Smart School Choices will help you to identify your school or college’s uniqueness and purpose. From this base, we can then help you to formulate a strategy to ensure that all of your actions and communications are in sync with your core purpose.

The fastest way to get from A to B is always a straight line. Failing to address this “big-picture” starting point will inevitably lead to your school taking a zig-zag path to your ultimate goal - not only taking much longer than it should have done and at extra expense through wastage, but by the time you get there, your initial steps are likely to be out-of-date or redundant.

Just as you wouldn’t embark on a road-trip without first identifying the location of your destination, a similar approach is needed to address your school’s brand. Having the right tools and advice from experts will allow you to complete your journey with the minimum of fuss, the least amount of wastage and help you to enjoy the journey, not just the destination.

When implemented, your whole community will clearly understand the reason for your existence and the integral part that each member of that community plays in ensuring the maximum benefits for everyone.

Too many educational establishments have tried to be an answer to everyone and everything. The result has been that a mixed message has been sent out resulting in confusion, non-engagement and a feeling of helplessness… that the system just doesn’t work.

The moment that this position is reached, the blame game begins. It’s the role of our Educational Leaders to take full control and responsibility for the direction of their school and, with our help, we can guide you through the process.

In his best-selling book “Smart School Choices”, Andrew explains how schools that try to be an answer to everything are setting themselves up for failure before their first child walks through the front gate. Using analogies to sports teams without salary caps, he makes reference to the richest teams in the world who will always hold aloft the most trophies. To judge the success of a team by the size of its trophy cabinet and honour board sets the majority of teams up as failures from Day 1. Teams that are able to take the eyes of its audience away from the silverware can and do have massive success. By communicating the fact of where the players of those “Top Teams” learnt their craft, many clubs have positioned themselves as the masters of development. Other teams have been able to highlight that their star players gain a recognition and self-worth that would be watered down and even be lost at a “glamour club”.

For others, the community nature of their club allows their players to develop life skills for use well beyond the day that they hang up their boots. The list of avenues for uniqueness is limited only by your imagination and creativity.

Just as every student in your school is absolutely unique and has a higher purpose to play in life, so too does your school. Identifying this uniqueness is critical to the long-term success of your school – the solid foundations.

Having worked in hundreds of schools over the last 20 years, (from low-socio schools to “elite”, special needs to academies and just about every denomination of independent school), we are in the perfect position to uniquely identify your point-of-difference and to help you build your fortress upon solid foundations.

Bringing our success strategies that have been used so successfully by commercial entities in the business world, and being mentored by the greatest marketing minds on the planet, Smart School Choices can be your secret weapon and new “Best Friend”.

Helping you to communicate your messages and vision in a language that your target audience will take notice of and appreciate; helping you to cover all bases… you’ll very soon see why your current strategies were never going to work for you; getting your whole community on the same path (Your Tribe) and all working towards the same common goal.

When a team is together and playing well, everybody wants to play their part. They’re early for training, they want the ball and they’re on fire with a passion for life. When the team’s fragmented, you’ve lost before the first whistle and usually accompanied by a lot of finger-pointing.

So how can we help your school?

The first step is to identify what challenges you are faced with at your school and involves a short questionnaire and a 30-minute phone conversation.

If you feel comfortable that we can help to make a difference in your school, the 2^nd step is to produce what we call an “Intelligence Report”. (It should be noted that we will not just work with any school… there has to be a burning desire by the school’s Principal to implement change).

We build up a thorough and detailed understanding of how your school currently operates along with the alternative options that are available to parents when they are considering enrolling their child at your school.

This involves considerable research on our behalf and the resulting report highlights our findings and concludes with specific action-steps and recommendations for your implementation.

At this stage, we now know the exact size of the foundations needed. We still only have an “artist’s impression” of what the finished product will look like and this is something that will grow as you engage your staff, students, parents and wider community in the project that they will embrace through your gift of ownership to them.

For many readers of this article, you may be feeling a sense of overwhelm. Maybe you feel that your expertise doesn’t extend to the promotion, branding and marketing of your school. Maybe you simply feel that this shouldn’t be your responsibility.

I’m going to answer those fears in reverse.

Firstly, you are where you are. How you got to the position of responsibility is irrelevant. You wouldn’t have read this far if you were ready to go and sit on Blame Island. More importantly, if it’s not you taking the responsibility, then who will be protecting the needs of your community?

Secondly, you don’t have to be the expert. As the leader in your school, your role is to lead. It never ceases to amaze me at the expertise in every school we visit in a myriad of different areas. Your school will be no different.

Finally… overwhelm. It’s the curse of the 21^st Century (30 years ago, advisers were recommending careers in Recreational Management as the Information Age was going to free up so much of our time and we’d be working 3-day weeks… Mmmm!!!).

The secret to avoiding overwhelm is to share the journey and to get experts to do the jobs that would take away too much of your most valuable asset… your time. Your role is to Lead… to bring the team together.

Send an email now to info@smartschoolchoices.com.au and we’ll send you a complimentary copy of “The 5 Simple Steps to Brand Your School for Success”. Simply enter the words “Free Report” in the subject line.