How We Keep School Reviews Fair

Current and former teachers may review the exact school or campus where they genuinely worked. Reviewers provide a private email and self-declare their relationship. Email verification confirms inbox access only; it does not prove employment, identity uniqueness, credentials, or every factual claim. One active review is allowed per verified email identity per school, although another email can evade that control.

The scale is 1 Very poor, 2 Poor, 3 Mixed, 4 Good, 5 Excellent. “Not enough experience to rate” is N/A, not zero. At least four categories must be answered for a review to contribute to the overall score.

• Each eligible published review gets a mean across its answered categories only.
• The school overall score is the arithmetic mean of those per-review means, so each eligible reviewer record contributes equally.
• A category score is the arithmetic mean of its non-N/A answers.
• Scores are kept at full precision and rounded to one decimal only for display.
• Overall and category scores require at least three eligible published contributions.
• Recommendation is Yes ÷ (Yes + No), excludes “Prefer not to answer,” and appears only with at least three responses and its denominator.
• Only the current approved revision counts. Pending, unverified, rejected, withdrawn, hidden, obsolete, legacy, mock and test records do not count.

Approved text may appear before aggregate thresholds are met. Individual numeric rating sheets are not public.

Published teacher reviews use an anonymous label. Names and emails are not displayed or shared with schools through this review system. Employment context appears only if the author opted in. No technical system can guarantee anonymity: distinctive facts or writing may identify an author. Reviewers should omit identifying details about themselves, colleagues, parents and students.

Nothing auto-publishes. A School Atlas administrator reviews the exact revision for relevance, privacy, possible manipulation, personal attacks, threats, hate, spam, impersonation and sensitive allegations. Positive, mixed and critical experiences use the same rules, regardless of advertising or recruitment relationships. More serious factual claims may require clarification or substantiation; moderation is not an investigation or confirmation that every claim is true.

An existing School Atlas school account must be authorised before its representative may submit a response. Every response and edit is moderated and appears separately as an “Official school response.” Responses do not affect scores and may not identify, threaten or retaliate against a reviewer. Schools cannot see reviewer emails, drafts or moderator notes, and cannot approve, edit or delete reviews.

An author edit creates a new pending revision and does not replace the approved public revision until separately approved. Authors may withdraw their own published review immediately. Reports and appeals enter a human queue; reports do not automatically remove content. A review may be removed for a documented guideline breach, at the author’s request, or where an applicable legal obligation requires it. Disagreement, a low score, advertising status, or a school request alone is not a removal reason. Contact School Atlas to report or appeal.

Advertising, recruitment, payment, partnership status, or a relationship with the operator does not change scores, standards, ordering, approval, or removal decisions. Schools cannot buy favourable moderation, expedited praise, higher ratings, or removal of criticism.