Boost Your School's Pupil Intake: A 3-Step Plan 🚀

Welcome.

Thank you for joining.

Thank you for giving up, your time today.

I want to take you back and have a quick look at this map because every pin on here is a school and behind every school is a school leader who is struggling with some variation of the same problem.

Falling pupil roles, a reception intake that just is getting smaller and smaller and then the budget pressure that's building up behind that.

And I know about that, and I know about it firsthand because I saw it close up at my own children's school.

And I want to share with you today exactly what we did to turn the situation around.

So it was about two years ago, it was a spring day, and I remember my daughter Matilda, she was in year two and she came home from school in tears because her two best friends were leaving.

They were moving to another school locally.

And it wasn't just them.

One family and then another and then another were all quietly choosing to make a change.

And then just one week after that, we got called into school for a meeting for all the parents and it became clear just how challenging the situation was.

So we'd been invited in by the new headteacher, Sarah.

She stepped up in front of the hall and spoke to all the parents and she spoke plainly.

She said, a few years before, reception had been full and then it had slipped to 21 and the new September intake was coming in half empty.

So just 15 children against a pan of 30.

And it meant now that Sarah was having to rethink how she staffed, how she ran Key Stage one.

And that was something the school had never had to face before.

And what none of us sitting in that hall could see was everything she was carrying behind it.

So the staff that she might have to let go, a budget that was already in the red and the trust above her, waiting to see whether this new head could actually turn things around.

But what struck me was how Sarah addressed it in the room.

She stood in front of us and she reminded us exactly what made the school special.

She said she was certain that she could turn it around if only more families would just see what it was like inside the school gates.

And I could feel how hard she was working for it.

And on that day, she said she had a plan, she just needed some help getting the word out.

And so that's when I put my hand up and I offered to help.

So my name is Chris Norfield.

My background isn't in schools, but it is in local marketing.

So for 15 years, I've helped small businesses, sports clubs, charities.

I've helped them get their message out locally and get themselves seen in their local community.

And so when I was sitting in that school hall, I thought maybe some of what's worked could work in a school too.

And so over the next few weeks, I worked together with Sarah.

We came up with a simple three step pupil numbers recovery plan.

And here's what happened.

Sarah went from running open days where hardly anyone showed up, to doing three fully booked open days, plus regular weekly school tours.

Her reception intake that year jumped from M15 up to 27 and she had 39 extra children joining across all other year groups, as in year transfers.

And this wasn't done with us doing a fancy agency campaign.

It wasn't a complicated marketing setup.

We didn't completely redo the website.

What we did was build a system that was easy for a busy school leader to implement and for her team to roll out.

And because of that, it's a system that I believe any school can use.

Now, Sarah wrote about this in, the September edition of Headteacher Update.

So you might have seen that came out, in the autumn.

And she talks through exactly the three key steps that we worked through.

And it's those three steps that is now being installed in primary schools of all different kinds across the country.

So Hollingwood in Derbyshire, they put these three steps in place and they saw an immediate impact in their number of first choice applications.

Off a pan of 45, they ended up with 56 first choice applications.

So they're full.

St.

Mary's Primary down in, Dorset, they had struggled to fill a pan of 30 for many years.

They implemented this system and they had a 62% increase in first choice applications.

I couldn't, genuinely couldn't believe it when, she told me that.

And then in other settings, so Paulsbrook, a tiny little village school, again, they had three, four, five people joining each year and actually they managed to Increase up to 13 first choice applications this year by putting in place this simple system.

So here's what I want to share with you today.

I want to talk to you about the two main factors that are probably the things that are holding back your pupil numbers.

I want to give you three things that actually make an impact on first choice applications.

I want to tell you exactly what to do right now before the next admission cycle begins, so that you're not scrabbling around in autumn again.

And I hope that if you find the content relevant today, if you find it helpful, what I'm going to do is I'll share some details about the extra support I offer for schools and it's for a few, a small number of headteachers, if you're ready to take action to fix falling pupil numbers.

And here's an example of just some of the schools that I'm helping at the moment to implement this system and have an immediate impact.

But to get started, let's just go back to Sarah and I'm going to bring her in here and I want to tell you a bit more about what the situation was at St.

Augustine's when Sarah took over.

And I'm just going to share, a short video where she introduces what the situation she was in.

And I'd love for you in the chat to let me know, does this sound like you?

Is there similarities here?

Is this what you're facing?

Which has had historically very good reputation, but we have got lots of competition for neighbouring schools in our surroundings.

So parents do have lots of choice locally in terms of which school they expect for their child.

The situation of school this time, well, September last year, was that we had suffered a loss of questions.

That was through various reasons going on internally in school, the years that preceded that, which meant that we were starting the school year far over plan.

We should be 210 children and we started new with 155.

