mtmconsulting newsletter issue 15

mtm SCHOOL MATTERS

mtmCONSULTING strategy for education

ISSUE

15

JANUARY 2014

01 mtmconsulting ltd. Portland House, 43 High Street, Southwold, IP18 6AB

TEL: 01502 722787 FAX: 01502 722305 www.mtmconsulting.co.uk

Page 2:

What does 2014 hold for the independent sector? We asked some key players: read what they said on page 2

Page 4:

Get the most from your market James Leggett on how to use research to target your marketing

Page 5:

It’s not just the economy!

It’s where your school is located: Gavin Humphries draws some lessons from regional research

Page 6:

Free Schools: how big a threat to your school?

Which of your parents might be most likely to choose one?

Also in this issue:

If you would like to receive a digital version of School Matters please let us know. Email: office@ mtmconsulting.co.uk

Planning your strategy?

Know all the facts first

E very school needs to review its long-term strategy regularly. Political pressures change, financial and market conditions respond to the

greater economy, parental aspirations and expectations increase, educational practice develops and the competition may be already ahead of the game.

So how do school leaders and governing bodies give themselves the opportunity to raise their attention from the pressing daily needs of their school and focus on the factors which will shape its health and characteris-tics in five, ten or 20 years’ time?

The usual response is to organise an awayday: a full day’s discussion and reflection off the school premises and away from the demands of the time-table and the governors’ regular agenda. An excellent plan, but too often derailed by a failure to analyse the bigger picture.

External pressures

What effect is the prolonged down-turn having on independent schools? How are parents responding to the demands on their disposable income? What effect is declining affordability having on the profile of the parents who choose independent schools?

How would a change of government in 2015 change the environment for your school?

The local market

Knowing the characteristics of your local economy and the parents who live in your catchment is vital. And how are your competitors faring? What can you learn from their numbers and performance about how local demand is changing?

Careful research in advance, pre-sented with bespoke reference to your own development plans and priorities, will help to ensure that your awayday participants have a productive and focused discussion to inform the school’s developing strategy.

Contact:

[email protected],uk to find out how we can help ensure your awayday stays on track.

We wish all our readers a very happy and prosperous New Year.

For the latest intelligence on school marketing, why

not come to our next INSIGHTS seminar on 11

March?

See page 6 for details

By Dick Davison

02 mtmconsulting ltd, Portland House, 43 High Street, Southwold, IP18 6AB


ISSUE 15 mtm SCHOOL MATTERS

Peter Bodkin General Secretary, Society of Heads

Will the “green shoots” of economic recovery be felt in the independent sector, particularly outside London and the South East?

Will parents feel confident enough about job secu-rity, house prices, interest rates, the cost of living, university fees and their other finances to embark on the long haul of up to 15 years of private educa-tion?

Time will tell, but the sector has demonstrated remarkable resilience during hard times. Innovative practice and new business models have seen schools deliver excellent value for money in the face of increasing competition from within and from outside the sector.

2014 will also see the challenge of the curriculum changes due to be implemented from September 2014 and 2015. As ever, the sector will adapt quickly to the significant changes required and will ensure that the teaching and the curriculum is tailored to the individual needs of pupils.

And with the 2015 election looming, the issues of wider access to our schools and enhancing social mobility will be high on the agenda in discussions with the political parties. Wouldn’t it be good if the DfE was taken out of politics and devolved on similar lines as the Bank of England’s responsibility for monetary policy? Is this unthinkable or should we be starting the ball rolling in 2014?

Anthony Seldon Master, Wellington College

2014 will be hard for the independ-ent sector. Parents will find it hard to pay fees. More schools may close. Margins will tighten. The state sector in contrast will forge ahead, with more academies and free schools, putting the independent sector under further pressure.

Andrew Maiden Funding for Independent Schools

2014 should be the year where independent schools put a figure on their public benefit provision. A 2015 election may well bring in a new government that revisits the issue. Gather as much empirical evidence as possible should the sector come under attack again in the future. Forewarned is forearmed.

Stephen Roberts Principal, Stamford Endowed Schools

Recruitment of pupils in the South East and East will continue to outstrip the rest of the country. Parents will continue to make great sacrifices to be able to afford private education, but the low growth in earnings will mean that fees are becoming increasingly unaffordable. However, good schools will con-tinue to thrive.

