ABSTRACT
For the majority of parents and their children, choosing schools is one of the most important decisions that they engage in. In the United Kingdom each child spends at least 15% of their life within school between the ages of 5 and 16, and the impact and influence of that experience on both their life as children and adolescents and on their long-term futures and prospects is fundamental. For most parents there are two major points of choice – when their child enters school at about the age of 5, and when they transfer to secondary education at about the age of 11. In some localities, though, different systems of school organisation (for example into first, middle and high schools) increase the number of choice points, and the expansion in participation in pre-school education may provide an additional choice point for some parents as they choose a nursery for their child. Mobility within the labour market, and the dynamics of family life, however, mean that many parents may also need to make further choices as they move locations over short or long distances. Typically, therefore, a family will make two or three choices of school for each of their children before they leave compulsory education at age 16.
