As managing enrolments becomes a year-round task, many schools are reflecting on their enrolment process. While the start-of-year intake is the major enrolment event for schools, managing enrolment is an admin-heavy task that requires close management at all stages of the year.
Enrolments are particularly complex to keep on top of because different families will join the enrolment pipeline at various times throughout the school year – and will enter the workflow at different points. Students with siblings already at the school will follow a different communication pathway to those on the waitlist, for example.
Responding to expressions of interest, coordinating school tours and processing enrolment applications is a time-consuming and labour-intensive job that can leave prospective families with a negative first impression if it’s not managed professionally.
So, how does your school perform in the following key areas?
1. A digital enrolment process
Capturing and managing prospective student data digitally is foundational to providing a modern and efficient enrolment process. From collecting expressions of interest to communicating with prospective families and enrolling accepted students, a digital enrolment process ensures all data is stored and managed centrally.
With a digital enrolment process, your school business office has complete visibility of all enrolment information and can send individual or bulk communications to prospective families and collect tuition fees without creating any physical paperwork. And, of course, a hosted solution lets staff work remotely from any device.
2. Efficient and proactive lead management
Managing enrolments is a substantial task, particularly at schools with a large volume of applications. Without a well-structured process, it’s easy for enrolment-related activities to slip through the cracks during busy periods. And, with the soaring cost of living putting family budgets under pressure – Finder’s 2023 Parenting Report found that 17% of families are contemplating moving their child from a private school to a public school to reduce their expenses – schools are having to work harder to convert prospective students to confirmed enrolments.
Families are no longer willing to print, scan and return paper-based forms – they expect an online enrolment process and clear, sequential communications that keep them engaged in a process that’s often many years long. It’s vital that your school makes it easy for administrative staff – and families – to track the progress of each student application from an expression of interest through to confirmed enrolment.
3. Streamlined student onboarding
Enrolling a new student creates plenty of work for a school – but also for that student’s family. There are forms to complete, documents to provide, and payments to manage.
Your student onboarding process should comprise an efficient workflow for administrative staff that offers a superior enrolment experience for families. Making it simple for parents to submit the information your school needs and make tuition payments online shows them you value their time and creates a positive early impression. And automated reminders and notifications ensure that they always know what’s required of them and the next steps.
FACTS School Management empowers schools to manage the complete student lifecycle seamlessly. We partner with leading education brands like Digistorm and 2Go for Schools to support a best-practice approach to managing enrolments.