Sue Freestone Principal, King’s Ely

As I write, we await clarification from government about the pending changes in GCSE and A Level, due for first teaching in 2015. However, we in the independent sector, rather than being ground down by uncer-tainty, look to exciting opportunities to differentiate ourselves from the main-tained sector by enabling evermore creative and innovative learning in our schools.

Gavin Humphries Consultant, mtmconsulting

Business school profes-sors sometimes show lists of the largest companies today versus 100 years ago, or 50 years ago or even 20 years ago – demonstrating how things change and how managers should never take anything for granted.

It is the same among independent schools – even year to year there is a different list of the top schools as meas-ured by pupil numbers. Some drop out of the top league as their pupil numbers continue to decline – often schools in the Midlands and the North. Others enter this league simply by maintain-ing their rolls. But a few are climbing with a more aggressive recruitment drive or by proactively merging with a local prep school to go all-through. If anything this ‘churn’ is speeding up and next year will be no different. September 2014 will be a crucial month for many independent schools: recruitment is getting harder for most and even some schools that were quite unaffected by the recession are starting to see drops in roll numbers at the key intake years. By this time next year the list will have changed again – will you be waiting or acting?

We asked our friends what they thought 2014 would hold for the independent sector.

This is what they said ……...

Mary Short Headmistress, St Helen’s Northwood

2014 will bring fresh and chal-lenging opportunities to provide the very best education for all young people fortunate enough to attend schools which enjoy the independence and ambition to design their curriculum and wider education programme.

Independent schools can contribute to the wider educational debates around the new examinations, can engage with the training of new entrants to teaching, and engage with their local communities and neighbouring schools, and to define more clearly what sets them apart as well as what it is shared. We will face increased competition from the maintained sector and will need to ensure that the education we provide is relevant to and valu-able for our pupils. We will need to communicate this clearly and unambiguously and ensure that in all that we do, we are true to what we say.

Mike Lower General Secretary ISBA

Although we are beginning to see a glimmer of light on the financial horizon, it is too early yet to know whether this will be reflected in increasing parental confidence over their ability to afford the fees and, hence, an upswing in numbers. Thus, most bursars are continuing with their austerity measures by delaying capital projects and cutting back on non-essential items. Bursars are also keeping one eye on the pensions horizon to see what the landscape will look like when the TPS career average scheme takes effect in 2015. Fi-nally, the possibility of a change of government in 2015 could affect the outlook dramatically so many bursars are adopting a ‘watch and wait’ stance.

Anjali Kothari, Partner Kingston Smith

2014 will be interesting, as the economic climate continues to improve and many schools find them-selves coming through the worst of the economic downturn and are able to restart their investment programmes. But there has been a subtle change in the pupil mix. Schools have found themselves with a pupil population made up of children from the very wealthy or from the very poor. This change will become even more evident in 2014 as the traditional buyers of independent education such as doctors, lawyers and accountants are priced out of the market and academies and free

schools become a more attractive option. How will the independent sector respond in 2014?



mtm SCHOOL MATTERS

Anthony Seldon Master, Wellington College

2014 will be hard for the independ-ent sector. Parents will find it hard to pay fees. More schools may close. Margins will tighten. The state sector in contrast will forge ahead, with more academies and free schools, putting the independent sector under further pressure.

Andrew Maiden Funding for Independent Schools

2014 should be the year where independent schools put a figure on their public benefit provision. A 2015 election may well bring in a new government that revisits the issue. Gather as much empirical evidence as possible should the sector come under attack again in the future. Forewarned is forearmed.

Sue Freestone Principal, King’s Ely

As I write, we await clarification from government about the pending changes in GCSE and A Level, due for first teaching in 2015. However, we in the independent sector, rather than being ground down by uncer-tainty, look to exciting opportunities to differentiate ourselves from the main-tained sector by enabling evermore creative and innovative learning in our schools.

Tim Hands Master, Magdalen College School

Independent education thrives at times of economic well-being and Labour govern-ment. The economy may be on the turn – a good sign. But independent education probably recovers last in any recession – so let's not get hopes up unduly. It is too soon to say how successful Coalition reform of education in the maintained sector has been – but opinion polls suggest some growing public confidence. It isn't too soon to say that, at times of change, whether in public exams or in university admissions, the independent sector usually responds faster and better. All in all, then, it looks like a year of swings and roundabouts, though not really of much gleeful fun at the fair.

