Finding the right school for your child doesn’t have to be a baffling and intimidating prospect.

OK, so you can check the league tables to find out about a school’s academic record but, there’s so much else to consider. Have you thought about the school’s location, or if your child will fit in?

These and many other key questions about finding a school concern every parent, and getting hold of all the information about schools in the first place can be daunting.

Log in to our webchat with Maxine McKenzie from Directgov and mother Gill Stewart to find out how you can put an end to the stress and confusion of finding the right school.

They will be taking your questions and revealing an online resource that brings the whole process to within a mouse click away.

It spells full marks for you, and full marks for your child.

For more information visit www.direct.gov.uk

Finding the best school for your children can be a daunting task and certainly not as straight forward as it used to be. But it needn't be that way. Watch our video at howto.tv to find out more and guarantee yourself peace of mind.

H: Jayne Constantinis, host
M: Maxine McKenzie, Directgov
G: Gill Stewart, mother-of-two

H: Hello and welcome to the Parenting Show, I'm Jayne Constantinis. Now then, choosing a school for your child is an exciting time. If it's your first child's school and you don't have any experience of going through the process, you're sure to have lots of questions before you make this very important decision. Well today I'm joined by two very experienced hands in this subject, Maxine McKenzie from Directgov and mother-of-two Gill Stewart. Ladies, welcome to the studio, thank you for coming in to talk to me

M: Thank you

G: Thank you

H: And of course we're live, so if you've got a question for either of our guests then type it on the box on your screen, send it to us along with your name of course and we'll get through as many as we can during the course of the show. It can be, can't it Maxine, a very stressful time this whole business of choosing the right school for your child?

M: Yes it can and there's a lot of information out there, you know people getting advice from family and friends, you know lots of stories in the media about how difficult it can be, and at Directgov what we're offering is a service that helps people to cut through all of that really, just to get to the essential information they need, that's going to help them make the right choice which is the important thing

H: It's a kind of – my daughter's going into reception next year so I'm in this process, and virtually the minute you've conceived people are on the phone saying have you thought about schools? Aren't they? Was this your experience Gill?

G: Yes that's very much my experience and actually it's something that we hadn't really put a lot of thought into because we're just getting on to the day-to-day business of looking after two toddlers, and that in itself is extremely tiring –

H: Your children are how old now?

G: The eldest one is just coming up to 3 and the youngest is one-and-a-half, so we're still in the throws of nappy changing and sleep deprivation and all the kind of things that come with –

H: Lucky you – oh happy days! So your requirement then is for nursery school is it at the moment –

G: it is

H: That's what you're searching –

G: Well yes and no – for the eldest yes, but actually we're looking to find a primary school to settle him in to

H: And this business of all these different sources of information, as you say, friends and family and leaflets – and you can read endlessly about it; did you feel as I have, a bit overwhelmed by all of that?

G: Absolutely, we found it to be a matter of a great deal of pressure on us because we haven't really been proactive about looking for schools, but we have quite a large circle of friends with kids the same age as ours, so the topic of conversation often comes round to choosing a school, and we've found that other people have applied but we haven't done anything about it at all. So we're in the position, quite recently, of realising that the eldest child needed to go to primary school and we need to actually start applying. But we didn't really know where to begin and we felt it was going to be a very, very complicated process

H: And so you went to Directgov and was it complicated?

G: Yes I went to directgov and I typed in something very simple, find a school, and actually within the space of about ten minutes I'd discovered all the local schools in my area, all the local primary schools, and because all of the information that you need to make a choice is in the same place I was able to actually very quickly hone in on the school I wanted, and it's actually 200 yards down the road from me so it's ideal for us

H: Now for those who haven't heard of directgov, just tell us – we're obviously hearing about schools, so just tell us a little bit about why it was set up and what it aims to do?

M: Yes well directgov is all public services coming together into one place, online and it covers a whole range of things from jobs to motoring, to education, benefits advice, you know almost anything you can think of really that helps you get through the kind of nitty gritty of your – the stuff that you'll face in your daily life. It's public services and information, it's the latest information from government, it's available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so it's really, you know for the convenience of the system

H: And I think that's what you've said before, this business of cutting through the red tape is really important, because a lot of these issues we do feel very anxious about whether we're going to understand the advice that we're being given, but it's very user-friendly and jargon-free and all that isn't it?

