One day, I'm not sure when, I woke up and realised that we might have been doing admissions all wrong. Or at least part of it. Many of you already know the story, but allow me to re-cap.
We work in schools that have begun to re-define learning around key principles.
We know how children learn and, thankfully, our classrooms no longer reflect that old idea of simply depositing information or generating efficient workers for an industrial age.
Might I respectfully suggest, though, that many of our admissions offices are stuck in that industrial model; and that we don't model for prospective families the pedagogical beliefs of the educational institutions we represent.
So here are four simple ideas that have changed the way we think about admissions at the International School of Brussels; ideas that don't so much reflect the end of a journey, but are rather a set of guiding principles along the way.
So let's imagine together:
What if admissions was a learning opportunity for families?
What if we re-configured the admissions office as a classroom?
What if we started "framing" what families see when they go on tour?
What if we got better at understanding how our brains work and how people make choices?
Over the past couple of years, these questions have transformed the way we understand admissions.
They might not be relevant for your school, but I encourage you to take a few minutes and reflect on whether they inspire new connections and ideas. If that happens, then together I believe we might all be one step closer to re-imagining how we effectively tell the story of our school and help others find their place in that story.
Read the full story here.
Picture credit: tp bennett. Used with permission.
