Long Close School, Cognita Schools Group
At the Heart of It
We were engaged as Consultant & Facilitator by the Marketing Manager and Registrar at Long Close School, one of a group of independent schools. As key stakeholders, the school was keen to capture qualitative feedback and insights directly from parents. Previous quantitative feedback was useful gain general information and trends but didn’t get to the heart of what made parents choose the school, what the school did well and what it needed to do better.
The Call to Adventure
We designed a ‘Parent Engagement Group’ workshop where parents felt encouraged to provide feedback in a non-threatening, comfortable environment; ensuring that the sessions were productive, timely, met expectations and didn’t over-promise, and that objectivity and professionalism were retained by the school.
The initial workshops were so successful that the Group asked us to deliver a pilot scheme for further schools and then to design and facilitate a Train the Facilitator programme so that schools across the whole group could create and run their own workshops.
Coming to Life
We continue to run Parent Engagement Groups. At St James School we are proud to have contributed to the school winning the Independent Schools Association Award for Parent Engagement in 2018.