Beyond Digital Enrolment - School Selection Cycles.

An evolution of a parent’s/student’s journey

After very positive feedback from implementing and optimising digital application and enrolment processes with some of our early adopter clients over the past few years, we are now very excited to launch and bring together new, inter-related products and services that go much further than online enrolment. We call it - School Selection Cycles. Elements of these products and services are evolved from some very insightful conversations with school leaders that inspired me to look beyond leveraging technology and focus on personal, human connections, powered by technology.

“Let’s look at it as a Parent’s Journey of finding and coming together with their child’s future school. Let’s design it to build a relationship through effective communication, an elegant user experience and a smooth onboarding process.”

The key steps:

We wanted to go beyond simply digitalising the enrolment process and thought about the journey of a parent/guardian holistically. Starting right back from exploring potentials schools, applying for a place, getting acquainted with the school all the way to the transition of their child(ren) starting school.

Capture interest all year round

Why wait until open night season? We will implement ways for you to gather interest from prospective parents all year round.

Personal invitation email to open night

Whether you are hosting a in-person open night, a virtual event or a hybrid event, optimise your attendance and ability to maintain and build a rapport with a personal invitation with relevant information about your event.

Follow-up communication to open night

Those that have attended the open night or have previously registered interest receive a personalised invitation to apply for a place with a direct link to the application/enrolment page.

Digital Enrolment/Application process

The entire process is hosted directly on your website. No new system added. No need for prospective parents to create an account, login details are provided automatically.

A warm welcome

Welcome the new members of your school community and outline the onboarding sequence they can expect to receive prior to the start date.

Onboarding email sequence

A tailored sequence of automated emails designed to provide a smooth onboarding process and give parents/students all the information they need for a successful start.

We would love to discuss any questions you might have in person with you. In the meantime, below some answers to questions you might have:

• What's the benefit for a parent/guardian?

  Receive pro-active, helpful information from the school regards starting school, without the need to go look for it.

  Receive all relevant information regards application, enrolment, starting school etc. in one place.

  Upload scans or images of birth certificates and student passport photos taken on a smartphone.

  Access and complete the processes on mobile or desktop.

  Review their application and enrolment forms and make corrections if required.

• What do the onboarding emails contain?

  They can contain any information you may wish to share with parents/students after they have accepted a place and prior to starting school, including for example direct links to information on your website, how to register for VSWare or similar and for those that have our school app, even a personal invitation to download the app as well as their login details.

• Can offers of places be sent digitally?

  Yes, however we very strongly encourage our client schools to retain a analog “backup” of this step of the process, in addition to the digital confirmation. Whilst the digital format allows us to provide in-message links to the next step of the process, avoid paper and reduce cost, our long experience with digital communication (both email and sms) means we know with absolute certainty that there remains a small % risk of non-delivery of digital messages.

• Is there a audit trail of the application/enrolment process?

  Yes, there is an audit trail for each submission within the process. Whilst we can build in acknowledgement confirmation requests for emails sent, please beware however, that the one part of any digital process involving electronic communication (email/sms) for which there is no absolutely verifiable audit trail (irrelevant of your provider), is whether such a confirmation email/sms has been successfully delivered to the person’s inbox or handset.

• How many onboarding emails are included?

  Potentially, we can include any number of emails. We believe about 5 onboarding sequence emails is a good starting point but we would tailor the package/service to your requirements.

• What are the benefits for the school?

  Ability to capture interest in the school early and nurture that interest throughout the decision making process.

  Optimise open evening attendance and being able to communicate with those attending open evenings before and after the event.

  Ability to capture and nurture interest in the school irrelevant of attendance of an open evening.

  Reduction in calls/emails to the office throughout the time of enrolment and preparing for starting school.

  Financial and carbon footprint savings on print, paper, postage etc.