There are numerous examples of excellent school leaders positively transforming what goes on inside the school fence without it impacting on the school’s reputation in the community. The sad thing about this is that many prospective parents will be more influenced by the reputation of the school in the community than by what the school has to offer their children.
Some of the responsibility rests with the school not ensuring that all their families are aware of what is going on inside the school and how that benefits the students. The reality is that prospective parents are always going to listen to current and past parents about their experience at the school. If they are not informed, then the reputation of the school will be formed based on their collective view. And this is likely to be more compelling than anything the school has to say about itself – in the parents mind it is research vs marketing, not reputation vs reality – which is why reputation wins.
Community perception of a school is built on many things over many years, for good and bad. There are schools where a single incident can tarnish a school’s reputation for many years. There are also cases where schools have rested on their laurels and allowed standards and outcomes to drift. However, the most common situation is schools focusing on activities and performance inside the school fence and hoping that their reputation will benefit from their good works – there is no guarantee that this will work.
School communities have a wide variety of individuals, experiences and perceptions, all tempered by the collective narrative. While schools proactively address the individual experience of students, parents and staff, too often they regard the collective narrative as an issue outside of their control. School leaders are also hampered by the fact that they are often the last to know. In every school that Eddee has partnered with, we have uncovered significant elements of the collective narrative that inform the schools reputation that the school was unaware of. It is important for schools that are making positive transformations to share their journey with their school community so that they can help to share it with the broader community. It is equally important to know what the collective narrative about the school is so that they can proactively address that to.