Maintaining your school’s reach

Research and Comment by Dominic Knight, Senior Researcher at mtmconsulting.

Our unique postcode database of pupils, garnered through our catchment area analysis projects, has highlighted an unexpected general trend in independent school recruitment, namely a contraction in school catchments for day pupils, irrespective of age (the situation with boarding pupils appears to be the opposite, with a larger proportion now coming from further away).

This has also been borne out in specific analyses we have undertaken for clients where it was possible to compare the locations of their parents in different years. In each case, the school’s reach appeared to have declined with time, with a smaller proportion of current day pupils travelling from further out than was the case in the not too distant past.

This does appear to be counter-intuitive: surely schools in these days of good transport links and the Internet should be able to maintain their recruitment at distance and even increase it? So why might this be happening?

Squeezed finances appears to be one motivator: because of the recent recession, families have clearly been looking more carefully at how they spend money in the independent sector and have become more reluctant to travel long distances as a result (the increased cost of travel may be a another factor).

Linked to this may be improving competition from the state sector in the locality of each school, particularly academies and free schools: why pay fees and travel further if there is a perfectly good state alternative just around the corner?

To counter this, independent schools need to find ways of standing out from the crowd and make it worthwhile for families at the limits of their catchments to send their children to them, and this is where mtmconsulting can help with our suite of educational research, marketing and strategy services

Of course, the situation with boarding pupils is the exact opposite, but that is for another blog. . .

To discuss this or any of our schools marketing and education strategy services, please call James on 01502 722787 or email james@emrsolutions.co.uk.

mtmconsulting is a brand of Education Market Research Solutions Ltd.