Declining pupil numbers. Funding struggles. Difficulty recruiting good teachers.
These are struggles most schools and Trusts care about.
The numbers are bleak: A 6% drop in pupil numbers by 2030 (Institute of Fiscal Studies). £1 billion lost in funding for schools (Education Policy Institute). Meanwhile, the OECD has announced a teacher retention crisis: England saw one of the highest rates of teachers leaving the profession across all of the OECD’s 38 member countries.
The schools and Trusts still standing after the dust settles will have all one factor in common: a strong reputation.
With maximising pupil intake becoming a top concern for school leaders across the UK, much has been written about what makes a school first choice for parents. And the data decisively shows that two elements give a school the edge time and time again: location and reputation.
In 2025, the Parent Voice Project – the biggest ever poll of parents across England – released the first part of its findings. The results showed that across the country, parents agreed that after location, reputation was the next most important factor when choosing a school for their children. This remained true even when adjusting for background, income level or the type of school.
Unfortunately, location is something school leaders have little control over. While a Trust may be able to expand its geographic reach by adding schools in new areas, individual schools are securely rooted to one spot.
However, reputation is something school leaders can change, manage and improve.
When school leaders and parents talk about reputation, they are often talking about two different things.
School leaders typically hear the word “reputation” and think of Ofsted ratings, league table rankings and academic performance.
All three of these things made an appearance in the Parent Voice Project poll of parent concerns – but ranked six, eight and 10 respectively. This prompts the question: if parents are not talking about Ofsted, league tables or academic results when naming reputation, what are they talking about?
We don’t have to guess: once again, data tells the story.
Good, effective communications tops the list of school qualities parents value most.
A report by research agency Public First, UNISON and the NAHT found that only a third of parents were aware of the Ofsted rating of their child's score. But the word "communication" came up again and again.
When we put all this data together, it paints a clear picture. Schools with a good reputation have the strongest appeal to prospective parents – and how well a school communicates with current parents directly influences its reputation.
And with the release of the new schools white paper, communicating well with parents is no longer optional. There are now minimum standards for communication, mandating that schools regularly share information with parents about:
But what is “good communication”, in a parent’s eyes?
Every parent is different. However, what parents care about will generally fall into at least one of six categories:
Parents want news and updates that are relevant to them and their child, rather than needing to sift through dozens of emails or messages that have nothing to do with them. They want to know where to find forms, timetables and event details, instead of missing vital updates because they didn’t know where to check. And they want to be able to take part in their child’s education, without needing to grill their child to find out what they learned about that day.
A school or Trust’s reputation is made – or broken – by how well it communicates. The data tells us that when current parents are happy, they spread the message… and other parents listen.
For school leaders, keeping parents happy is no longer optional: it’s essential for maximising future intake.
Visit ReachMoreParents by Weduc on stand I12 at the Schools & Academies Show London 2026. Find out more about them on their website: reachmoreparents.com