(Dr Hands is Chairman of the Headmasters’ and Headmistressess Conference)

Chris Rimmer Consultant

2014 is likely to see a recovery in pupil numbers. However, the slow attrition of domestic boarding is likely to continue. Competition for pupils will remain high, with an increased focus on competitive posi-tion and value propositions. Marketing communica-tions (e.g. social media, e-newsletters, blogs and podcasts) will continue to develop, but pre-sent challenges in how best to deploy them. Nevertheless, with these tools the opportunities are there to build strong brand communities. The mar-ket is ripe for product innovation; are Independent school MOOCs in the offing?

Jill Berry Consultant

Continuing Professional Development in schools will move further from the model of individuals ‘going on a course’ and having an ‘expert’ in school to address the whole teaching staff on a training day. There will be more ‘on the job’ coaching and more action research projects where staff work in teams (across as well as within departments and, ideally, also across schools) on planned interven-tions, evaluation of impact and further, refined interventions. Greater use will be made of re-search, and staff completing programmes such as the HMC/GSA Independent Schools Qualification in Academic Management will engage in a combi-nation of reading and reflection with work in school leading to learning and improvement. Those involved in master’s and doctoral programmes will increasingly use their learning to feed into and enrich the schools in which they work.

Matthew Adshead Headmaster & Proprietor The Old Vicarage School, Derbyshire

The UK may be far from over the downturn; potentially harder times may yet be ahead. Rather than fret, I prefer to react to what hap-pens in my locality. Our area may be declining in independ-ent school pupil numbers, but we have grown by 40% in the past five years.

Parents continue to lack confidence in the main-tained sector locally. If fees are £10,000 per an-num or below, schools can hold up or increase in number with parents looking for affordable, but excellent options. In 2014, positive growth can occur. Schools must listen, react swiftly to market forces or trends and preferably not be shackled by huge debts of recent building projects.

Schools should focus on offering a personalised service to families, outsourcing facilities and avoid huge expenditure. Careful housekeeping, spending money on resources, where parents can see im-mediate benefits for their child, will lead to positive word of mouth and growth.

We asked our friends what they thought 2014 would hold for the independent sector.

This is what they said ……...

Richard Cairns Headmaster, Brighton College

Static household incomes suggest that tough times still lie ahead for the independent sector outside London and the South East. I envisage further consolidation in the market with larger, successful schools growing and smaller schools merging or going out of business.

Jan Shilling Director of Marketing, Kings Rochester

The challenging environment for school marketing is likely to continue into 2014. Successful school marketers will concentrate on creating and main-taining strong relationships with feeder schools and their heads and with other major influencers. Targeted events for target age groups will pay dividends as parents become more demanding and more focused in their aspirations for their children. And the importance of looking after your current parents will be more vital than ever.

Anjali Kothari, Partner Kingston Smith

2014 will be interesting, as the economic climate continues to improve and many schools find them-selves coming through the worst of the economic downturn and are able to restart their investment programmes. But there has been a subtle change in the pupil mix. Schools have found themselves with a pupil population made up of children from the very wealthy or from the very poor. This change will become even more evident in 2014 as the traditional buyers of independent education such as doctors, lawyers and accountants are priced out of the market and academies and free

schools become a more attractive option. How will the independent sector respond in 2014?

Peers Carter School Transfer Consultants

It was Lord Leverhulme who minted the famous aphorism :

‘Half our advertising budget is wasted … the trou-ble is I don’t know which half…’



Follow mtmconsulting online

mtmconsulting’s experts write regular blogs on vital issues of the day on our website. Follow their updates on www.mtmconsulting.co.uk/news/

mtm SCHOOL MATTERS

H ow to get the best from the available market is a question we are often asked at mtmconsulting.

Before we can answer it, we need to know who, what and where ‘your market’ is. We can cut your market into bite sized chunks to make it easier to understand, allow-ing you to target your actions appropriately.

The first thing we do is to map all of your current pupils to identify a realistic catchment area. Clearly a boarding market is harder to define, but day markets are typically around a 30- to 40-minute rush hour drive time from your school.

