The most effective way to understand the true reasons for parental perceptions and preferences is depth telephone interviews, where our researchers explore a series of topic areas agreed in advance with the School.  We do not approach these topics in any scripted manner nor in any set order, as both of these practices tend to make the process overly stilted and to close down interesting conversational avenues.

A typical research study entails 100 telephone interviews.  Each interview lasts, on average, between 10 and 15 minutes.  The interviews typically fall into three categories: Parents of existing pupils ; Parents who enquired at the school but did not accept a place; and Parents who moved their child to another school. 

All calls are carried out anonymously, such that the comments made are not linked to the parents’ name; nor are the School advised which parents have been interviewed.  This degree of anonymity is essential if parents are to feel able to speak openly.

The result of this exercise is a detailed report and presentation, using substantial verbatim comment, and with specific recommendations for improvement in admissions procedure, marketing material, positioning, infrastructure, and in the running and focus of the educational experience.

A typical qualitative research exercise of this type costs £6,000.

Web-based questionnaires

The increasing need for Schools to solicit regular feedback from parents has resulted in our offering a less detailed but less expensive mechanism.  We create for Schools a bespoke questionnaire, which is then placed online on a secure extranet hosted and administered by ourselves.  This allows parents to log in and provide their answers (anonymously or not, at the parents’ and school’s preference).

We gather and collate the results, and provide a summary report to the School, including graphic representation of the main quantified results and commentary on issues emerging.

A typical online questionnaire of this type costs £2,000.

Further information

Case Studies of our exceptionally well-received schools work, and Testimonials, can be found here.

We also carry out highly-regarded marketing and customer research work for Universities, and work extensively in the Banking sector.