What would persuade you to choose a school like mine?

[AChickenCalledKorma]

This is going to be very hard to explain without offending anyone, but I'll have a go.

My children attend a school which:

• traditionally attracts a high proportion of families from a part of town with a high level of social deprivation;
• has a high proportion of children with SEN - partly because it has a specialist learning;
• support unit, and partly because we have all the usual issues associated with areas of social deprivation;
• has a handful of children from the traveller site on the edge of town;
• is generally avoided by people from the posh side of town, a high proportion of whome opt to go private, while most of the rest ship their children out to schools in neighbouring villages.

The school has a history of below average attainment, partly because of the SEN provision, partly because of the nature of the catchment area, and, frankly, because it needed shaking up a bit. However, it has reached a point where all children are demonstrably progressing well and SATs results are improving every year. We also have a new building, lovely facilities, motivated staff, lots of extra-curricular opportunities and a caring, inclusive atmosphere.

Ofsted still says "satisfactory", but if you read the report, it is clear that it would have been "good" if one or two things had been addressed. Those have now been tackled.

Governors are asking for parents' response to the question: how can we now "promote" the school as a great choice for everyone in the town. How can we persuade those who are avoiding their local school out of something that feels a bit like snobbery, but is probably much more complicated than that.

I wonder whether anyone has experience of a school that has been in a similar position, but managed to become much more socially mixed. It just seems daft that so many people are driving so many miles, when there is a great school on their doorstep!

AnOtherName - can you (or anyone else) define "really good website"?

The website is currently a bit dodgy and they are bringing in someone to redesign it. It would be interesting to hear what others think makes a school website stand out.

And thanks for all your comments. We met the Governors yesterday and I now find myself on the new marketing committee, so I'm going to feed some of these thoughts into the process!

There are aspects of your school that sound similar to my dds primary school which was the one that middle-class parents locally did not usually consider at the time we applied for a place.
When dd was in Year 1 school was placed in Special measures due to low attainment and keeping dd there was a difficult decision even though we knew her level were above average. However what did impress us about this school was that it was very good pastorally and had a very caring atmosphere with a good balance of community and extra-curricular activities.
A few years later and after a change of head and Good OFSTED report the school now has a good reputation locally and is oversubscribed. My dd completed Y6 last year and obtained the best KS2 SATs results the school has ever had! She has started secondary school this year and is doing well and in some subjects even better than the children who went to the so-called high achieving primary schools.
Basically you need to convince middle class parents that their children can do well there by producing statistics to show progress of the "above average" child. Emphasise good teaching and pastoral support and provide evidence of good behaviour too.

My son's school website is very good. It is practical in that they use wisepay for paying for extras. They also have all the newsletters on the web and details of what each year group is studying. In my ideal world I would love all homework sheets to be posted on the web. It would keep the bookbag monster at bay.

I also thinking readablity is important.

DS attended a similar school to yours; though, as we are in Scotland and it was our catchment school, it was not an active choice to send him there. We also don't have league tables, so we do not know how other people's children are doing. However, I have had a think about your post.

Does your school have anything that other schools don't have. You have mentioned your new buildings and lovely facilities. What about your outside space? If it is generous, publicise the sporting opportunities. Is there any garden space that could be improved. How about a bit of tree planting - and get the local paper to write about it.

Another poster mentioned that MC parents like art and drama. Could you put on a production and get in the paper, or get the children to make a massive collage on a local subject and get that in the paper.

Although your average attainment may be lower than other schools because of your catchment, you presumably have some children that do very well. As crazymum said, you have to convince other parents that their children could do equally well. Are the KS2 result of the children who have been at the school since reception significantly higher than the children who join you later? If so, it needs to be publicised. Are there any local writing competitions or maths challenges that you could encourage children to enter with the resultant publicity should they win prizes.

You, yourself, will be a publicist for your school as whenever you meet people and they express surprise that you send your children there, it will give you the opportunity to express everything you like about it. Be as upbeat as possible. Also, as an earlier poster said, make sure that there is nothing patronising in any information you send to parents.

'be a feeder for a highly regarded secondary' - that's the one!!!

I doubt if that is the case and am sure that is not something that OP can have any control over.

You could be talking about one of our local primary schools - generally v bad rep and people go out of their way to avoid it. But it does well - they've just taken on a new head and she's in a similar position. It's really all about marketing I guess

LOL - "highly regarded secondaries" are a whole other issue. All the highly regarded ones are too far away to get into. Thankfully we don't have a feeder system around here - and everyone is in the same boat.

I do take some perverse comfort from the fact that all the children end up at the same two secondaries ... but the ones that go to our school are already used to mixing with all and sundry whereas some of those who have been shipped out to more sheltered establishments must get a bit of a shock!

firstly good PR, some schools historically have a bad reputation within the local community which may go back generations.

Invite the local press in at every opp - like every time you have special theme days like World Book Day etc sports results, shows, charity events etc. If it is a slow news week you will get mentioned.

We reward families/children for reading at home with certificates which are presented in assembly for 25x, (10x in reception) 50x and then a book at 100 times (Book people do cheap multi-packs) and a voucher for 150, For 200x they usually get to design their own Tshirt or mug with fabric/ceramic paints. (the rewards were decided by the student council)

Also to push reading, parents are invited to come in 10mins before start of school to read with their child, we set an area with sofas & floor cushions for this.

wrap-a-round care/before & after school is important too. Our breakfast club runs at a big loss but is subsidised by the after school club. I know other schools use private companys to run the out-of-hours provision, often linking with other nearby schools. My nieces are collected from their school & taken to a local church hall a short walk away.

One of my local schools has just become part of a "soft federation" with another very popular, over subscribed school within the same catchment area, to try & push up it's profile/