The Waitrose factor

Now we know the size of the catchment, we need to identify the sorts of families who attend your school. Our Mandarin market analysis tool uses a socio-demographic data set which splits families into six cate-gories and 18 groups, based on their postcode (eg IP18 6AB). We can go further to 62 types, but we find very few situations where this level of details is really rele-vant. The dataset is built from over 400 variables on every household, including data from store ‘loyalty’ cards, credit card data and government statistics. We know, for example, that independent school families are four times more likely to shop at Waitrose than the aver-age Great British household.

We find this dataset more applicable to independent school markets than the only available alternative as it has a higher income weighting, making it more relevant for our situation and slightly easier to understand and present graphically. This gives us a good understanding of the lifestyles of the families we are dealing with.

More relevant

Because the data set gives us a good idea of the life-styles of all families in Great Britain, we can use Manda-rin to locate the areas for recruitment of households with a similar profile to your current buyers, and help identify areas which you should be recruiting from but currently do not. When we overlay the population pro-jections for the next five and ten years, the key areas to

James Leggett, Consultant and Project Manager at mtmconsulting, shows how street-level analysis can ensure that that your marketing is accurately targeted.

target recruitment become much clearer. We can also begin to define numbers of target pupils at this stage, giving an idea of demand.

The next thing we look at is supply. Whilst this is harder to define as no competitor will have exactly the same market and catchment as you, we can still gauge whether there is potential for improvement. We have collected detailed data on the rolls of all schools since 2006, so we can analyse all potential competitor schools and understand how their numbers have moved. If they have all seen a huge decline and you have not, you are doing something right. We also map the competitors, allocating them a notional catchment and assessing the level of competition across the catch-ment.

Bus routes

The final thing to do is to map your current bus routes and suggest improvements to ensure you really are as accessible as possible not only for your current parents but also for potential new recruits.

Once all this is in place, a full Strategic Marketing Plan can be drawn up and implemented, including other pieces of research such as parental, pupil and decliners surveys to understand more about how the school is perceived by its key stake holders. This all ensures that the school is giving the correct messages to the people who can realistically attend your school, providing a sure return on investment for your marketing spend.

How do you get the best from your market?

For the latest intelligence on school marketing, why not come to our next In-sights seminar on 11 March? See page 6.

http://www.mtmconsulting.co.uk

http://www.mtmconsulting.co.uk




case that independent rolls are lower than household income alone would predict. In the West Midlands, this effect is relatively small – rolls are less than 10% lower than income levels would suggest. This small effect is reflected in the fact that rolls here have remained static over the last decade.

In the East Midlands and the North West, rolls are roughly a quarter lower than income alone would sug-gest. Here we are probably seeing the role of personal politics plus some social effects. That is, because par-ents are less likely to know someone using the inde-pendent sector, they are less likely to use it themselves. Total rolls are falling in both of these regions. We sus-pect that the bigger fall in the North West reflects an artificially high starting point. The North West was home to a particularly large number of Direct Grant Schools that went independent and survived thanks to the As-sisted Places Scheme that ceased from 1997 onwards.

There are three regions where these non-income effects are even more pronounced. In Scotland, they reduce the number of independent pupils by about a third com-pared to what we would expect given household in-comes. This situation is not new – independent pupil numbers there have been declining since 1992, al-though falls in the 1990s have recently levelled off. In the North East, non-income effects reduced rolls by about a half. And in Wales, they have reduced rolls by roughly two-thirds. There, the sector has been in decline since 1962 and this trend is very much continuing.

Although many of these non-income effects are en-trenched, there will still be parents who can be per-suaded by the benefits of independent education. While household incomes in your catchment may be a given, there are things that you can do to boost your rolls, whatever part of the country your school is in. If you would like to know more about the trends in your region, county or local catchment, do get in touch with us. mtmconsulting has a wealth of data about the prospec-tive parents in your local area. This data goes right down to postcode level, so we can help you find the streets to target in your quest to turn the tide.

T he London market for independent schools is buoyant – it is the only region in the UK to have

grown in pupil numbers in every age segment (nursery, junior, senior and sixth form) over the last decade. Of course the large number of wealthy families in London drives this situation, but that is not the whole story. There are more pupils at independent schools in the capital than household income on its own would predict. There are other factors at work – perhaps network ef-fects (‘my neighbours / friends / colleagues educate their children privately so maybe we should have a look too’) or the performance of the state sector.

In the South East, there has been a similar boost to in-dependent rolls both from patterns of household income and some of these other positive non-income effects. Although the number of pupils is no longer growing, it has held up compared to elsewhere in the country. There was growth in the East of England but largely thanks to economic growth in and around Cambridge.

