The families Who Won’t Come to Your Open Morning

Who isn't in the hall

Run a good open morning and you'll meet a lot of families. You will also, entirely predictably, not meet these ones.

The parent who can't take a weekday morning off. We've written about this at length — mixed-time tour slots solve most of it, but not all. Some parents genuinely cannot get to your school between nine and three, ever.

The family moving to the area. They're choosing a school from another town, sometimes another country, often at short notice and usually without a spare day to drive round four schools. They will make a decision based almost entirely on what they can see online.

The parent without a car, or with a disability, or with a baby and a toddler and no childcare, for whom getting to you at all is a logistical problem before it's a school-choice one.

The family arriving mid-year. In-year admissions don't run to your open day calendar. A family who moves in February needs to see your school in February.

And the child who finds new places frightening.

The one that matters most

Some children cannot walk into an unfamiliar building full of strangers and take anything in. Anxious children. Children with autism. Children who've had a bad time at their last school. For those families, the visit you're offering isn't an opportunity — it's an obstacle.

The photography on your school website and your school video are invaluable tools in letting those parents and children see what your school has to offer. 

But, a 3D virtual school tour changes what's possible. The child can walk your school at home, on a tablet, sitting next to a parent. They can do it ten times. They can find the toilets, the hall, the classroom they'd be in, the door they'd come through in the morning. They can do it in October and again in November and again the night before they visit.

By the time they arrive, they've been before.

Schools already understand this — it's the thinking behind a social story, the photo-by-photo walkthrough that helps a child rehearse something unfamiliar. A 3D tour does the same job, better, and you only have to make it once.

And it says something about the school. A parent of a child with additional needs, looking at your website, is scanning for evidence that you've thought about children like theirs. Most schools give them an SEN information report written for compliance. Giving them a way to prepare their child says more than any policy document.

That's what makes it transition support and marketing at the same time — which is unusual, because normally you have to choose.

The second look, with the child, while applying

Here's the use nobody plans for and everybody makes.

A family visits in October. They liked it. In December, with the application form open and the deadline coming, they want to look again — and this time they want to show their child.

If you've got a tour, they walk your corridors together on the sofa. If you haven't, they look at four photographs and try to remember.

You want to be the school a family can revisit. Most of the deciding happens weeks after the visit, at a kitchen table, and you aren't in the room.

And then the summer

Once places are offered, the children who are coming to you in September have a whole summer to worry about it.

A tour they can explore whenever they like — finding their classroom, the playground, where lunch happens — makes the first morning measurably less frightening. Ask any Reception teacher what the first week costs in tears and settling time.

That's not admissions marketing. It's just a good thing to be able to give a family, and it happens to come free with the thing you bought for admissions.

It doesn't replace visiting. It causes visiting.

Worth being clear, because heads reasonably worry about this: a virtual tour does not stop families coming to see you.

It does the opposite. A parent who has walked your school online arrives at the booking page already half-decided, and the ones who book after watching tend to be the ones who were never going to book cold.

So it sits next to the "Book a Visit" button, not instead of it. The booking page is where all of this is heading anyway.

Why it persuades: you can't stage it

A prospectus photograph is chosen. A film is edited. A 3D tour is your actual school, and the parent decides where to look.

They'll go to the classroom their child would be in. They'll look at the artwork on the walls, the reading corner, how much light there is, whether it looks like somewhere children will be happy. Nobody selected any of that for them.

Parents trust what they can explore freely far more than what's been arranged for them — which is the same reason an open morning during the school day beats an evening showcase.

Safeguarding, since it's the first question

Tours are scanned outside school hours. No pupils, no staff, nobody captured at all.

Anything sensitive — name lists on displays, photographs of children, security details — gets identified when you review it and removed or blurred before anything goes live. Nothing publishes until the school has approved every inch of it.

That's the honest answer to the question every head asks first, and it's why the scan happens in the holidays or after four o'clock.

It's useful for more than admissions

Once it exists, it answers everybody who asks whether they can come and look round.

Staff recruitment — a candidate who's seen the building applies better prepared. Lettings, if you hire out your hall. Governors and trustees who've never seen the site. Contractors quoting for work. Supply teachers finding their way on a first morning.

None of that is why you'd commission one. All of it is why nobody regrets having one.

Where this sits

The tour belongs with the website, the photography and the film — the things that let a family get to know your school before they meet you. It's part of the conversion stage of the Fill Your Class Funnel.

We started 3D-mapping schools during Covid, when nobody could get through the gates. The pandemic ended and the tours stayed, because it turned out plenty of families always needed a way to visit that didn't involve a Tuesday morning.

More about how a scan works and what it costs, or if you're not sure what your school needs next, the Marketing Health Check will tell you.

Frequently asked questions

What is a 3D virtual school tour?

A navigable scan of your school that a family can walk through from home — moving between rooms, looking in any direction, at their own pace. The same technology estate agents use to walk buyers through houses.

Does a virtual tour stop families visiting in person?

No — it tends to increase visits. Parents who have explored your school online arrive at the booking page already half-decided, and many of them would never have booked cold.

How does a 3D school tour help children with additional needs?

It lets an anxious child, or a child with autism, walk the building as many times as they need to before ever setting foot in it — finding the classroom, the hall, the toilets, the door they'd come in by. It does the same job as a social story, and you only have to make it once.

Is it safe to put a 3D tour of a school online?

Yes, when it's done properly. Scans are made outside school hours with no pupils or staff present, and anything sensitive is removed or blurred at the school's review stage. Nothing goes live until the school has approved it.

Who else uses a school's virtual tour?

Relocating families, in-year admissions arriving mid-term, September starters exploring over the summer, staff recruitment candidates, lettings enquiries, governors and contractors.

Where should the tour go on our website?

Next to the "Book a Visit" button, on the admissions pages — and behind a QR code on your open day posters, so a parent standing at a nursery noticeboard can be inside your school ten seconds later.

Do we need a tour if we already have a film?

They do different jobs. A film is your school's story, told in three minutes, in an order you chose. A tour is your school as it is, explored in whatever order the parent likes. Families who are seriously considering you use both.

Ian Clifford is the co-founder of School Marketing Works and has been running admissions campaigns for UK schools since 2018, including the one documented in our published falling school roll case study.