Rightmove Add New 'School Checker' To Their Website
For many years, it has been reported that parents of school age children will do just about anything to get their kids in to what is perceived as a "good" school according to the bodies that rank them in league tables for all to access.
This has included: giving a false home address, regularly attending a local church, having your children confirmed (both to gain a place at a faith school), residing at a friend or relatives home that is closer to your chosen school until your childs place has been secured and moving house to within that schools catchment area.
Realising how important this issue is for parents, Rightmove has partnered exclusively with School Guide, an independent resource which provides the most comprehensive schools ratings data, to become the first property portal to now include catchment indicators and inspection report information on their website.
Rightmove has added the new "School Checker" to all properties following research that found it to be the most important factor that influences people when choosing a location. The makes it the only property website to feature specific school information for the whole of Great Britain, on over one million properties for sale and to rent.
According to their research, nine in ten parents (93%) consider schools when deciding if a location is right for them, and 83% of them would consider moving to be near a good school.
Even those without kids see it as an important factor, with almost one third saying they would consider moving to be near a good school.
Various focus groups used by Rightmove found that finding the right home near the right school can be a minefield, as up until now there has been no destination that connects the two.
Each listing on Rightmove will now display a catchment area indicator using heat maps based on the last available pupil data. The latest Ofsted (England) / HMIe (Scotland) / Estyn (Wales) rating is also included, along with links to find out more about the school from the School Guide website.
James Micklethwait, Rightmove Head of Product Development commented: "Given how important local schools are to many home-hunters, we're really excited about the launch of our new "School Checker". This is a resource which will provide home-hunters with valuable schools information (including catchment indicators) that they cannot find anywhere else, and we hope it will help them find the right property. By partnering with School Guide we've been able to bring all of the information together in one place to help people who in the past were having to search across a number of sources to find the right home near the right school. This is the first stage of enhancing the schools information on Rightmove, and we'll be building on it further in the coming months."
Estates IT are proud to already offer a schools check facility to implement on your own website!
See one of our clients using this feature at: Butler & Stag.
If you would like learn more, please speak to one of our team on 020 8859 1700 (Option 3) or enquiries@estatesit.com
Written by Deb Roberts
Source Estates IT Ltd