In the South West, the relatively fewer high-income households should mean fewer independent pupils than there actually are. This is probably because the greater presence of boarding schools in the West Country is drawing in numbers of pupils from outside the region. However, the contraction of boarding has contributed to a long-term fall in its pupil numbers.

In every other region, there are below average numbers of high-income households so naturally we would not expect to see as high a proportion of independent pupils as we do in the south of England. However, it is also the

It’s not

just the economy!

by Gavin Humphries, Head of Research Publications and Reports

This article draws on the new regional analysis of independent pupil numbers that

mtmconsulting has conducted in late 2013.




T he Free School movement continues to expand with 174 schools opening since 2011, and 102 new

Free Schools approved to open in 2014 and beyond.

mtmconsulting has been involved with several Free School projects, all of which have seen very high levels of interest and many over-subscribed after the first year. Furthermore, Labour has now indicated that it would not abolish the system should they be elected in 2015, al-though there would be likely to be more regulation.

Free Schools are Michael Gove’s contribution to the Conservative’s ‘Big Society’, with parents and teachers being encouraged to start their own schools to meet local need. In reality, of course, the booming birth rate since the late 90s/early 2000s has caused a huge increase in demand for schools which government has failed to prepare for.

So what does all this mean for fee-paying independent schools? Those choosing Free Schools are typically more educationally aware, as research conducted for The Guardian found in 2011. Many are dissatisfied with the current state provision, particularly with class sizes and pupil/teacher ratios on the rise. This should create the perfect opportunity for independent schools to ex-pand their market.

But does it? At mtmconsulting, we have identified two key markets for independent schools. ‘Typical/traditional’ independent school buyers are some of the wealthiest members of society and are most likely to send their children to independent schools. Indeed, our School Fees Payment Survey 2012 suggests that 51% of households with an income of £100,000+ send their children to independent schools.

However, the other key market is those we call ‘aspirational’ buyers, represented to a greater or lesser extent in all independent schools. These are the fami-lies on lower incomes who make significant sacrifices in order to send their children to an independent school. These families tend to be very educationally aware and many have been likely to send their child to a more ‘academic’ alternative.

But they are also amongst those most likely to be in-terested in Free Schools, where they are established. As such, independent schools need to ensure their marketing is targeted in the correct areas, perhaps even using different messages to different groups of families to ensure ‘aspirational’ parents are fully aware of the real all-round benefits of an independent education at your school.

Insights Tuesday 11 March 2014

Making the most of your school’s market

10.15-14.00 inc lunch

With increasing demands on parental income and fierce competition to recruit pupils, how do you make the most of the potential in your catchment and access the parents who can afford the fees? This seminar will present new ways to target your market, the latest mtm research on parental incomes down to regional level, and on the payment of fees from disposable income. Speakers:

Gavin Humphries: How are pupil numbers affected by socio-economic factors in regions across the UK? Gavin will present his latest research on the income and socio-economic factors that impact on pupil num-bers in areas across the UK. He will touch on the con-tribution that grandparents make and whether they will be able to do so in future. Dick Davison: The application of research to increase your market share. Dick will present the latest develop-ments in mtmconsulting’s Mandarin and give practical demonstrations on how you can use it to achieve better penetration of your market and understand how to make your school more accessible to the market and how your competitors are really doing. Caroline Wood : Director of Admissions and Marketing at Cheltenham College.

Repositioning a school. Cheltenham College has a long history but some years ago it believed it had slipped from being a ‘national’ to a ‘local’ brand. The steps taken to re-establish the position of the College in the market have resulted in an increase in pupil numbers. Caroline will speak about the work of the marketing and admission team to reposition the school and her plans to continue the work to re-establish the school as a national player. The NEW mtmconsulting Insights Programme provides heads, bursars and governors with the latest research and analysis to inform decision

making about school and investment priorities.

We hold our half-day ‘Insights Series’ at the elegant Cavalry and Guards Club, 127 Piccadilly, W1J 7PX, in the heart of Mayfair. Places are limited; book early.

The cost is £150 plus VAT.

To book: On our website, click on ‘Insights Booking’ and complete your application online

Free Schools: How big a threat to your school?

By James Leggett

mtmconsulting newsletter issue 15

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