2020 will be remembered as one of the most challenging years any of us have ever been through. Even before the virus appeared, economies were slowing around the world after trade wars, wild fires, storms and more.
With the absolute collapse in international travel, this creates even more pressure on the international schools market. It’s likely now that the year 2019/2020 will not see any activity in terms of new pupils even if some schools around the world are allowed to reopen.
Many countries are only just moving into the lockdown phase so have many months ahead getting to grips with reducing the impact on health services. Even if we reduce the rates of infection to a trickle, it seems likely borders will remain shut until countries have faith in each other’s statistics and containment activities.
Realistically, we have to hope that it will be later this year that some form of normality can resume. For international schools this looks like planning for September (and the early part of the next school year) is the most sensible approach with the assumption that the virus has been contained or some form of medical development appears to reduce the level of fear.
The Changing Face of Admissions
The typical admissions process for international parents involves contact being made from abroad. At some point the family may plan to be in the destination city and will try and book in a visit to the schools they have shortlisted.
Clearly this process cannot function for at least the next six months, maybe even longer. So schools will need to be innovative to stand out from the crowd and use everything at their disposal to build relationships and trust the with the reduced number of potential new pupils. One resource that many schools already employ in the admissions process is their existing parents. Especially in the international school universe, forming bonds in a foreign city before you move can make the difference. From a personal perspective, we have moved to new cities three times with our family and those initial months can be some of the hardest as you find your way into a new community. Even worse when you can't even visit beforehand.
Introducing Parent Ambassadors
Many of the visitors to our site are international parents researching their next move - often the school is the decision that has to be made before all others. To help schools in these trying times we have been working on something totally new called Parent Ambassadors.
This allows prospective parents to make controlled contact with your school community. A parent asks a question, then the school admissions team chooses which parent ambassador to allocate the question to. From there, the parents can chat online and start to build a relationship that hopefully fills the knowledge gaps of the new parents and makes them start to feel at home with your school.
In addition, as more questions are answered by your school community, conversations can be added to an FAQ style page (with the permission of parents asking questions) so future parents can get a real feel for your school is like from the very people who know it best. Again, the admissions team has full control over what is used and what isn’t.
Strengthened Bonds
In normal times you can easily invite your prospective parents in to see your community in action - for the time being this has to be done virtually. Our new tools are designed to give a starting point to that process and also demonstrate to parents that your school has enough trust in its parent community to enable that interaction.
See an example below of how your school community can help make sure parents who can't travel can really get to know you - and in a way no admissions team alone can. You can click the image to see a larger version or click here.
Would you like to know more or test out Parent Ambassadors for free? If so, get in touch here and we will get back to you with more information.