The secret of your school's success

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

What’s the secret of your school’s success?

  • Affordabillity ($/hour)
  • Management
  • Professionalism of the staff
  • Ratio of foreign to local teachers/ teaching hours
  • PR, good advertisement
  • The school’s location
  • Cleanliness, hygiene & order
  • Attractiveness
  • Commitment to excellence
  • Pass rate
  • Teaching aids, materials, etc.

0 voters

If your school is successful in attracting new students and keeping the older ones, what would you attribute its success to? I’m going to add a poll here of some of the fators I think might be essential to a school’s success. I know that a school’s success depends on more than one fator, but which one do you think is the most important. I would also like to know what you consider the set of factors most likely to lead to a successful school.

2

I have to say hands down, having a staff that has training in early childhood and/or elementary education helps to build a strong foundation for the students in our school. We get the freedom to develop the curriculum and materials to what works for our kids and the trust of our school owner to do what’s best for the children.

Our school has a student body of over 200, yet it has never advertised. We get some people who see the sign for the school and walk in to learn more, but most of the families who have children attending the school are here through word-of-mouth recommendations from families with children here.

3

Staff.

No staff. No positive consistency.

4

All of the above…

Come on JD, it’s just because you’re so darn handsome :smiley:

5

This is a tough one. It depends on so many factors. Size and age of your school really matter, as well as the market it happens to be in. Small (one or two branch) schools tend to benefit from location specifically and may pay low rental rates. Bigger names get their students because of notoriety, not just quality. Maybe you need to name names to see what you are really talking about.

6

I’m not certain how notoreity would cause a parent to sign up, but as in the case of clothes, and cars, brand names can influence a client’s decision.

I would rather not name names. What I really want to know is what the qualities of a successful school are. I think this might be beneficial to many of us who would like to see our schools succeed.

Personally, I think management skillsare absolutely essential to the success of a school. The buck stops at the managers desk. The manager is responsible for every staff member hired, every activity that takes place, the ethos of the school, the condition of the school, etc.

The condition of the school is also important. If I were a parent, I would be very careful of enrolling my child at a school were safety, hygiene, cleanliness and order were not apparent. To me the condition of bathrooms, kitchens, eating utensils, garbage disposal, floors (especially where children have to sleep) and water fountains are some of the most important points a parent should keep in mind before signing up.

Safety is another important point. Earthquakes, fires, electricity, transport and road safety, water fountains (esp. boiling hot water), stairs, elevators, track records of new employees are things that come to mind.

The character and competence of the staff are also important. Are all the employees competent in their individual fields. What about their character. Can I entrust teachers at the school with my children?

What about the curriculum. Wll my child be able to complete the entire curriculun before she/he goes to high school? What about the quality of the books being used? Do I have to edit the book before my child can start studying?

Are there any incentives for students and teachers for a job well done?

I’m not finished yet. I’m coming back in a few minutes.

7

[quote=“jdsmith”]Staff.

No staff. No positive consistency.[/quote]

Staff come and go. Would your school survive if your current staff were gone? If not, something isn’t right. If yes, then it’s not only the staff, unless you are the only staff member.

Quality staff are important.

Honestly, I think that all of the things in the poll make a school great. There must be more to it though, and when I put my finger on, or in, it, I will post again.

8

Commitment to excellence in every aspect of the business is the key to any school’s success.

9

The Japanese call it Kaizen, as you might well know, and it played a big part in the rebuilding of their economy after WWII. I think it makes a lot oif sense to make small incremental improvements continuously.

Something I haven’t mentioned before is synergy instead of ruthless competition between schools in the same neighborhood. Your neighboring school doesn’t have to fail in order for yours to succeed. Or am I in a Goody Two-shoes mood?

10

In a perfect world schools would be able to achieve the best results in all of the areas listed above. It’s not a perfect world yet there are many successful schools, so I suppose the point is which of the above criteria can be omitted in the quality stakes.

Personally, I feel the local Taiwanese are very drawn in by commercial advertising. This attracts them initially and gets them to put down the first money. If image is all the company has then there are two possibilities. Either it fails due to lack of product development or it uses the initial financial boost to overcome its shortcomings (to whatever degree). I think the former example can sometimes take years, but it certainly isn’t an example of a successful school.

Some schools have an excellent product, but are far from business savvy. They survive on a loyal bunch of students who are prepared to overlook things like poor location, zero product placement and poor front desk services to get to the product they find empowering. Is this successful? I don’t think so.

I do think there is a cut off point where some of the listed criteria has more weight to it than others. Overall, I would say you need the product first to maintain a school over the long term. Next comes the advertising to get the initial spark of interest. While all the other elements are important to varying degrees, if you have these two you are probably going to be pretty successful.