I think for me, the first and the biggest barrier was capacity within school to market the school in a way that would be profitable for my opponents in terms of reaching out to Local families and beyond, and also the knowledge and expertise.

You know, I being a team of teachers and educationalists, we don't come from necessarily emergency background.

So knowing where to begin and how to practice that we have very basic idea of us only find out or try and get it more visible within the local community, but have a strategic approach to that.

that's a big obstacle as to what we should do next.

Make big density to the numbers of the nursing bill.

So just pop in the chat for me if that sounds like a situation you're in.

What's your situation in your school?

I.

Are you one of those schools who are far under pan at the moment?

Are you struggling with knowing what to do, knowing what to focus your limited time on to promote your school?

Let's have a look.

So we've got, yeah, BETHANY Saying yes, 100%.

Ms.

Swanson saying, yeah, similar situation, lots of competing schools.

Rebecca says, yep, very, very familiar.

Lots of schools locally.

we've got here Tom saying lots of school locally and a falling birth rate.

Yeah, Bow, you're a similar situation.

One full, one fe entry.

Maria and Pearly, low birth rates, lots of local competition.

Okay.

I think what I've seen from here in the chat, what I've seen from the schools I talk to, is that this is exactly the situation that lots and lots of heads are finding themselves in.

And that difficult environment that you're working against is, has a number of factors in it.

So I know that you do not have enough time in the day.

Your day is already packed.

You have so many other priorities that actually squeezing time in to do open day prep or to promote your school feels impossible.

As Sarah said, marketing is just not a core skill set that perhaps you or your team have been trained to do or that you want to spend your time learning how to do.

And probably the main environmental driving factor is that birth rates are falling and they are falling faster than they have ever done before.

So here's that picture nationally on birth rates.

What you can see here is birth rates from 2013 going forward.

And I've highlighted here where you might see the bulk of your, say, current year six and the bulk of your current year are the years that they were born.

And this picture then is likely reflected in what you might be seeing in your school that in year six and five and four, you probably have nearly full classes or you certainly have higher numbers.

And if you're seeing that in key stage one, you are having lower entry year after year.

It's probably reflective of this national fall in birth rates.

In fact, the current year R was actually a slight peak in terms of birth rates, whereas the intake that are about to come in.

This is why you're seeing lower numbers joining for September.

And unfortunately, what I'm hearing is this kind of troubling misconception that schools have either heard from the local authority or from others that, this is just a low birth year, it should bounce back next year.

But actually, when you, when you zoom out and you look at the longer term forecast for pupils, this is not bouncing back.

Every year now up to 20, 29, 30, it drops.

This is a massive worldwide demographic shift.

And what happens as soon as these numbers start to fall, when there are less children?

Then we see schools having to close, we see schools having to cut staff, we see mergers being floated.

And the problem is, as soon as there is the hint of a school potentially closing or merging, then actually that accelerates, that move away, that kind of negative spiral, as I talked about at the start.

So there was a slightly negative impact at, St.

Augustine's and so parents were choosing to move away.

So what we need to do is need to get ahead of that and we need to put our best effort into trying to promote the school and drive in more local families to see what makes it special.

So the key question is, if we have this smaller local pool of families, you've got limited time and expertise in promoting it, what can you actually do to get more families in to see what makes your school special?

So here is exactly what we did at St.

Augustine's so I mentioned Sarah was standing in front of the parents and she said, I've got a plan.

And her plan was to invest in new forest school provision.

So her last bit, she had smaller numbers.

She thought, I'm going to invest, rather than replacing a teacher here who had left, I'm going to invest in forest school provision, bring in a forest school teacher.

This is going to be the big feature.

It's going to attract families and it's going to solve our problems.

And I was so excited because I knew that Matilda, my daughter, and Harrison, my son, who was about to join in reception, would love it.

But the biggest concern I had at that moment was that I knew this was not necessarily going to reach parents who were, in the local community and who just simply did not know what was going on inside the school gates.

Because the big mistake that schools make is assuming that parents can actually see what's happening inside the school.

You'd be surprised at how little current parents know about what day to day life is like inside the school.

And so when it comes to prospective parents, then actually it's even less so.

In fact, when I work with schools and I help them to get lots of new families visiting them, the number one comment I get back is that they say, parents came in, they said, we didn't even realise your school was here.

So particularly if your school is tucked away in a cul de sac or you're not along a main road, unless you are being really proactive, then there are many local families who could choose your school who are not even considering it.

So that's your first challenge, visibility.

Getting prospective parents who don't know about you to consider your school.

So hold that in your mind.

Visibility as one of those two challenges.

The second challenge is perception.

That is those people who do know about you, they will have an existing perception.

And that perception is not going to be based on facts, it's going to be formed from what they've heard from others about the school.

To give you an example, when, we were first looking, me and my wife, for a, school for Matilda, it was during COVID So actually we didn't get to go out to all of the different schools, but there was one school locally that we never got to visit.