M: It is and that's one of the things that I personally love about the site is that it is written in plain English and it takes really quite complex subjects like you know working tax credits or benefits entitlement and you know breaks them down and just communicates them in a language that people understand, so it helps them to get what they need, you know as easily as possible

H: So we are live and we're talking a bout how to choose a – the school that's right for your child and how directgov can do that. Let's just have a little look at a clip from directgov

Footage

"You're better off without him you know"

"Yes. I still miss him. Stupid really."

"You're doing really well. You found a flat, job interview next week. You only moved out a month ago."

"Oy, careful Max"

"Sorry"

"I've got to find him a school next – I don't know where to start."

"Try Directgov"

"Jane is straight on it. Finding out about all the schools in the area, everything she needs to know to help her make up her mind. And while she was at it, she looked at getting financial help with childcare. Sorted."

H: As you say very user-friendly. It makes the information seem very accessible. We've got lots of questions coming in so let's have a look at a couple of those now, and we've got a question here from Terry who says "my wife and I are expecting a baby in March. When should we apply for a school?"

M: Wow, so they haven't even had the baby yet and they're already beginning to think about it! Well I would say first things first, directgov also offers a nursery finder service, so they may want to take a look at that initially, but to answer the question the schools recommend that you really should get your application in place by the time the child is around 4 years old, so they do have, you know, a reasonable amount of time available to them, but it is important to make sure that you apply in good time in order to get the best chance of getting a school you want to go to

H: Because I think this business of applying late and then being very concerned that you're not going to get your first choice of school, that's a big anxiety for a lot of people isn't it?

G: Well it is and I'm going through that anxiety at the moment as a matter of fact, because having applied, we're still waiting to hear back if we can actually get our child into our chosen school so I'm a little bit curious myself about what the process would be if we didn't manage to get our child into our chosen school

H: Yes. So you're going to go back - I mean it sounds like you've got directgov on your favourites list on your computer, because it's the first port of call for all these developing questions as you go through the process

G: Absolutely yes. I concentrated on the bits of the site that I needed to look at in order to help me make the choice, but I registered the fact that there's a lot of other information on there that's going to help me in the event that I need to take a course of action

H: We've got a question here from Julia, she's got two boys, first starting school next year, so same time as my Lucy actually, would his younger brother be guaranteed a place at the same school?

M: Well I know that one of the criteria applied by many schools is that if you have a sibling, a brother or sister in the school, then the younger child automatically gets a place and there is, that's detailed on the directgov website, but it would be worth contacting the school concerned and having a chat with them about you know whether that applies in that particular instance

H: Because the schools themselves are often very, very open, it's not like they don't answer questions that you can't speak to them as well – I think – did you speak to the school that you were applying for a bit more information or –

G: Yes we did and they volunteered the information to us about how to complete the application process, and also about the fact that if we qualified with one sibling then the other sibling would be able to attend the same school, so it was actually very, very helpful and it fitted in seamlessly with the information that we'd had on the website.

H: Interesting question here from Sarah, "my child has a learning disability. Will this have an impact on where they can apply to?"

M: If you look on the directgov schools finder, there's an option for ticking just , bringing up results that are just schools that cater for special educational needs, and that will help to, you know so that person doesn't need to sift through every single school in their area to find the one that meets their child's needs. It will actually just pull up the results of those schools that cater for those children. So again it kind of takes a layer of work and you know a layer of complexity out of finding the right school

H: That raises and interesting issue about the – not complexity but the depth if you like, of information on the site. Are you confident that people with very specific queries like that are going to be able to find the answer to their question?

M: The schools finder certainly goes into, you know a fair amount of detail. I mean you can find – you can break it down by state school, independent school, you know mixed gender or single sex schools. And also you can look at schools with particular specialism, such as technology or sports or the arts, so yes we feel as though it really goes into quite a lot of detail for the parents

H: Because of course before you've got children or when they're tiny babies, you don't quite appreciate what a – what a – it's like a jigsaw puzzle isn't it, choosing the right school for your child, and it's not just about what's nearest but it's about the child's personality and what they're showing to be interested in and so on, so to be able to cut through all the red tape if you like and get to that bit of information is really important isn't it?

