Closing the enrolment blind spot
On the surface, the school’s enrolments landscape looked strong. The school sat within a growth corridor; enrolments were increasing; marketing activity levels were high.
On the surface, the school’s enrolments landscape looked strong. The school sat within a growth corridor; enrolments were increasing; marketing activity levels were high.
In this interview episode, Brad is joined by [YELLOW CAR] co-founders Dr David Willows and Suzette Parlevliet to examine what 30,000 accounts of school life reveal about students, parents and employees. They explore why relationships matter and how a lack of coherence can surface as student pressure, parent confusion and employee workload concerns. The challenge for school Heads is to listen beyond surveys, communicate the insights and align what the school promises with what its community experiences.
Parent communication has become a treadmill. Schools are communicating with parents more frequently, across more channels, with greater care and professionalism than ever before, yet many school Heads quietly question whether their messages are being read, understood or acted upon in the way they intend.
In this episode, Brad, Bel and Scully examine why quick wins can borrow from future trust. They distinguish acting quickly from short-termism, where immediate pressure replaces a school’s long-term strategic direction. The discussion explores why marketing that reassures leaders can unsettle parents, whose school choice can unfold over years rather than campaign cycles. The trio challenge Heads to maintain continuity through change and consider families’ longer decision journey.
The closer a leadership team is to the daily life of a school, the harder it becomes to see which elements are genuinely distinctive and which are simply familiar. Over time, what once required courage, foresight or sacrifice becomes normalised, absorbed into the fabric of the place and quietly stripped of its strategic weight.
In this interview episode, Brad is joined by Chris Post, Headmaster of the Boys’ Latin School of Maryland in Baltimore, the United States of America, to examine how strategy can guide decisions and drive action. Chris explains why broad, agreeable plans fail to move a school forward and why sharper choices require rigorous debate and alignment between the Board and leadership team. He shares how a strategy-on-a-page keeps priorities visible, guides decisions about programs, positions and resources, and creates the discipline to ask what should continue, what should change and what needs to stop.
In the final episode of ‘Creating clarity parents can see and navigate’, Charlie turns the series into a practical framework for school marketers. He explores why clarity starts with what parents need to understand, not what a school wants to show. Rather than relying on any single asset to do the work, the episode looks at how a connected brand experience can reduce effort, strengthen understanding and make the next step feel clearer.
Independent schools invest heavily to articulate their story. Positioning, tone and promise are shaped with care and intent. Yet even strong brands can lose definition over time, not through crisis but through quiet neglect. What once sounded precise begins to feel familiar. Over the years, it softens into vagueness.
In this episode, Brad, Bel and Scully examine two connected principles: consistency builds trust and reputation lags behaviour. They explain how families build confidence from patterns across touchpoints, while contradictions act as a confidence tax. The discussion explores why reputation changes only after behaviour has been experienced long enough to be believed, and why pressure reveals whether a school’s priorities and decision logic are genuinely stable. They challenge Heads to resist short-term reputational fixes and ensure communication reflects behaviour the school can repeatedly prove.
Feedback can be hard for school Heads to listen to. Not because it isn’t valued, but because it can summons things inside that you would rather keep at bay. Shame. Defensiveness. Anger. Self-doubt. The impulse to withdraw, explain or regain control.
In this deep dive episode, Brad is joined by Ros Curtis AM, Principal of St Margaret’s Anglican Girls’ School, to reflect on 16 years of leadership as the School grew from around 800 to more than 1,400 students. Ros explains how clear values, a relentless focus on students and consistent storytelling helped strengthen academic reputation while protecting the School’s sense of community. She discusses why marketing must reflect reality, how trust is built through relationships and integrity, and why Heads are stewards who must guard against complacency and arrogance.
A school brand can look impressive and still leave parents uncertain. In this episode of the Insight Series, Charlie is joined by imageseven Account Director Shelley Garcia-Webb to explore the difference between a brand that looks polished and one that genuinely helps parents understand a school. Shelley explains how clarity starts when a school’s story, experience and digital presence reinforce each other, rather than asking parents to join the dots. When that alignment holds, the brand feels easier for families to recognise, trust and choose.