While the UK’s independent schools sector is remarkably robust in the face of recession, challenges to charitable status, and national falling affordability, research from mtm suggests that there are a number of key opportunities for independent schools to better recruit from their target markets.
In this excerpt from the mtmconsulting Missing Million Report, 2008 (follow the link for details) we explore where potential buyers drop out of the decision making process… Read more
mtmconsulting Proprietorial Schools’ Forum
Monday 13th September, Cavalry and Guards Club, 127 Piccadilly, London W1
The date of the September Proprietorial Schools’ Forum event – the latest in our series of half day seminar and discussion events for owners and heads of proprietorial schools, is confirmed as 13th September. Read more
taken from the mtm Independent Education Sector Report 2010
Households in Great Britain can be classified into different types – one such classification is the Acorn system (developed by CACI Ltd) that is used in mtm’s Mandarin (market and area intelligence) catchment area analysis service. The Acorn system divides individual postcodes into one of 17 different groups. What’s particularly striking in looking at independent school buyers is that typical buyers make up just one third of households but four fifths of independent school pupils. Read more
The Institute of Fiscal Studies last week released a new report, Private Schooling in the UK and Australia, which explores experiences of private schooling in the two countries and draws similarities and lessons “from each country’s individual experience”.
A number of the report’s core findings relating to the UK independent schools market place are relatively well documented elsewhere, not least by mtm. These include tracking of “long-run decline” in the pupil-teacher ratio in the independent sector, and the growth of academies and free schools.
However, the report also flags up two trends relating to target markets that independent school educational strategies should take notice of.
mtmconsulting has been featured in the June edition of Education Investor magazine, in the article ‘A Numbers Game’, which looks at the changing market place for independent schools. Read more
from mailonline, 15th May 2010
The Daily Mail has reported that since 1997, under the labour government – a government opposed to academic selection – the number of children attending grammar schools has increased by 25%. The article reports that in this period “while no new grammars have been built, the country’s 164 selective schools have taken on new classrooms to accommodate extra pupils”.
mtmconsulting has announced that it will repeat and extend research undertaken in 2007 into how parents afford and pay for their children’s independent education. Read more
by Joe Faulkner, Senior Schools Consultant
With a note in the TES today reporting that Cognita has put its UK projects on hold - for the time being – in response to the recession (“We expect the market to start picking up in again in 2011″ says Charles Robinson, their director of strategic development), the following excerpt from the acclaimed mtmconsulting Independent Education Sector Report 2010 is particularly pertinent, exploring the rise and positioning of commercial independent education chains. Read more
from The Times, 13th April 2010
The Times has reported that independent school fees look set to rise again this year, ahead of inflation rates. The article writes that several schools contacted who have “already announced fees for September have increased them by between 3 and 4.5 per cent.” In the article the paper lists a number of schools that it had contacted, and references the Chief Executive of AGBIS (Association of Governing Bodies at Independent Schools), who said that while schools will aim to keep increases low, it would be difficult for them to come in under inflation.
The draft programme for the fifth mtmconsulting / Veale Wasbrough Vizards annual conference on independent schools’ strategy has been released. The conference, organised by the leading business and legal advisors in the independent education sector will take place at the Institute of Directors on Tuesday 14th September 2010. Read more
“The catchment area research that mtmconsulting has undertaken for us has been excellent.”
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