The fishing ground
It’s a problem that has puzzled the sector for years: why do families who could afford to send their children to independent schools not do so? Dick Davison analyses the findings of a new survey that explains why
Some parents may have political or philosophical objections to an independent education. Many will be perfectly happy with the doubtless very good state schools serving their middle-class communities. But is it really true that the current size of the independent sector – give or take the odd few thousand – represents the sector’s maximum penetration of the available market?
A pioneering new report suggests that that is far from true. After studying in detail responses from more than 800 high-income families, it suggests that there may be as many as 100,000 other families that can both afford to pay
school fees and who, if their doubts and concerns were better addressed, might be persuaded to take advantage
of what independent schools have to offer. Even if only a third of those families could be persuaded to change
their decisions, the sector would grow immediately by 5 per cent.
Other studies
A great deal is already known about why parents invest the tens of thousands of pounds necessary to educate
their children in independent schools. From the successive MORI surveys commissioned by ISIS in the 1990s, the
characteristics of the families who choose independent schools, and their reasons for doing so, have been
exhaustively studied. Some of the findings of those studies – the high proportion of first-time buyers, the
importance of smaller class sizes, and the disproportionate influence on parental choice of intangible and ethical
factors – have passed into common consciousness.
But, without exception, those studies concentrated on parents whose children were already in independent
schools. Their views, attitudes and demands are important to understand, but are only part of the story. Schools need also to know something of what motivates parents who do not or who might choose them. For most parents, of
course, the independent sector is simply out of financial reach. With the average annual day fee estimated by the ISC in January 2008 at between £9,000 and £10,000, an independent school education is now probably
inaccessible – without some form of financial assistance – to families on less than £50,000 a year.
Even allowing for that, however, there are a great many families who could afford to send their children to
independent schools, but who do not do so. There are an estimated 1.5 million £50k-plus households in Great
Britain, of which about 1.2 million contain children of school age. Fewer than a quarter of those with schoolage
children actually use independent schools at present – meaning that there is an estimated 933,000 non-buyers
in this group alone. Add in the non-buying households with only pre-school children and we have a total of
around one million non-buying households.
Pioneering work
The new study from mtmconsulting, Independent Schools – The Missing Million, investigates this. Authored by analyst
Gavin Humphries, it is based on research undertaken during July 2008. It comprises a survey of 836 target
households in Great Britain and was conducted online by GMI, a market research organisation. Although some
would argue that household earnings of at least £60,000 are needed to send a child to independent school, the
lower £50,000 threshold was chosen to capture the views of parents for whom the decision might be a marginal
one, but who might top up their earned income with other sources such as from grandparents, savings or borrowings.
The report identifies some key characteristics of the non-buyers: “On the upside, more than three-fifths of them have a household income of more than £60,000. On the downside, a quarter of them do not support the
existence of fee-charging schools (although of course parents can and do change their minds). And they
typically prefer to give their children ‘great experiences’ rather than to send them to the best available school,
the opposite choice to buyers.”
Key reasons
The most important reasons parents give for not buying are that they are satisfied with local state schools (cited
by 73 per cent of non-buyers) and/or because they felt that they cannot afford the fees (59 per cent). Together,
these two factors account for nearly nine out of ten of non-buyers.
The report continues: “So, while the majority of non-buyers are beyond the immediate reach of schools, 11 per cent are not buying for reasons that are more within schools’ control. That is 100,000 households across Great Britain. If a third of these could be persuaded to send only one child, then total independent school rolls would rise by 5 per cent.”
Tentative steps
The report goes on to examine the buying process from the parents’ point of view, to identify the points at which
parents who consider independent education are likely to fall away. Of the target households with school-age
children, the responses suggest that two-thirds have, at some point, considered sending at least one of them to an
independent school.
Of those that have considered it, nearly all went on to research at least one specific independent school – talking
to people about the school, reading up on it or visiting it. Most of these (83 per cent) visited a school. But of those
visitors, only 53 per cent went on to send at least one child to an independent school.
New options
The report suggests that the schools could boost recruitment from non-buyers by:
• tackling the reasons why visitors don’t go on to buy;
• getting more researchers to visit; and
• developing ways of prompting non-considerers to consider and considerers to research.
New approach
The report concludes that independent schools should adopt new approaches to advertising and PR that engage an audience that is currently not noticing independent schools, 90 per cent of whom are parents who did not attend independent schools themselves. “Some key messages must be about how independent schools are different, how they deliver great experiences and how this cannot be replicated by the state sector.”
There are also, the report says, significant opportunities at the research stage. For example, the most common form of research is viewing schools’ websites, but parents are less than impressed by what they find. The second opportunity is suggested by the fact that, of the researchers who don’t go on to visit a school, more than half could not justify spending the money and more than a third don’t see value for money.
Use the web
“Our suggested solution is to develop a separate section of the website with innovative features and content for
prospective parents. Here schools can address directly the issues that concern parents – most importantly the
justification of the fees but also factors such as how easily pupils make new friends and fit in to the school.”
With almost half of visitors not going on to send a child to any independent school, the report suggests
a greater degree of personalisation in the sales process and development of a lead management system that
captures as many details as possible about every child and ensures that they are properly cultivated.
Dick Davison is a senior consultant for mtmconsulting ltd. Independent Schools – The Missing Million is available from mtmconsulting ltd, 43 High Street, Southwold, Suffolk IP18 6AB, price £47.00.
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