M: Yes I would say so. I mean Gill may have a view on this – from her own personal experience?

G: I think the biggest bit of pressure that we had was really based on understanding the league tables and the performance of individual schools, given that we don't have any special needs for our children. So it was really important for us to understand what the Ofsted information was in relation to the school, and what priorities the school themselves were telling me that they focused on, and I actually found all the information than I was actually looking for, was all available in the school finder. So I feel that I was able to make a very quick and informed decision at the time that I was looking. Including having information about the school's league table, so it was just all there. Yes

M: In one place

H: Informed is the key word there isn't it, because part of the pressure is you want to feel like you're doing the best thing for your child, don't you?

G: Absolutely, absolutely in everything

H: Of course

G: And if you leave it to the last minute to apply then you're really under pressure

H: Well talking of that, Lauren has said "my child is starting school next year and I missed the deadline. What are the options now?"

M: There is actually – you can apply at any time. I mean I think the schools obviously have to work to a deadline but the rule is you can actually apply at any time for a school place. What Lauren may want to do is to contact the local authority, just to – or the school itself – just to advise them that that's the case and to ask what the situation is, you know for her particular circumstances. But she can actually apply at any time

H: Oh ok. And Sylvia says "is my child guaranteed to remain in the same school as where he currently goes to nursery?" This is presumably something that you're looking into with your two?

G: Yes again because I don't have a lot of free time, I hadn't done a lot of investigation of the various types of pre-school places that were available to kids, so again it was a revelation to me to come to an information source where I discovered that actually the primary school that we wanted to send our child to also provided nursery places. So again that was something I didn't know I needed to worry about –

H: Oh dear!

G: Satisfied the information before I got worried about it!

H: Yes. And here is something that I think we ought to look at from Shelley. A lot of people would be interested in this – Shelley's moving to Grimsby in the New Year, I don't think Grimsby is relevant but moving to a new city, and they've no idea about local schools. How can they find out about which are the best schools for the children?

M: Ok well what they would do is they would just put the postcode of the place they're moving to into the schools finder and that will bring up all of the schools in their area, and it gives you a map so you can actually see, you know the location and the proximity of the school to, you know, to where you'll be living, and they can then look at the other information about the schools, the profile of the schools and obviously the Ofsted report and links to the school websites themselves. So they can get all of that information together and then help them make a decision

H: Fantastic. Is the information as thorough on all – silly question really – on all areas of the site, because it seems incredibly useful –

M: Yes

H: On the school side?

M: Yes it's comprehensive across all the schools in the country

H: Great. And we've got a question here from Jenny. "There are no single sex secondary schools in her area, what are her options for sending her daughter to one?"

M: Well again you know you can, you can select that as a criteria for looking up schools on the schools finder, so I would encourage her just to go in and have another look if she hasn't used directgov so far, but obviously if that isn't the case there are independent schools that she might want to look at that she can access from the schools finder, and also there's a lot of information about home schooling as well. If that person really decided that they couldn't find a school that was suitable for their child, we do have some information about the requirements on you if you decide to home school your child and also you know what your relationship with the local authority would be.

H: Fantastic. Really, really interesting. So you've been sorted, what's next on your list of life issues that you're going to ask directgov about?

G: Well to be honest there's so much information on there that you could – I could think of a dozen things off the top of my head, but the thing that's uppermost in my mind at the moment is we are needing to – we've just moved home so we need to rent out the property that we've just moved from, and there's a lot of information on directgov about the responsibilities that I need to be aware of if I become a landlord. So that's next on my list

H: Great. Apart from obviously the sleepless – you could do it in the middle of the night!

G: Oh yes, does it give sleep advice? I don't know!

H: Probably. Calpol. Oh no – that's bad mothers. For you I meant! Thank you very much for coming in to talk to me, very, very interesting and let me give you of course the site we've been talking about it's direct.gov.uk. Thank you for watching. See you again soon. Bye bye

Finding the best school for your children can be a daunting task and certainly not as straight forward as it used to be. But it needn't be that way. Watch our video at howto.tv to find out more and guarantee yourself peace of mind.