But I have a really clear story in my head set about that school based on a few interactions.

We heard from some parents that, the parents there are a bit cliquey.

We heard from someone else that, the school is only focused on academic performance and that was five years ago.

But that is stuck in my head as the perception of that school that's just seen as the, that's the one that focuses on academics and there's all a bit cliquey there.

And I hear myself, I hear my wife talking about that when we are talking and having these chats informally with other local parents.

And I've never been in the school, I don't know if that's the case at all and it almost certainly is not.

But you will find that in your community there is a perception about the school and it has been formed and it might be out of date, and it almost certainly is not based on what is actually happening.

So just think about that.

There are local families who are deciding against your school without ever seeing it.

And it's not because of facts, it's because of assumptions and these snap judgments which are often based on hearsay, they're outdated, they're quietly steering away families before you've had your Chance to show them what makes your school special.

So could you pop in the chat for me?

What do you think your main challenge is?

Are you a school where actually you're really struggling with visibility?

Just pop.

Visibility in.

Are you a school where actually you think the issue might be around perception or do you think it's both?

Have a look.

Okay, so Katie saying visibility, or is Maria and Hugh are both saying both?

Yep.

Sally's both, Ali's saying yes.

But also the fact there's lots of local competition.

Okay.

we've got absolutely, Helen saying absolutely.

Perception, perception, Perception and visibility.

Okay.

So there is a.

Probably the predominantly saying, actually, both.

Both, elements are, contributing to those challenges.

Here's the truth.

Right?

If you can overcome these challenges, then there are many local families who would actually choose your school if they visited and you were able to show them how special it is.

So, therefore, your biggest opportunity to increase your pupil numbers is to maximize the number of families that come in and visit you.

Because once they're in, you get the opportunity to showcase what makes you special.

And I bet you found that.

I bet you found when people come in, they go, didn't even know you were here.

And actually they choose you once you've been able to showcase what makes you special.

So the key takeaway for your pupil numbers recovery plan is to set a clear goal.

And the clear goal of any marketing activity you do is to maximise the number of local families who come in and visit the school.

So let's just do a quick confidence check as a baseline.

Where are you when it comes to that?

If you were thinking about now, in the next week, I need to do something to get new local families to come in and see the school in action.

How confident do you feel that you could do that?

So pop a number in the chat.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you that you could reach local parents and get them to come in?

So it's a one.

If you've got no idea.

I don't know if what.

I don't know what to do to drive parents in.

It's a 10.

If you're like, okay, I know for sure, I could get in 10, 15, 20 parents to come in next week and see the school.

Let's see where the general, average is at the moment.

So we've got Vicki, who's a three, Ali's a five, Maria, four, Sam, five, Helen, four, five.

Okay, so just about under five is the average.

We've got Jonathan and Dawn at seven.

Okay.

That's good to see.

You've got some promising, shoots there, but seeing more threes and sixes.

Nikki three, Emily three.

Katie three, six.

Okay, so we're seeing no one is absolutely there.

So that's where I want to get you on and help you get to the point where you know exactly what to spend your time doing and how to promote your school.

So let's look at, the recovery plan in more detail.

So we have our goal.

Anything we do wants to drive more local families to come in and see the school.

The outcome of that.

So by getting them in, the outcome we're looking for is more of those families select our school as a first choice application or they potentially join as an in year transfer.

So then we've got three key elements that we're going to work through to make those things happen.

Step one is about making your standout story.

So it's about how you make your school stand out locally against all that local competition.

How are you going to stand out?

Step two is going to be about outreach, so how you get that message out there in front of the right people.

And step three is how are you going to support people along every step of the process from the first time they hear you through to the first day that they actually join.

And I'm going to go through each of these steps and show you what we did at, St.

Augustine's to make this work.

So stand out.

This is all about giving parents a clear reason to visit your school.

It's about looking internally and uncovering what your school genuinely does better than any others locally and being able to explain that clearly in the language that parents instantly understand.

So it's what I call finding your standout story.

And if you have a standout story, it becomes the reason why you get parents in to come and visit the school.

It becomes the story that those parents repeat to others when they're talking about the school.

And it can become the narrative and the perception of how your school is talked about locally.

Because if parents can't clearly understand why your school is special or why they should choose you over the others, then they won't choose it.

And what I often see on, websites, when you are talking about the school, I see schools either having very, very generic messaging around we prioritise academic excellence, or every child here is known.

But again, if any school can claim that, then it doesn't give parents a reason to choose you, or I see information which is really detailed and, and specifically as if it was written for Ofsted.

And again, a parent is not going to scan a website and look through and find out your unique aspect from a big block of text.

What they want is something that immediately grabs their attention and is understandable.

