Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 2026

Good School Finder (“we”, “us”) provides a free, map-based search of publicly available UK school inspection and performance data. We have built the service to be privacy-light: you can use it without an account and without giving us any personal details. This policy explains the limited data we process, the cookies and third-party services we use (including advertising we intend to introduce), and your choices.

Who we are

Good School Finder is a free information service for parents and carers choosing schools in England. You can reach us via our contact page. For the purposes of UK data protection law (UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018), we are the data controller for the limited processing described below.

What we collect

  • No account or sign-up. We do not ask for, or hold, your name, email, address or any profile.
  • Postcode and place searches you type are sent to a geocoding service to centre the map on that location. We use the result to show you schools; we do not store your searches against you.
  • Aggregate, anonymous analytics (only with your consent) to understand which pages are useful — never to identify you.
  • Standard server and CDN logs (e.g. IP address, request time, user-agent) are processed by our hosting/content-delivery provider to deliver the site securely and prevent abuse. These are not used to build a profile of you.

Cookies and similar technologies

When you first visit, cookies and similar storage are set to denied by default. Nothing that isn’t strictly necessary runs until you make a choice in our cookie banner, and you can change or withdraw your choice at any time by reopening the banner. We group cookies as:

  • Strictly necessary — needed to load the map, remember your cookie choice, and keep the site working. Always on; no consent required.
  • Analytics — set only after you consent; measure aggregate usage.
  • Advertising — if and when advertising is introduced, these are set only after you consent and are used by our advertising partner to show and measure ads (see below).

See our Cookie Policy for the specific cookies in each group.

Advertising

To keep the service free, we intend to introduce ads supplied by Google AdSense. Advertising is not yet enabled on the site. When it is, and once you have consented:

  • Google and its partners may use cookies/identifiers to serve and measure ads, including, where permitted, personalised ads based on your interests.
  • If you do not consent, ads (if shown at all) will be limited to non-personalised ads, which still use minimal data for frequency capping, aggregated reporting and fraud prevention.
  • Google’s use of advertising data is governed by its own policies. You can review and control them at How Google uses information from sites that use its services and manage ad personalisation at Google Ad Settings.

We do not sell your personal data. We do not combine ad data with any identity, because we hold none.

Third-party services

  • Google AdSense — advertising we intend to introduce (consent-gated; not yet enabled). See Google Privacy Policy.
  • Google Analytics — aggregate, anonymous usage measurement (consent-gated).
  • Geocoding provider — converts a postcode or place you type into map coordinates.
  • Map tiles — our self-hosted map uses OpenStreetMap data; see attribution on About.
  • Hosting and CDN — serves the site and processes standard security logs.

Legal basis

Strictly-necessary cookies and secure delivery rely on our legitimate interests in running the site safely. Analytics and advertising cookies rely on your consent, which you give (and can withdraw) via the cookie banner.

Data retention

We hold no personal accounts, so there is nothing to retain against you. Server and CDN security logs are kept only for a short period by our provider. Analytics and advertising data are retained by Google per its policies.

Children’s privacy

The site is aimed at parents and carers, not children, and does not knowingly collect data from children. We present information about schools, not about pupils.

Data sources

School inspection data is © Crown copyright (Ofsted); school details and performance data are from the Department for Education; postcode and area data are from the Office for National Statistics — all under the Open Government Licence v3.0. See About for full attribution.

Your rights & contact

Because we do not hold personal accounts, there is little or no personal data for us to access, correct or erase. You can still manage cookie consent at any time via the banner, control Google’s ad personalisation via the links above, and contact us with any privacy question. You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.

This is a plain-English summary provided for transparency and is not legal advice. We will update this page before any material change to how we use data (for example, when advertising is switched on).