What Heads say about BOOST: increasing pupil numbers and school budgets

Our intake for next year already looks significantly greater than last year and we have certainly raised the profile of the school locally. Thank you Andrew and Stoneworks!

When we found out about Stoneworks we thought that they might represent the perfect way to raise the profile of our school in our local community. We are immensely proud of our school and wanted a way to share what we do with a wider audience. The company was incredibly helpful and endlessly patient with us while going through the process of sorting out all the literature - we are perfectionists and wanted it to be 'just right'.

Our local area is now peppered with posters where our parents celebrate our amazing school, and these link to our website where more information is also available.  We also had their photographer in to help us with our prospectus.  They produced this very professionally and it has been extremely well received by all stakeholders, with parents who are new to the school being particularly impressed. 

We have also worked with Andrew's team to create a booklets that shows our EYFS class. We are sharing this with nurseries to make the transition of our new reception children even smoother and to publicise our offer through the local nurseries. 

I couldn't be more grateful to Andrew and his team. They've been amazing.  

Since using our 3-Step Plan literature, we have seen our school website hits go up significantly.

Stoneworks Education’s 3-Step Plan is very different to anything I had seen in the education sector. The meeting I had with Andrew, at the start of the project, was highly informative. You can tell that he is an expert in schools marketing. The unique approach they take, of using family case studies to market the school, is innovative and brilliant.

The fact that it is a planned out strategic approach covering several months, that you can repeat, means that its not just a ‘one off’ marketing push. It isn’t just the family case studies though, there are two more steps that are equally powerful, including Starting School Storybooks and Celebration Prospectuses (that also feature the family studies), and that roll out across several months.

We get free ongoing support from Andrew too, and free literature updates. All very useful and cost effective.

I’d recommend that all schools who need to increase pupil numbers to get in touch with Andrew at Stoneworks Education, so he can take you through the three steps. I’m so pleased that we did.

We were worried our pupil numbers would fall due to a drop in the birth rate locally. It’s a problem that a lot of schools are currently facing. When I came across Stoneworks Education and their 3-Step Plan to increase pupil numbers, I was definitely intrigued.

I had an initial meeting with Andrew that was very encouraging. I could see that his innovative approach could easily work. It's no use a school talking about itself if they are saying what other schools in the area say. You can’t tell one school from another if they all say the same thing.  

Parents usually talk to friends and family when they are selecting schools. Using that angle, Andrew developed a range of family stories that were then used in a planned way across our community. I like the fact that its all planned in three steps. He also gave us a plan to work from and encouraged us to get in touch if we had questions while running the plan.

What parents say about your school has much more impact in the community that what the school says about itself.

I’d say that if a school is facing a drop in the birth rate, as lots of schools are, they need to call Stoneworks Education for a chat. Andrew and his team definitely know what they are talking about.

What an intuitive idea. To use our family’s stories to market the school. Rather than the school talking about itself, our families talk about how the school has benefitted their children. It’s very powerful.
 
I also like the fact that it isn’t a ‘one off’ approach. That there is a strategic plan behind it, and it runs for several months. That you can pause, when numbers go up, and restart if they start to go down. And that Andrew at Stoneworks is available at any time for free advice while we are running the plan. And, we get free updates to literature.
 
The team at Stoneworks were very easy to work with. My first meeting with Andrew, where he talked me through the 3-Step Plan, was very enlightening. It showed me that there was something that we could do to increase pupil numbers. It can be difficult to know what to do when you are faced with dwindling pupil numbers.
 
I’d recommend that if a school is having a problem with low pupil numbers, that they contact Andrew at Stoneworks Education to see how they can help.

What a fantastic idea to use family stories to market the school. We held an open day recently and the reaction to the prospectus, case studies and posters was tremendous. Parents loved the literature. I also had a short time to get it all developed, and they met my tight deadline. Andrew would remind me if I was behind on anything. 

The area we cater for is largely rural. It’s a large area to cover, and that is why I think the posters are a great idea. We will be changing them monthly. We have four case studies, so that’s four posters, which is four months of coverage, covering the rural community. In a month, parents could see the posters up to 100 times. Each month we will change the posters. 

It isn’t the school talking about itself, its parents praising the school. We want to stand out as different, and I think this approach suits us very well. 

I’d recommend that if a school is low in numbers or wants to review their approach to marketing their school to parents, that they talk with Andrew and his team.

By using BOOST we have increased our school budget.

My first meeting with Andrew was highly encouraging. We have had decreasing enrolment for a while now.  We have tried several things, but nothing worked. Andrews approach made a lot of sense and Governors and SLT were happy to work with Stoneworks Education.

Within two months we had an increase in website traffic. We have now had two pupils join our small rural school. If we hadn't run BOOST they wouldn't have joined our school. I anticipate more pupils joining because parents really do love the posters and literature. 

The fact that it runs for several months, and you can contact Andrew for free support, made a big difference too. The whole package is cost effective and works.

We chose to use Stoneworks Education because it was the only company that used the views of parents and children, who attended the school, to promote the school to the community. Stoneworks approached the families and carried out all of the background work, including the talking with the parents and writing up those conversations. What better way is there of showing parents and pupils all that the school does to support families!