Much of the fuss over the My School website and league tables is based on a fear that parents will over-react to information that is only a very partial account of a school’s activities. As Pollytics blog reports today, Essential Research has started to explore parental reaction, though with only 242 people in the sample some caution is required.
Question: After seeing the information on your school or your children’s school, do you now have a higher or lower opinion of the school?
For clear majorities of both government (68%) and private (58%) parents, My School made no difference to their opinion. Almost identical proportions (16%/17%) said that they had a lower opinion as a result. However more private school parents (22%) than government school parents (15%) said that they had a higher opinion as a result of My School.
Of course a lower opinion doesn’t necessarily mean that parents will move their kids, but this survey suggests that My School will put some pressure on a modestly-sized minority of schools.
Andrew Norton 
I suspect that if you asked surveyed parents a year from now, or two years, you would find many more that base decisions on the My School information.
I was very pleased to see that the local public primary school scored better than most of the local private schools. This makes the decision very easy for me when the kids start school in a few years. But I was surprised by how poorly the public high school fared, so I think it’s very likely that I’ll decide to put them in private high school.
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“so I think it’s very likely that I’ll decide to put them in private high school.
Better book them in now then Bruce.
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