The education landscape has shifted dramatically over the last ten years. Governance and community expectations of schools and school Heads has created a number of challenges for schools.
MMG Education has identified the following issues as the top challenges facing today’s schools:
- Parents’ expectations continuing to rise in areas such as academic standards, feedback and reporting, facilities and resources, technology, curriculum scope and student welfare.
- Fee levels and the increases and impact these have on families seeking independent education for their children.
- Funding for the future – Availability of surplus funds from fees and other sources for school development. With the ongoing risk of reduced government subsidies exacerbated by pressure on fee rate increases, schools must search for other sustainable development options.
- Influence on school choice from external sources including ‘My School’, NAPLAN, league table and other school comparison sources.
- Growing pressure on teaching staff exacerbated by parent access and expectations, compliance and risk, adoption of changes in teaching and learning methodologies, class sizes, administrative tasks and personal challenges such as care for ageing parents and families.
- Word-of-mouth views of school stakeholders - Significant miscommunication in many school communities, frequently resulting in damaged reputations through misinformed networks.
- Achieving school of first choice with prospective/future parents – The average number of schools considered by prospective parents ranges from 2.8 for primary schools to 2.6 for secondary schools.
- Optimisation of enrolment conversion (prospective/future parents) from awareness, enquiry, application to enrolment.
- Raising awareness and ‘shaping’ of schools’ desired public profile, brand and image.
- Student attrition rate – Typically ranges from 5% to 7% of students (other than those completing Year 12) leaving schools.
- Maintaining an informed and objective knowledge of stakeholder needs and expectations, including staff, students, alumni and prospective parents for input to operational and strategic planning.