So one of the schools we worked with, we really looked at highlighting their strong academic results, but not just that they have academic excellence, but actually the way they deliver that is through their hands on curriculum.

And we're able to show examples of the active learning, the experiments, how they prioritise memorable experiences to deliver those results and by bringing those to life with examples and case studies and photos.

Then the parents locally start to talk about that school as, yeah, that's the one where they don't sit down for the lessons.

Everything is really hands on.

Now here's what I find.

When I work with schools, it can be a tricky process to uncover what your standout story is because it's so easy to go back to those generic things that actually any school could claim.

So what I do when I work with schools is I do a workshop where we actually go through all of your potential strengths against your competitors.

We find out what's unique about you and then we turn it into parent friendly messaging.

Now to help you get started, what I wanted to give you is the live bonus for today.

So for attending turning up, I'm going to pop this link here in the chat.

This is a worksheet which helps you think through what could be my school's standout story.

It's just going to help you start.

I'm going to post this in the chat now.

So if I pop it here, you should be able to access that and then if you make a copy of it, either download it or go to make a copy and you'll be able to use that as a worksheet you can use internally to start to think about your school and, and what it might be.

That could be the hook to get more parents in and the hook and the story that you could change the local perception.

So once we have got an idea about what is it that we want to get out as our message about our school, about why we stand out, about why parents should choose us, we need to get that in front of the eyeballs of our ideal audience of local parents who are considering either their child joining the next reception intake, whether that's local children joining a nursery, or whether that is actually children who are currently at school and they are not entirely happily and they are looking to potentially move schools.

So we need to get in front of the right Families.

what I did at St.

Augustine's was I got really excited.

I had a meeting booked in with Sarah, the head, Jo, her deputy, and Ellen who worked in the office.

And I came in with this big long list, everything that I knew from local marketing.

I was thinking about a prospectus, doing some videos, we do branded items, maybe some SEO for the website.

We could do press releases and local partnerships.

But as I sat with them, it became immediately obvious that this is, is not going to work in a busy primary school.

So Sarah and Jo were squeezing their marketing into evenings and weekends.

I can't tell you how many times Sarah emailed me at 9 o' clock at night when that was the moment when she got around to actually working on doing something to promote the school.

And when I sat with Ellen in the office, I was there for 20 minutes and we were genuinely interrupted.

15 times the phone was going, people were coming, there was a child who was feeling ill.

I just realized that they don't have time and you don't have time to work on a complicated campaign.

So I threw that list in the bin and we went back to the basics.

In something that is simple, quick something, you can be confident that if you're spending your time on it, you're going to get it in front of local parents.

And so here are the things that we prioritize doing.

So we immediately looked at just upgrading the digital and the poster asset.

So for the open mornings that they were running, they had created something in Word and it wasn't eye catching and it didn't clearly drive people to actually, come in and see the school.

So I worked with them to create a simple template where we could actually promote the events we're running in a, clear, eye catching way that would drive action.

We then looked at getting that out in front of local parents in the most efficient way possible, which was through running paid targeted digital ads.

So a Facebook post, which we could turn into a digital ad and we could show to thousands of people in the local area, it's just a much simpler and efficient way of getting in front of the right people with, the smallest amount of budget compared to leaflets, compared to posting on Facebook organically, compared to any other route you can do this is the most fast and effective to get that message in front of people in a way that they can then take action really easily.

And finally the last thing we did was we just made a few tweaks to how they were appearing online, a couple of tweaks on the website, a Couple of tweaks if they had social media profiles, just making sure that actually they were easy to discover online and when someone discovered them.

The key thing that we did was at every single moment, we tried to drive that interest into booking a school visit.

So we absolutely focused on running any advertising.

Anything that we created was around trying to drive bookings to the school.

And here's what I found when I was working with schools was that often you had the basics in place.

You maybe had some good photos, you had maybe got some good events that you were running, but actually just putting in place the three key systems was the thing that was holding you up.

And things like running a Facebook ad can get really complicated really quickly.

So I, just help to get schools to understand the real basics, what you need to do, how you can do it, and get you unblocked so that you don't spend ages trying to learn how to be a Facebook ads expert, or you don't spend ages being a designer of posters and leaflets.

let's try and get you that result with the minimum amount of time and effort.

This was Michael, who I worked with, and he talked about the outreach in particular.

He literally just did the most basic implementation of the outreach with the Facebook ad, and the posters.

And he went from running again, open days where no one turned up to having full open days.

He ran through then the admission cycle and ended up with eight more first choice applications than he did last year against a backdrop of falling numbers locally.

And that was kind of predominantly down to just him doing the outreach step.

So let's just summarize.

We've got standout story, so your positioning, you've got the outreach, how you get out there.

And then the third step to focus on is support.

And it is absolutely the kind of the quickest way that you can actually start to make an impact on pupil numbers, making it easier for parents to book a visit and being more proactive in supporting them at every step of the journey.

