Google Has Removed School Reviews — Why Parents Still Need Somewhere to Share Their Story

What actually happened

As of April 30, 2025, Google removed every review and rating from school profiles (Early Years, Primary and Secondary) on Google Maps and Google Search, worldwide. It wasn't just new reviews being blocked — existing ones, some built up over years, disappeared overnight.

The change doesn't apply to universities, postgraduate institutions or nurseries (ages 0-3) — only to schools classified as “general education” (Early Years, Primary and Secondary).

Google framed the change as a way to prevent “unhelpful or prank” reviews. The push partly came from voices within the education sector in the UK, arguing that old or one-off reviews gave a distorted, outdated picture of a school, with no real way for schools to respond or defend themselves.

A gap right when families need information most

For years, a school's Google Maps profile was, for a lot of families, the first place — sometimes the only place — they checked to see what other parents said before shortlisting a school. That source disappeared overnight, right at the exact moment (deciding where your child will spend the next several years) when first-hand information matters most.

Why this hits concertado and private schools especially hard

At a public school, families' choice is largely limited by catchment area — there's less real "choosing" involved. At a concertado school, and especially a private one, it's different: the family actively chooses the school, and with private schools, they're also paying for it.

That changes the relationship. At a private school, parents are, in practice, customers — buying an educational service the same way they'd contract any other service. And a paying customer deserves the same transparency as any other major purchase: just as we check reviews before booking a hotel or choosing a doctor, it makes sense to be able to read — and leave — honest opinions before committing several years and a real share of the family budget to a school.

Taking that away doesn't just hurt a school's visibility on Google — it removes the one independent, parent-to-parent source families had, at exactly the type of school where the money and the years at stake are highest.

Parents still need somewhere to tell their story

Whether the experience was great or something went wrong, other families deserve to hear it from another parent — not just from the school's own brochure or website. That's exactly the gap a platform built specifically for this should fill — not a general business directory that happens to also list schools, but a dedicated space that doesn't depend on Google's policies.

That's what ColegioCheck is for

ColegioCheck exists for exactly this: a Trustpilot-style space where families in Spain can share verified reviews about public, concertado and private schools, and where other parents can find the part of the story a school's own website won't tell them. Now that Google no longer offers this, independent platforms like this one become the main real source of information between families.

If your child attends a school and you haven't left a review yet, now's a good time to do it — and if you're choosing a school, check what other families have already shared before deciding.