MoveRadius

Resource

UK school data sources

Where MoveRadius sources school information, the official datasets for each UK nation, and why admissions must always be verified directly.

Last reviewed:

Our approach to data

The Find Schools tool uses the official DfE register for England, with OpenStreetMap as an automatic fallback. We do not republish admissions, catchment or property data — always verify the specifics with the official sources below.

England: Get Information about Schools (primary)

For England, our Find Schools Near a Postcode tool is powered by the Department for Education's Get Information about Schools register — the official list of schools and colleges, including establishment type, phase, local authority and address. We process the published dataset (converting its national-grid coordinates to latitude/longitude) and serve radius searches from our own API. It is also the best place to verify any school you find.

Fallback and other nations: OpenStreetMap

Where the official register is not in use, the tool falls back to OpenStreetMap via the Overpass API, querying amenity=school near your postcode. This is real, open data licensed under the Open Database License (ODbL) — © OpenStreetMap contributors. Because it is crowd-sourced, coverage and tagging vary, so treat it as a starting point and confirm details officially.

Other UK nations

School information outside England is published separately, and admissions systems differ:

  • Scotland — school information is available via mygov.scot and individual councils, which handle placing requests.
  • Wales — see GOV.WALES and your local authority for admissions.
  • Northern Ireland — see the Department of Education (NI) and the Education Authority.

Postcode and distance data

Our tools convert postcodes to coordinates using postcodes.io, a free, open service built on Office for National Statistics data. Distances are calculated as a straight line and are always shorter than the real walking or driving route.

Distance does not guarantee a school place

Whatever the source, distance is only one part of how places are allocated, and many schools rank siblings, faith and catchment above it. Cut-off distances change every year. Always verify the current admissions policy with the school and your local authority before making decisions. MoveRadius is not a school admissions authority.

For developers: how the data layer works

The school search lives in src/lib/schools and chooses a source automatically, official-first:

  • scripts/build-schools-dataset.mjs (run with npm run build:schools) downloads the GIAS CSV, keeps open schools, converts OSGB36 grid references to latitude/longitude, and writes src/data/schools-england.json.
  • src/app/api/schools/search/route.ts serves radius searches from that dataset server-side, so the full file never reaches the browser. When the dataset is empty it reports connected: false.
  • providers/osm.ts is the fallback: it queries the Overpass API for amenity=school and normalises each element into a School.
  • search.ts exposes searchSchools(), which tries the GIAS route first and falls back to OpenStreetMap, ranking by straight-line distance and capping the list.

So the official DfE data takes over automatically once schools-england.json is generated and committed; until then OpenStreetMap keeps the tool working. Point the Overpass endpoint elsewhere with NEXT_PUBLIC_OVERPASS_API_URL, and for local development set NEXT_PUBLIC_ENABLE_SAMPLE_SCHOOLS=true to use clearly-labelled, fictional sample schools that never appear in production.

Verify before you decide

Use MoveRadius to plan and shortlist, then confirm the specifics with official sources. Our resources index lists the admissions, tax and mortgage services to check, and the School Distance Calculator works today for any specific school you find.