So when you're reaching local parents, you make it easy for them to discover the school, easy to make a booking, and then what you do is you proactively support them.

So the second they've made a booking, you are then following up with them, you're confirming the booking, you are sending them reminders and prompts and reasons why they should actually come in and see the school.

And when they've seen the school, you're again following up with them again and supporting them to feel actually confident in choosing your school so that they can get to the point where they apply, they get to the point where they turn up the first day and actually they have a positive experience.

And what I find when I work with schools is often there isn't the back end system set up to properly take a booking or to, have a structured phone call or, an email that follows up and actually answers the key questions that parents may have.

So I tried to make sure that you've got all of the tools and resources available to do that and to be confident and to upskill your staff and your teams, to actually treat every new prospective parent as if they were a valuable customer, because now they are.

We've gone from a point where parents were lucky if they got into a school to where parents have a lot of choice locally.

And it has to have a shift in the mindset of everyone working in the school, really prioritise supporting those parents.

This is Helen.

I've got a little video I might show later of Helen.

She, talks about the support step here and she said it just was a real shift.

she took over the office one day when the manager was off sick and she found a couple of inquiries in the inbox that hadn't been replied to.

And she got on the phone, she spoke to those parents, she got them in and actually following the processes that we'd put in place, she got those two new starters within about two weeks of starting to work with me.

And again, she just said, this is a complete change for me and for my team about how we think about prospective parents and how we support them.

And because not every school is thinking in this way, if you're the school that's doing that, it can have a real impact on how parents, perceive the school.

So those are the three steps.

Let's just visualise this on a page.

So, again, the big idea at the start was that there are lots of local families who could choose your school, but they aren't currently because they just haven't seen what makes it special.

Either they haven't seen you, they don't even know you're there.

Visibility, or they're deciding not to even consider you because of perception that they've heard.

So if we can get those people through the door, then we have a real chance to change that.

So we have our goal.

Maximize the number of local families who come in and visit.

And we have our outcome, which is we want more families to select our school.

And then our SOS is standout outreach and support, and we're going to just organize our thinking through those steps, making sure that if we can tick off these three key things and the little tasks underneath them, then we're going to be able to optimize any time that we spend on marketing activity to actually drive that goal and drive that outcome.

And here's what can happen.

If you install this three step system now, then it is a system that you can build on year after year.

You don't have to do the absolute best marketing now to have an impact.

In fact, Sarah at St.

Augustine's when I first worked with her, we did the most basic version of it.

We came up with some standout sort of elements we didn't even really properly put into a story.

But we thought of a few things that would stand out about the school.

We literally just did the Facebook ad and we put in some basic parent support.

And by doing that, being proactive, we alone took that from 15 to 27 first choice applications for the previous reception this time around.

So the second year that we worked with Sarah actually we could upskill the team more.

We could look more at the standout messaging, we could run a couple of different outreach methods to add on to those kind of ways of reaching new people.

And we just generally improved the support which lifted her up to 36 first choice applications this year.

So with a pan of 30, she is full.

In fact, she's the only school in the trust who has a waiting list.

And that was done by installing the basic system, feeling confident and able to promote the school and being able to layer on the additional approaches to reach more parents locally.

And what happened when she did this was it didn't just boost that intake.

What she found was by being more visible locally, just captured people who were at other schools thinking, I'm not quite sure here, and it gave them a reason, it prompted them to come and have a look.

The number of in year transfers was mind blowing.

So she had 39 in year transfers join in that year.

And that's obviously not an expected result that is quite over the top in terms of what I would expect to see.

But when I have worked with schools, what I always see is an increase in inquiries, an increase in, in parents who are suddenly giving a reason to consider your school.

Let me just share a little bit of what Sarah said about the results from working on the basic system, Which is a huge amount when you think of the equivalent of clocks or favorite car for the children we were missing.

I think when people came to the school to look potentially for a Reception birthday, saying we've actually got children already at other local schools and they realised what we had to offer here and we wanted to wait.

So that's a huge turnaround and a lot of parents just said we sent our child by proxy to our nearest primary school even though we are only down the road 75 minutes in this area.

And we just didn't know any physicians.

So we managed to get ourselves on the map.

We were thinking directly to something a real barrier for our school.

What we really like in the plan.

And I think what you've been able to have is a really clear understanding of what the plan needs to be.

And working alongside you has enabled you to prepare me strategically from a marketing point of view rather than an education point of view, then to marry that up with what I know goes on within the school unit and what key markers are through the school unit basically has enabled think, okay, this particular ozone, and stick that in with within what we would call a normal education environment.

So for me I think it's confident.

I think what you've done is put it into a smart packet which is easily accessible and almost marks out what we need to do when.

