Please. sir, again...

Which secondary school to choose has long been a subject of some concern to parents. As our Blog of 22.6.09 showed, the Colwyn Bay and Llandudno areas are served by three good schools. So how can a parent be sure which school will be best for their children?

As we've said, that's not an easy process, and many children will opt simply to go for the school their friends are moving to. However, for those parents who wish to be a little more pro-active, there are independent measures of how good each school really is.

Estyn's reports, as already noted, give some indications, but are necessarily a little esoteric and obscure. One fairly effective barometer for determining the difference between schools is to examine their websites. Take a quick look at the the websites for the following:

Ysgol John Bright
Ysgol Bryn Elian
Eirias High

Ysgol John Bright's site is snappy, informative and easy to navigate. It also provides clear information and even has its own forum. We tried to register on the forum to see how secure it was, and were informed that our request had been passed to the administrators of the site, the best method for dealing with potential registrants and absolutely essential when dealing with children. However, a better system would be for the school to issue names and passwords directly to parents and conduct regular checks subsequently.

In terms of information, using the search facility we were able to find out who the year heads were and how to contact them. The only curious facet to the site was the LH "News around the world" column, but that could possibly be justified in learning terms.

Ysgol Bryn Elian's site displayed quickly, had relevant and local mapping and news information in the LH column and - commendably - linked to the Estyn report on the front page. The front page also showed the excellent charity work the school is doing and finding out the names of the key staff proved surprisingly easy, which reveals there are twice the number of women to men in the top jobs. However, it's clear that Bryn Elian's site is extremely open and informative.

Alone among the schools, Eirias takes a slightly different approach to navigation and the site in general, being the only one of the three to have registered their own domain. Preferring hyper linking at the side to drop-down flash and java menus across the top, Eirias' site is informative, easy on the eye and uses large icons for what they consider the most salient aspects of the site. The five small drop-down menus across the top have one item entitled 'All about Eirias' but we couldn't find out the names of the year staff easily through that item. The search engine didn't manage any better, either, as the first entry returned to the query "year seven head" was entitled 'Year 8 trip". Much of this, however, is down to Eirias' approach to security, which they clearly take very seriously.

Eirias' site, however, also boasts a forum, but you cannot register on the site, as passwords and usernames are sent directly to parents by the school. This is the most secure way of running a forum and is to be preferred.

As can be seen, there's little to choose between the three web sites, but Eirias' approach to security vis a vis Bryn Elian's openness does make it easier to decide between the two schools in Colwyn Bay.

We have contacted the schools to let them know of our findings and we'll print any corrections and amendments they wish to make in a forthcoming blog.