Case Study
Striking the Perfect Balance?
Thomas’s School, Clapham
The context
Thomas’s School in Clapham is a
highly respected and successful
school, which educates 580 boys and
girls between the ages of 4 and 13.
It is is one of four London day schools
belonging to the same, family-owned
group, led by Ben and Tobyn Thomas.
In September 2012, Phil Ward took
over as Headmaster, after XXX very
successful years at Feltonfleet in
Hampshire. He was keen to move
Thomas’s Clapham forward, and had
clear ideas how to do so, but wanted
to make sure he took the staff and
parents with him and that he focused
on the right areas.
Thomas’s London Day Schools had
used SchoolPulse in all 4 of their
schools in 2010.
Using SchoolPulse to
answer key questions
How are
we doing?
When Phil Ward arrived at Thomas’s
Clapham as the new Head, he asked
his Leadership Team three questions:
Have we got the
balance right?
What do we need
to improve?
SchoolPulse Case Study
“I had a great team with some strong
ideas but I was already thinking about
constructing our first Development Plan
and really needed to discover some
actionable insights quickly, such as;
Who are our closest
How do we compare
competitors and what
with other prep
is our competitive
schools in the UK?
advantage?
What do our parents
value most about our
School?
Thomas’s had run a SchoolPulse
Parent Survey just before I joined and
I soon discovered that it provided rich
and actionable results which would
enable us to plan for the future with
confidence.”
The research findings
in 2010
Thomas’s Clapham’s previous 2010
SchoolPulse Parent Survey had
confirmed the health and popularity
of the School as well as indicating
areas where further progress might be
made. One such area was ‘Providing
advice on the next phase of your child’s
education’ – in numerical terms, this
was scoring lower than the Thomas
brothers wanted. And the qualitative
information and comments explained
why. The new Head and his Leadership
Team were able to use this information
– and the reasons behind the data when reviewing their provision, in order
to make it both more comprehensive
and tailored to individual family needs.
It became a focus.
How things had
changed in 2013
When Phil commissioned a follow-up
SchoolPulse Parent Survey in 2013 he
was delighted to discover that their
hard work had paid off and “Providing
advice on the next phase of education”
had improved by 29 percentage
points, which not only exceeded the
SchoolPulse benchmark of similar
Prep schools, but placed Thomas’s in
the top 5 of all schools surveyed. In
fact, Thomas’s Clapham had leapt
forward on most measures including
the 3 SchoolPulse key performance
indicators of overall satisfaction,
advocacy and exceeding parent
expectations.
What should our
improvement
priorities be?
By using SchoolPulse to pinpoint the
school’s greatest areas of competitive
advantage, Phil and his team could
refine the school’s marketing strategy
accordingly.
Other important As well as finding out how well his
findings school performed against similar prep
schools on almost 40 school features,
Phil and his Leadership Team were
able to discover exactly what the
parents valued most about Thomas’s
educational offering and what their
improvement priorities were.
Phil added, “Gratifyingly, much
of what we discovered provided
objective confirmation of our own
instincts. The robust statistical data
provided us with unarguable facts
and the wealth of verbatim parent
comments and suggestions made
the results presentation a rich and
memorable exercise and one which
was immediately acted upon.”
SchoolPulse Case Study
Striking the right balance between
academic achievement and the focus
on other activities is a challenge for
every school. For Prep Schools in
London, where there is great pressure
to obtain entry into competitive senior
schools, it can be hard to strike the
balance that people want.
So Phil was delighted when
SchoolPulse confirmed that his School
had not only exceeded the comparative
schools’ benchmark, but had increased
the number of parents declaring that
the balance at Thomas’s’ was just right
- improving by 3 percentage points
to over 80% - demonstrating that
Thomas’s is successfully meeting the
aims of the vast majority of its parents
in effectively fulfilling their children’s
potential, both in and outside the
classroom.
“Everything in life needs balance,
and nothing more so than a child’s
education. So knowing that we
are getting that right is incredibly
important to both me and my team.”
Examples of SchoolPulse Survey parent feedback
It was a very positive start to
school life for both my son
and us as parents. We felt well
informed and it all went very
smoothly.
Our two children are very
different and we have found
the school very able to
cope successfully with such
differences and encourage them
both to love school. Well done.
Please do not change your
enthusiastic attitude to children.
You have achieved a great
balance as the Head with trying
to keep learning fun and you
have made the school much
more welcoming. Please keep
this up and continue your
emphasis on leadership and
thinking of others.
The teaching staff is
amazingly capable, supportive,
understanding and fun. We can’t
fault them at all and are very
happy to have our children in
such outstanding hands.
To find out more about how RSA SchoolPulse, can benefit
your school, please contact Louise Peddie on
01572 821306 or [email protected]
We would like to see Spanish
offered as a language choice
from Year 7 to enable those
children who enter schools
at 13+ to continue with
the language.
Excellent teachers, passionate
about their subjects. A real drive
and energy is tangible.”