So I think following that might be an extra bit of work initially, but then it's actually quite a manageable approach to Nancy at a school which I think otherwise can feel quite daunting and processing.

When you've got everything else going on in the school and you've got to think about how you're going to advertise this sort of thing.

Following the basic steps, keeping to the structure that you've offered me this year, has made me feel that I can do it.

As I said at the start, when I saw Sarah talking about how hard she was working in the school, what she wanted to put in place, I could see that she was just missing that guidance around what to spend the small amount of time that she could put towards promoting the school so that she felt confident in actually spending that time in doing things that were going to make an impact and she could then support her team to spend the limited amount of time that they might have on it to make an impact as well.

And so that's what's been key for me throughout this has been really trying to help school leaders shift that mindset and go.

Actually it is not just fait complete that however many parents there are in the local area will select, my school.

And that's what I'm stuck with actually.

I want you to feel confident that you can take Action.

You can influence the numbers in your role.

It is a challenging environment.

There are less families out there, but you can make a difference.

And so Chris, who at Hollingwood, who I worked with, he was the one who went at a plan of 45 and he had 56 first choice applications after implementing the system.

He said, if you keep doing the same thing, you're not going to see an improvement.

You've got to work at it.

But it's definitely worth doing because if you're successful, then it can be transformational for the school.

So let's just go back to that question I asked about 20 minutes ago, which was your confidence on could you do something that would reach local parents and would you be able to get them to come into your school?

So now having thinking through that SOS framework, how confident do you feel that you could do something to reach local parents and get them to come in?

So pop your number in the chat and I'm looking to see do we have anyone who is increasing their number?

Anyone who's thinking, actually, yes, I might be able to.

I'm not a three anymore.

I'm not a four anymore.

Let's have a look.

Okay, we've got Tom's an eight, Helen's an eight.

Eight, seven, eight.

Maria, Rebecca's a six.

I.

Okay.

Nikki, eight, seven or eight.

Okay.

I'm generally, I'm not seeing anyone under five, which is, amazing because this is what we need to do is shift your confidence in what to do so that you know what to spend your time doing and you feel actually able to take action.

Brilliant.

there's a definite, a definite shift there.

And the reason, I guess, why it makes such an impact is because every child that is not in your school is a cost to that budget.

And for next year the per pupil funding is £5,115.

So bringing in just that one extra pupil, whether that's an in year transfer or whether that's one extra first choice application, adds that £5,000 into your budget, which if they come in at reception, then that's for seven years.

Potentially.

If you can get five extra pupils in a cross, then you're looking at 25,000.

And the impact of that, as Chris says here, can be really transformational.

My name's Chris Stewart, I'm head teacher at Hollywood Primary School.

So we've got a pupil admission number of 45 at Hollywood.

The first year we were quite low in terms of numbers.

We had 28 admissions into reception and then last year we went slightly up that with 35, but as you still are looking at 10 children lower than your pan So we were in a bit of a, pickle, as to what to do next.

We were certainly having conversations at trust level as to whether to reduce our pan to 30.

We sort of signed up to that free half an hour initial session and I spoke to Carla, our business manager, and just said, look, if we get one child in, then the additional cost will be more than worth it.

And as it's turned out, it's been incredibly successful to get an extra 21 children in the course of the year when this was supposedly be, particularly in Derbyshire and Chesterfield.

The worst year out of all of them is transformational.

It's really exciting because obviously you want a full school if you think about the resources that you can give the children.

And not that we'll be shopping at Harrods now that we're full, but actually we can give the children a much better education in all the year groups.

Not just when I've talked to Chris, he's talked about that kind of wider school impact and that, stability and being able to then not have to have those difficult decisions around staffing or around what resources you aren't able to provide.

So if this is important to you and you are committed to taking action and you feel able to do it, can you give me a yes in the chat?

So are you feeling actually that this is something you want to prioritize doing, that you're looking ahead to, say, September, you're going to have a new reception, admissions program going on.

Is this something you're committed to taking action to and making a difference to your people?

Numbers, Katie?

Yes.

Emily?

Yes.

Helen?

Yes.

Thank you, Emily.

Yeah.

Sarah is a yes.

Excellent.

Yeah, I can see.

Brilliant.

There's real interest here and, I want to, make sure that today you have a framework to think about.

But I also want to know that you feel supported to move this forward because you've seen the approach that works.

But what I've learned from working with schools is knowing the plan and actually installing it are very.

Two very different things.

I know that as soon as this webinar is over, you are going to have someone knocking on your door.

You're going to be back out there, maybe stepping in to look after a lesson.

You're going to have budget, you're going to have inquiries that are coming in from parents.

So I know that schools who implement this and see the impact need a couple of things, and those are things which are Accountability.

And support to make you actually put this in place and have an impact.

So what I'm doing is, I'm running a small program called the 90 Day Pupil Numbers Fix.

it's my personal support to help you install this system in your school before the end of the summer term.

