K-12 Enrolments Management: What’s Important In The Data Management Of New Students?
Building and maintaining comprehensive student profiles is not only best practice when it comes to student welfare, administrative integrity, and Federal Government obligations, it’s also a strategic way to meet school enrolment targets. Did you know the data your school collects from the very first contact with prospective families can convert your Edumate school management system into a powerful sales and marketing tool?
Boost enrolments through streamlined data management
Across Australia, K-12 schools – particularly those in the private and independent sector – need to become more savvy about the way they manage and use the data they collect on new students. Edumate Director, Daniel Hill, explains why, “One thing I’ve noticed in my dealings with schools across every demographic, is that not all schools have a clearly defined process when it comes to enrolment management. They’re not using the data they hold effectively, nor are they analysing it to maximise the financial health of their school.”
But what does this mean exactly? The answer lies in technology and continuity. “Data in itself is worthless unless you know how to make it work,” explains Daniel. “Edumate has been specifically designed to assist school registrars with their student recruitment and retention. If you’re using Edumate’s features and functions to optimise the important task of enrolment management, you’ll not only notice a real difference in the conversion rate of new student enquiry to confirmed enrolment; you’ll also have a complex range of statistical data to draw on when it comes to reporting and decision making.”
Edumate contributes to your school’s ongoing financial viability
From the very first point of contact with a new family, Edumate’s intuitive and intelligent design goes to work, taking ownership of data from the moment an enquiry is received through a school’s website, and queuing it through a multi-stage enrolment management workflow.
“Edumate’s pipeline is a real game changer for registrars,” says Daniel. “It features fifteen different stages of enrolment processing from enquiry, to school tour, to interview pending, waitlisted, contract signed, deposit paid, and so on, until the initial enquiry progresses to one of two natural outcomes – official enrolment, or drop off. If a family has elected not to progress with their enrolment, the data is there at a glance to tell at which stage they reached this decision. This allows to schools to follow up any families that may have become static, identify and address the ‘weakest links’ in their enrolment management chain, and provide better forecasting for strategic planning.”
Daniel stresses, however, that for best practice every school needs to have a robust documented process in place to ensure consistency and quality when it comes to enrolment management. He offers the following tips and recommendations to make the most of your school’s data:
Clearly define the individual steps from initial enquiry through to enrolment and document them as a centralised school standard.
Captured information should be shared and available to all staff, and stored for the lifespan of every student.
It’s better to over describe than under describe – to clearly articulate your school’s enrolment procedures, provide clarity and specificity at every step.
Make the most of Edumate’s storage capacity by uploading as much information and documentation as you can on every student.
The student-centric nature of Edumate allows for the most complex of family dynamics to be recorded. Take advantage of its features to ensure every student receives the appropriate level of support, empathy, and safety.
With the number of students attending private schools in Australia projected to flatline over the next decade, as more parents choose to keep their children in the public system, maintaining a well-rounded enrolments management process has never been more important.
According to an article earlier this year in the Sydney Morning Herald, enrolments that were once growing at a rate of 20,000 a year will slow to as little as 3000 by the middle of the next decade, according to federal government projections, presenting a stark marketing challenge to the nation’s private schools.
Of the 367,000 additional full-time equivalent students projected to be in schools by 2027, it is expected 288,000 – or 78.5 per cent – will be in government schools. At present, 65.6 per cent of the country’s children are in the public system, which will inch up to 66.8 per cent by 2027, according to data presented by the Education Department.
“With private and independent school’s becoming more aware of the potential challenges they face in the future of enrolments, we’re very happy to be providing real time solutions that save time and resources, and allow schools to showcase themselves to new families at their very best,” says Daniel.
Need a refresher on how to maximise your school management system’s enrolment procedures? Give one of the Edumate team
a call on (02) 8313 2700.
