From Open Days to Virtual School Experiences How COVID-19 has changed

FROM OPEN DAYS TO

more vital tool for first class independent schools to demonstrate their credentials to increasingly judicious parents.

VIRTUAL SCHOOL EXPERIENCES

Showcasing your school on your parents’ terms

Lockdown forces many schools to host their open days online with varying degrees of success. But has COVID- changed the rules for finding a school’s future students asks Sophie the Head of School Partnerships at VirtualSchoolExperiences.com

COVID-19 has turned all our worlds upside down over the last nine-plus months, and like so many areas, education has had to adapt, fast. Notably, independent schools rose to the challenges posed by the virus, upping their game in digital delivery of classes, homework, and general support for their students. Open days were also quickly converted from a time-honoured inperson event, to virtual replicas, complete with Zoom calls, glossy videos, and even online 360-degree tours.

With a slate of vaccines looking likely to be approved, there’s finally light at the end of the pandemic tunnel – but will virtual open days disappear as lockdowns lift and life slowly gets closer to normal?

There are three good reasons to think that virtual open days are here to stay, and moreover, that they’ll become an ever Even before COVID-19, the digital world was disrupting traditional forms of choosing between different services. Like all of us, prospective parents looking at independent schools expect a wealth of information to be available to them when, where and in whatever format they prefer – and on any and all devices that they wish to make use of. User-generated content is expected as well in order to provide the sense of authenticity and ‘wordof-mouth’ recommendation that often informs discussion in-person. With all that extra content re uired, fitting it all into a traditional website without overwhelming a visitor can be a tall order.

School marketing teams started off by responding to the challenges of the pandemic with basic open days on Zoom or Microsoft Teams and then gradually began to hone these resources into virtual school open experiences as their

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HAILEYBURY CHAIRMAN, IAN HUNT

potential became apparent. True virtual school experiences provide a structured, personalised way to experience information-rich content in full, and one that can be instantly accessible with a single click. They’re available whenever a prospective parent is ready to do the detailed work of investigating their child’s future choice of school, and often long before they might be ready to attend a ‘fixed’ live event, whether in person or online. Hence, your school can be showcasing its ethos and facilities in detail while a parent’s views on which school to choose are very much still forming.

Staying international while staying home

Before COVID-19, some international parents would be willing to y halfway around the world to fully get to grips with the school choices on offer for their child’s education. Now, far fewer will be prepared to do so. International travel, for all sorts of reasons, has become more complicated and that change brings with it a diminished reach for schools which do nothing to go out to the parents who are no longer as willing to come to them. Dialling into a poor-quality video call in place of an in-person tour is not something overseas parents are likely to welcome as the sole tool on offer for understanding the values and capabilities of a school they wish to learn about.

A full virtual school experience can also help to galvanise an independent school’s agent network, allowing them to work more effectively with the school to reach the right parents and to motivate those parents to prioritise looking at a particular school over the others on their longlist. It’s also a way to keep a school’s shop window open 24/7, 365 days a year, and wherever its prospective parents are loacted.

Not just one day, but just for you

static website, a fixed schedule of live webinars, and the same pre-recorded videos for all visitors, no matter how well produced, are unlikely to attract attention or differentiate one school from another given that they represent the minimum standard already in place across all independent schools. To stand apart, the content and tools required for truly effective virtual school experiences often need to be reimagined. A broad range of videos, interviews, audio clips, and interactive content such as personalised parent tours – even QR codes or Augmented Reality tools – are required to stand out from the crowd.

Parents are growing to expect a dynamic and immersive experience, personalised just for them, each and every time they visit your website. They want to engage with your school over an extended period of time, at their own pace, rather than fitting in with your schedule or event budget. Personalisation isn’t just important for the parents. The specific data you can secure on how parents engage with your online assets as part of a virtual school experience can help you segment them by level of interest.

Many things have changed since COVID-19 hit, and many more will be sure to change in the months and years after it finally dwindles, as the health and economic ramifications wor their ways through our interconnected world. Uncertainty is here to stay, the landscape for finding the right students has changed too, and parents will necessarily become more cautious and circumspect as they decide on the best path for their children’s future education. But whatever else may change, the essential need to give your school’s future parents the best possible introduction to what they can expect for their children will remain. Precisely because they help to bridge this timeless need and the changed world in which we now live, virtual school experiences are sure to be here to stay. ●

Our virtual open day is the most unique and innovative tool we’ve incorporated since we

built the website! HEAD OF ADMISSIONS