So it's the same approach that Cara and Chris here from Hollingwood implemented.

And we've got Jackie and Jo from Howard, Julie and Joanne.

Here's some of the schools that I've been working with in the Easter period to promote their schools.

And what we do is we help you install the three step system and you commit time to focus on very few specific admissions actions with guidance from me and the support of the school leaders who are going through it.

So I'll give you complete clarity on what to do so that SOS plan each of those steps, there are a number of tasks underneath it and exactly how to do them.

So I'll give you all of those steps and tasks, exactly what to do, in what order.

I'll keep you accountable so it doesn't fall off your to do list.

So every week we meet for that 90 day period.

So over that kind of 12 weeks, we're there on a call to catch up and help you keep moving, check where you are and see what support you need.

Because what I don't want you to do is start doing this.

You start thinking about running a Facebook ad and then as you go to do it, you can't get the payment details to quite work or you run it and the image doesn't look right and the link isn't going to the right place.

And actually there's lots of these small little blockers that could hold you up.

But I want to make sure that actually you get the support to get past these so that you can quickly be running events, be getting parents in to see the school, and you can convert those to people who are actually choosing the school.

So what's involved in the program is it's my support to get this set up in the next 90 days.

Practically this would work as we'd run between now and the end of the summer term, you'd have a pause over the summer holidays where you could still access all the resources but your 90 days pauses and then we pick it up in September.

So actually you'd be in the program live while, you're going through all your autumn admissions.

So I'll help you figure out your standout story.

So what is it that makes you special?

I'LL help you put in place the parent outreach system so how families can discover you.

And I'll help you put in place that support pipeline so how you and your team continually support parents to choose you.

We'll do the live implementation sessions on Zoom with me through those weekly group calls to help you get going.

And you're also going to get access to the first choice school community.

This is a community where I have a number of school leaders in here who are all addressing the same challenges.

So we've got John here from Seabourne Dean and James from White House Primary.

they're all going through the process where they are putting in place the three step system and I'm supporting them all to implement it.

And throughout this you get access to the exact step by step system.

You get all the tasks, exactly what to do and guidance.

And we meet each week for the live calls to do this.

I know that as you go through this there are a number of things that might hold you up.

So I want to make sure every step that I'm giving you the right support you to help you keep moving.

So first thing I do is an admissions action plan.

So I'll do some research on your catchment area, your competitors, your pupil numbers trends and help you look at a personalized version of the SOS plan.

So that's an admissions action plan.

When you get started I'll do a review of your current website and social media so I can give you a quick list of.

These are the quick changes that you could make that will have an impact and will help you as you go through the process to improve your pupil numbers.

I do a one to one standout story discovery workshop with you with perhaps a couple of your senior leaders or governors.

Where we work, we do a 90 minute session.

We really work through what is it that you do in the school and I help you figure out what is that one thing that makes you uniquely different that you should focus that messaging on and I help you turn it into parent facing messaging.

We don't want to just focus on reception because actually that's going to take a little bit of time to come through.

We want to look at what can you do immediately to try and get out there and drive interest in, in year transfers.

And as you've gone through the process and you've maybe evolved how you talk about the school, you've got a new way of focusing on what makes you special.

I want to make sure that your staff and your governors are on board as well.

So we're Going to do a briefing pack where we pull together all the key messaging, how to talk about the school in a way that actually you can really easily get staff and governors singing from that same hymn sheet.

So whenever they are out in the community talking to local parents, they are acting as a way to actually kind of enhance all of your promotion.

So the total value of the program plus all of those bonuses is just under £5,000.

The reason it's that is because we know that if we can get just one extra pupil in then it's going to be delivering £5115 into your budget.

And in fact if you can do some of this before the October census, 2nd of October, 1st of October this year, that is going to be something where you the quickest way to get money into your budget.

But because you're not waiting till the autumn, because you are looking to be proactive and if you're looking to go and ahead now then actually for the June program that I'm starting next week, the investment is not 4,981 pounds.

It is just a 2,995 pound one off fee.

By doing that you get access to the 90 day program with me plus those six months of support in the community.

So actually you'll be guided all the way through to early next year and you'll be confident about how to promote the school.

And I know that you need some certainty about this.

I've shown some examples where actually we've had really good results but actually it's going to differ in every single school.

But what I want to do is help you get at least one new in year transfer, at least one first choice application.

So you can feel that actually you've recouped that investment.

And if we don't do that within the time that I'm working with you, then I will continue that to work with you.

So I won't just say thanks.

Off we go.

I will continue to support you, to figure out your standout story, to look at different ways that you can do that outreach until we can get you those results.

So if you're interested then the way to secure a place is to go to this website here.

I'm going to pop it in the chat.

It's called standoutschoolmarketing.com fix.

I'm going to post it here.

