in total.
Does Ofsted affect the Student Score?
No. External data like Ofsted ratings, exam results, and government statistics are displayed for context but never influence the Student Score. The two are completely independent.
Privacy & Trust
Are reviews really anonymous?
Yes. We don't collect names, emails, IP addresses, or any personal information. Device fingerprints used for anti-gaming are stored as irreversible one-way hashes and automatically deleted after 90 days.
How does y.school prevent fake reviews?
We use device fingerprinting, behavioural analysis, and rate limiting. Duplicate submissions are blocked. Suspicious patterns — uniform answers, robotic timing, burst activity — are flagged and down-weighted. Structured sliders are inherently harder to fake than text reviews.
Can schools see who rated them?
No. Schools have no access to individual ratings, device information, or any data that could identify reviewers. They can only see their aggregated scores once visibility thresholds are met.
Data
Where does y.school get school data?
School profiles come from the Department for Education's GIAS register. Academic data comes from DfE performance tables. Ofsted ratings come from Ofsted's official data. See the data sources page for a complete list of every dataset used.
How often is data updated?
Student scores update continuously as new ratings are submitted. Government data is refreshed when new datasets are published — typically termly or annually depending on the source.
Still have questions?