As we plunge into the student recruitment season I am bracing myself for one of the most crucial parts of the academic year. School budgets are driven by the number of students on roll in a school, so if schools don’t hit their pupil admission targets there can be significant sustainability concerns. Although we regularly hear about a shortage of school places, this time of year can be as nerve-wracking for headteachers as the build up to exam results.
This government has placed a great deal of emphasis on competition between schools and, whether we like it or not, it’s not going away any time soon.
In the secondary sector this competition between schools can be fierce and although there has been a shift towards encouraging schools to collaborate locally, this is often not possible. When schools are competing over the same students it can be a real challenge to collaborate as genuine partners.
This is sad but it is also quite damaging and potentially very dangerous. Most school leaders would agree that collaboration between schools can be incredibly beneficial and I am sure we all know the pitfalls of becoming too insular. However, even those of us who naturally adopt a collaborative approach to leadership can experience tensions at this time of year when the competition heats up.
Where local authorities have felt the squeeze of austerity, their workforce has slimmed significantly. With schools being both encouraged and forced to become academies, in many areas of the country there is no real co-ordination of local schools like we have had in the past.
With academies able to choose their own catchment areas and with the concept of parental choice being high on this government’s agenda, this has really fuelled the competitive fires. This worries me for a number of reasons.
First, schools now spend an incredible amount of money on marketing and advertising, with some even employing their own marketing director. With marketing budgets comfortably into five figures for most, I am concerned about the amount of money that is spent on these activities when it could be invested in improving the educational experiences of our students.
I have seen schools advertising on buses, in newspapers, on the radio and, last week, I saw a school advertising their open evening at a local cinema. Schools now commonly have at least one prospectus and how often do you travel past a school and see banners outside the school gates? If we are not careful we can end up spending a teacher’s salary on promoting our schools and I have to question whether this is worth it and whether it is moral.
My second concern is the way in which schools behave at this time of year. A couple of years ago I saw an advert in a local paper which read: “Come and visit the best school in ******.” Are we really at the point where schools feel the need to proclaim they are the “best” in the local area?
The more I have thought about this the more I have felt compelled to ensure my school and all of the staff conduct themselves with honesty and integrity during these next busy two months where we will host open events for students currently in year 6.
We will have to advertise these events and this of course costs money, but we have been very proactive in keeping this to a minimum. Coming to an agreement with other local secondary schools to jointly provide local primary schools with all of the dates and details of open events is one sensible way we have kept costs down.
I have also heard some horror stories of how some staff at certain schools make derogatory comments about their competitors at open evenings.
I would be very disappointed if any of my team did this and we have very specific guidance for staff in terms of only talking about our own school and what we can offer.
In this competitive environment, it is more important than ever that we conduct ourselves in the right way and I hope that other school leaders up and down the country feel the same.
- SecEd’s headteacher diarist is in his second year of headship at a comprehensive school in the Midlands.