Working Together

At
the inaugural Pressburst Conference which set out to look at ways to improve
the communications and marketing in independent schools, much was made of the
threats to the sector and how to respond to them. The list focused on a number of external
issues including rising staff and energy costs, political ambivalence, public
antipathy or even hostility towards independent schools and the increasing
social divide, but there was mention also of how we can help ourselves. To the
larger political and financial issues, we rely on the associations to respond
on our behalf or should do (there are a number of heads of leading schools who
are regularly asked for comments by the media whose responses sometimes place
the interests of their own schools over those of the sector). There is a danger that their messages will be
misconstrued to represent the flavour of the sector as a whole and if too brash,
boastful or patronising, can do considerable damage to our public image. To
ensure we are all pulling together, there are a number of steps schools can
follow.

First,
manage your social media and know where your comments and images are going to
end up – which is often not where they are intended: Photographs of students studying glaciers in
Iceland or volcanology in Hawaii, Michelin star plates of food or playing polo may
be popular with parents, but not helpful in the wider milieu.

In
the drive to award more bursaries – itself, a most commendable and necessary
initiative –ask what you can do for a child you are admitting to your school,
not what they can do for you. Asset stripping from local schools can engender
ill-feeling. Why not take an average student and offer him or her the
opportunity to improve themselves without expecting something in return.

Work
together. Heads who attack other school types (and a recent attack on
single-sex girls schools by an HMC Head comes to mind) do nothing for the sector.
This can be seen in the unseemly scramble
for publicity after league table results reflects badly on schools and are
meaningless especially when schools obfuscate and select their own
interpretations and misleading when so many schools are often highly selective.
A more dignified response would be to
make no response at all – or better, pull out of the tables.

Take
time to work with schools in your local area, especially those you draw from. Prep
schools, in particular, need to be treated respectfully and not taken for
granted. Invading their historic patch by dropping down to Year 7 entry or going
Co-ed at Years 7&8 or making unreasonable demands in terms of scholarship
exams does not help and could well lead to more preparatory schools feeling alienated and directing
parental traffic elsewhere including towards local grammar and new academies.

Don’t
fill your websites with lists of the places your students travel to (I counted
24 different countries plus ‘North and South America’ listed on one website) or
on facilities. Focus on student achievements, not things that cost money or
simply flaunt the resources and buildings. Eschew the arms race and be more
responsible with fees which in terms of social image and parental appreciation eager
a bit less profligacy is a win-win.

Use
social twitter to promote your school’s values and ethos, not just its
successes. Some heads can make a significant impression by doing so (and at the
risk of embarrassing them, Mark Mortimer at Warminster and Shaun Fenton at Reigate Grammar do this very well indeed)
and by using social media to emphasis what their schools stand for, and what
they do rather than what they have.

Highlight
the achievements who have done well in the charitable sector or in service
fields rather than in sport, media or business.

Work
with your local community even if it means trimming back your traditional
fixture lists to be more involved with local schools and look for ways to
ensure your students are part of. and not living apart from, other local
schools and students.

And
last, remember that your best marketing tools are your parents, teachers and
students. Ask, how well to they serve and represent your values and ethos
whether on the side-lines of matches (parents), in the way they present
themselves when in the public eye (students) or in their loyalty and advocacy
in the community (staff). That’s where
the greatest effort should be directed.

All
little things, but they might just make a difference in helping dissipate some
of the ill-feeling that prevails at present towards the sector.