11

I know that the post is about attracting students, but I’m wondering about other definitions of ‘success’. For example, are large chain schools with high turnover of staff and high profitability successful? Would a school with a strong reputation and professional teaching staff but trouble making a profit be successful?

12

I suppose you’re right. If a school were nearly perfect, the costs would probably double. On the other hand, you might attract a certain segment of the market that would pay double for quality education. Instead of teaching 260 students at NT$150 an hour, you could teach 130 at $300 per hour using less space, less electricity and water, employing fewer teachers (paid slightly more than avarage teachers, but enough to keep them), administration becomes easier and your school even has a waiting list.

There are certain things that are not easy to incorporate into a school because of cost, but the are others that don’t really cost that much and are only left out because of pure negligience. Maybe one should ask oneself what the cost would be if one omitted a certain service.

An example of what I mean. A certain school is trying to minimize costs by not repairing anything that breaks down. If a toilet is blocked, the door is simply locked. If a desk is broken, the pieces get taped together. By not repairing anything, the schools saves NT$ 2000 that month, but loses five students. The parents make up some excuse to explain why the students have to start attending another school. Because the school loses five students, management decides to minimize costs even more. The school is firmly trapped in a downward spiral.

13

Perhaps it would be more helpful to list the reasons why schools fail? Things to avoid are as important as things to do.

14

THE TOP TEN HABITS OF EXTINCT BUXIBANS

  1. The sole creterion for all decisions should be how cheap something or somebody is. Always try to drain the last little bit of energy out of your staff for no extra pay.
  2. Don’t think too much. Thinking about things that haven’t come to pass will only bring them on. Do not make contingency plans. Do not think proactively.
  3. Do not encourage good relationships among the staff because it might lead to fraternization. They might gang up against you and gain negotiation power or even start their own buxiban. Do not let them realize that if they work together in harmony, they could achieve great things. Divide and rule.
  4. Have no goals, mission statements, etc. Be smug.
  5. Don’t keep the main thing the main thing. Get caught up in every new buxiban craze.
  6. Do not listen to what your staff, parents and students tell you. Have an answer ready before the other person stops talking.
  7. Do not reward others for making your school a success. Do not offer any incentives. If others win, I lose.
  8. Never give breaks. People don’t come to work to rest. They come to work non-stop even for up to six hours without a single minutes rest.
  9. Do not respect your clients’ and staff’s confidentiality or privacy.
  10. Never use your common sense.
15

This is precisely the question that needs to be asked. The tone of the first post seems to ignore the possibility that “education” might be relevant to a “school.” Attracting new students and keeping older ones may sound attractive from an entrepreneur’s point of view, but to genuine educators it sounds like a nightmare

16

I did not mention education in my first post because it should be taken for granted. Education is the reason for the existence of any educational institution. No buxiban would exist if it were not for profit. Few teacher would come to Taiwan if there were no incentive. I would also say that “professionalism of the staff” and “commitment to excellence” should cover “education” which is also the “main thing” I mentioned in my last post.

(See how I got out of that tight spot? Keep things as vague as possible and them you can always go back and explain what you really meant. :blush: )

17

But this is exactly the problem. It can’t be taken for granted, as any number of posts in this forum describing outrageously shonky companies demonstrate.

You got the second one right. Odd that you can place these statements alongside one another without any sense of inconsistency.

You can be pretty sure that whatever very limited benefit Taiwanese children get from their force-fed bushiban experience does come from the professionalism of the staff

18

There is no inconsistency. It’s a question of being pragmatic. All parties have to gain from the experience: the students (sometimes even their parents), teachers and management. When any of these parties are exploited/allows itself to be exploited, the end is nigh.

19

THE TOP TEN HABITS OF EXTINCT BUXIBANS

  1. The sole creterion for all decisions should be how cheap something or somebody is. Always try to drain the last little bit of energy out of your staff for no extra pay.
  2. Don’t think too much. Thinking about things that haven’t come to pass will only bring them on. Do not make contingency plans. Do not think proactively.
  3. Do not encourage good relationships among the staff because it might lead to fraternization. They might gang up against you and gain negotiation power or even start their own buxiban. Do not let them realize that if they work together in harmony, they could achieve great things. Divide and rule.
  4. Have no goals, mission statements, etc. Be smug.
  5. Don’t keep the main thing the main thing. Get caught up in every new buxiban craze.
  6. Do not listen to what your staff, parents and students tell you. Have an answer ready before the other person stops talking.
  7. Do not reward others for making your school a success. Do not offer any incentives. If others win, I lose.
  8. Never give breaks. People don’t come to work to rest. They come to work non-stop even for up to six hours without a single minutes rest.
  9. Do not respect your clients’ and staff’s confidentiality or privacy.
  10. Never use your common sense.[/quote]

Well, these sound nice but they don’t address the real reasons why bushibans fail these days. :wink:

20

Because they don’t teach no good!