Renaming schools: any experience out there?

[BreconBeBuggered]

A couple of governors have put forward the idea of changing the name of the local primary school, for marketing purposes. No bad inspections/reputation to cover up or anything; it's something that's being considered to better reflect where the school lies geographically (the site was moved some time ago, but the name stayed the same). Does anybody have any experience of going through this kind of rebranding exercise, and if so, could you share some of the pros and cons?

Yeah - there is one school in the town where my DSs go to school that has a BAD REPUTATION. IT's not bad at all nowadays, pretty good really,but is located close to the only council estate in an otherwise very middle class market town so nobody wants to send their kids there to mix with not very middle class kids. Awful snobbery , but there you go.

They changed the name but not on every piece of literature. It's now totally confusing and everyone still calls it by the old name anyway. Everyone knows it's actually a really good school, but avoids it because of the area it's near.

The primary school I went to as a child changed its name for similar reasons to your school. They changed about five years ago but now people call it a funny mish-mash of its old and new names.

Several schools round here have changed for a variety of reasons. Some have been successful in applying their new name others not so much. Success appears to be related to not having anything to cover up.

Does it need to be marketed? Unless numbers are falling every year because of location/name confusion I'd leave well alone. The local population will know the lie of the land.

That's my personal feeling, hocus. But I was a lone voice at the last meeting. And I agree that people would continue to give it the old name anyway.