If you click on that, all you need to do at this point is fill out the short application form.

So it is just a few questions.

It's literally name, email, your school name, postcode, and if you know it, what are your number of first choice applications or your intake for reception?

And by doing this, by filling out this at this you'll then be able to book an action plan call with me on that call, we'll put together your personalized three step marketing plan.

At the end of that call.

If you want to go ahead and join the program, then you can do that.

If we go through it and it's not right, if it's just I think that maybe I can't help the school in this particular situation or if you're not entirely comfortable with it, you can at that point give your place back.

But if you are interested and you want to grab one of those five places for headteachers for the program that's going to start in June, we're going to start, the deadline is next Thursday, the 11th of June.

Then all you need to do is come to this link and fill out this application form and then book your action plan.

And I'm just going to run through again exactly what we are looking to do.

So we're looking to build your standout story, uncover what genuinely makes your school different.

You've got that one to one discovery session and then I help you turn it into clear parent facing messaging.

We've got the outreach step where I show you exactly what steps to take to get your standout story in front of local families.

And we have the support system so how we can support you to go through from the first time you reach a new parent through to them actually feeling confident to join you.

All the details are here and one of the key things I guess to think about is, is if you are ready to take action and you want that little bit of extra support, then by doing this and taking action now you can see longer term returns in terms of this investment.

So Chris invested 2,995 in year one.

He's returned to himself his budget over 50 grand.

Laura again over 60 grand into her budget from investing in this small 90 day program.

we've got Jackie who actually, she generated nine in year transfers and then Helen who actually looked at utilizing this system for her nursery.

And again within three weeks of starting she had already got two new extra pupils joining through the, sorry, three in nursery and two in year transfers.

And the cost of not acting is bigger than the cost of acting because every pupil that is not in place is worth £5,000.

So if you are interested please come to standupschoolmarketing.com Fix or reply to my email, let me know and, we can secure your place for the June program that starts next week on Thursday 11 June, and you'll get my help to install this into your system.

I want to pause there and I would love to see if there are any specific questions that you have.

and I am going to then run through them and I'll try and help you with your particular situation or any of your questions about the program.

And just while you pop that in the chat, questions I've had before is exactly what happens if I do apply.

So, again, if you apply now, then I will do some research before we meet.

So I will do your pupil numbers, your catchment area, your competitors.

I'll put together action plan, I'll share it with you and on the call we can walk through it together and I'll recommend what steps to prioritise first.

And as I said, if it's not right, then you can give back your place.

But in order to get one of those five places, you need to fill out that application form, as soon as questions, I'm just going to play out with Helen who is one of the participants in the program.

So I'm just going to share what Helen said.

I've got about 10 things open at the same time.

I really enjoyed the training.

I came drugging and screaming to it because it's hard to fit it into your day, isn't it?

But also, you need to do it and you won't get any better unless you get trained.

But the follow up has been magical and so I've got two new starters already through the door that happened last week and I'm not a salesperson, I'm not necessarily a pushy person but.

And it goes out of my comfort zone a little bit.

But it was just that it is important, isn't it?

If all the schools are doing this, they just need to bang the bullet, don't you?

But it's a, it's about changing your mindset, isn't it?

Frame of mind.

And all my SLT have been watching your video.

We can't often join on a Thursday, but we've all been watching the videos in it.

That's also powerful because if I just been listening to it in isolation in my office there's five SLT members and then together they're helping us explain it to the rest of the teachers.

It's good CPD for what, 10 years I've been an ED now, 30 years in the school, but I've never had anything like this.

I've done the mpqh, I've done all of those things, but I've never had anything like this.

And yeah, it's made a big difference because when I was telling my governors resources committee because obviously I'm spending some dosh and also I was embarrassed in case like we didn't get any hit.

Yes, there's this guy called Chris and he's 90 dicks and he can boost your numbers.

So I said, and if I don't get any new numbers, it's really good cpd.

And when I said it, I didn't mean it, but actually it is really good CPD because I'm learning new skills as well and all of that kind of stuff.

But it is 100% a mind you mind shift in the way that you think.

A lot of the schools in my area have never ever had to think about the numbers coming through the door before.

So you're very, if you pick us, you will be lucky kind of thing.

But actually now it's a complete shift, isn't it?

I am thoroughly enjoying it and it's really brought some good thinking around for the whole team.

Well, thank you everyone who's joined today.

I really appreciate your time.

I know you're super busy, so, I hope that you go away, whether you end up working with me or you implement this yourself, that you have a simple framework to think this through now and to prioritize your actions and support your team to prioritise actions that can have an impact on getting more local parents to see what makes your school special.

So good luck.

as we go forward, any questions, drop in an email and if you want some support then just sign up, book a call and we'll look at it for your specific school.

Thank you everyone and I will hopefully speak to you soon.