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Driving Enrolment: Using transport to boost admissions
Some of our 150+ clients
6th January 2025
Some of the best ways to streamline and improve school’s admissions processes do not involve finding new ways to reinvent the wheel, but to effectively use the tools they already have. In this article, I will be focusing on the role of school transport in the admissions process and how a strategic blend of compelling marketing, thoughtful forward-planning and responsiveness can support parents in their decision-making process to join your school. When considering the importance of a school’s accessibility to parents, particularly dual-working families, the question of transport becomes central to this discussion.
Based on bus usage across more than 150 Independent Schools in the UK, the demand is rising, thus increasing the importance of publishing clear information to prospective parents. It is essential that information is available and not buried within your school website or behind a contact email address. Simple changes such as making route names clearly identifiable to the areas they serve and by publishing route timetables can help parents make informed decisions. If you have a big bus network, shout about it!
Don’t allow parents to wrongly assume that they can’t get to your school on one of your buses, when you in fact have a direct bus route to their village. By illustrating your network, you might also help parents who are moving into the area and understand the geography better than the names of all the villages within a 50 KM radius.
In addition to visual changes, open mornings are a great opportunity to ‘sell’ your bus network to parents, handing out brochures and giving pupils the opportunity to meet a bus driver or a transport representative can be a great way to make parents and pupils alike to feel more comfortable with a potential change to their life.
Whilst it is great to shout about your current bus network, there is also a crucial role in adaptability when using buses as a marketing tool. It is important to see a bus network as a fluid object with the emphasis on supporting the needs of the current parent demographic, with the ability to adapt to potential new areas or pockets of demand.
An effective way to manage network changes can help to both reassure parents and reduce the risk of failing to consider operational factors.
Ways in which this process can be improved is by opening bookings as soon as possible for the next academic year. Why wait until the start of the summer holidays to plan for September, when you have more time over Easter, or even earlier when parents are accepting their offers in February and March? By reminding parents that they can book a bus at the time of accepting an offer, you give yourself as much time to plan ahead and make operational adaptations where required.
How can Vectare help?
Vectare offers support to schools in all of the aforementioned areas. Our in-house graphic design team specialises in creating high-quality, digital and print-ready bus guides, maps, and marketing materials tailored to each school’s unique needs. We follow your brand guidelines to ensure a clear, accessible, and visually engaging resource that helps you effectively promote your transport services. In addition to this, the interactive school transport portal is accessible to both current and prospective parents.
By sharing a link to the portal, prospective parents have access to a ‘nearest stop’ search bar, which readily informs them of their closest 5 bus stops, the times the bus serves the stops and their exact locations. Once a search takes place, your admissions team is informed of the postcode that has been searched, to help build an idea of where interest is being demanded from and to be able to
offer further support to parents where needed.
When dealing with those parents who need to know if a stop can be added near their house in 12 months’ time, we have a solution. Rather than telling them you are unable to confirm at this time and giving another school the opportunity to promise this to them, why not use our stop request manager to be both responsive and efficient in handling these queries. Our system treats each academic year as an individual bus network, giving you the flexibility to make changes in advance, without impacting the current arrangements.
Finally, by treating each academic year on its own, it becomes very straightforward to manage next year’s bookings and this year’s operations simultaneously.
In conclusion, do not underestimate the importance of school buses; advertise them clearly and give yourself the ability to be agile in network planning.