Learning | Bolsta Education

"Our school is wonderful but no one seems to know it." "We know there are gaps between what's on the website, what's said on a phone call and what happens on a tour, but we don't know where to start fixing them." "Marketing and admissions don't work well together." These are things we hear often when schools first come to us. On the surface, they seem like separate problems. But they're usually symptoms of the same underlying issue: your story isn't working as the 'connective tissue' it should be. Story isn't just an external marketing tool. It's what holds your entire enrolment journey together for the families experiencing it and your team who is delivering it. Story Works in Two Directions Most schools think about story in one direction: outward. How do we tell families who we are? But story also works inward. It shapes how your team understands their work, talks about the school, and makes decisions together. When your story is clear: Marketing knows what to emphasise in social posts and how to produce strategic marketing that connects to the right families Admissions knows how to guide conversations and discover (and meet) the needs of families Teachers understand what they're part of when they speak to prospective families on a tour Leadership can make confident strategic decisions aligned with identity rather than reacting to what competitor schools do A clear story gives your entire team shared language about who you are and who you serve. When everyone can tell the same story, silos disappear naturally because the work becomes coherent. The Hierarchy of Story: Written, Seen, Experienced Stories get told and remembered in order of impact. First: Written word This is where most schools start. Website copy, prospectus messaging, email sequences. Words matter. They establish expectations and frame what families are looking for. But written words are easily forgotten. They compete with dozens of other school websites families are reading. And if your written story sounds like everyone else's, it barely registers at all. Second: Visual story Photography and video create emotional connection in ways words can't. Families see your spaces, your students, your culture. They start to imagine their child in your environment. Visual story is more memorable than written story. A parent might forget your mission statement, but they'll remember the image of students collaborating in your library or the feeling they got watching your welcome video. Third: Lived experience This is what actually makes families choose you (or go elsewhere). The phone call. The email exchange. The tour. The way your team responds when something goes wrong... Lived experience trumps everything else. Because this is where your story stops being something you control and becomes something families feel. Why This Order Matters Here's the pattern we see regularly: Schools invest in new websites, refresh their brand, produce video content, all while the underlying experience remains unchanged. Your messaging and materials look more polished. But families still experience the same disconnects. They read beautiful language about care and community on your website. Then they call and get put on hold, transferred twice, and reach someone who seems unsure how to help them. Or they tour the school with a guide who recites program details but never asks what the family is actually trying to understand. The written story promised "we see every child." The lived experience felt generic. This is why the gaps persist between what's on the website, what's said on a phone call, and what happens on a tour. You've improved the written and visual story without examining the lived experience beneath it. This disconnect actively erodes trust. The Trifecta: When All Three Align When you design better lived experiences, then reflect those in what families see and read, we start to see the best of all through story lenses - message, visual, lived. The story they experience matches the story they were told. That alignment is what builds trust, and trust is what transforms anxious, uncertain families into confident enrolments. Here's what the trifecta looks like in practice: Now when families move through your enrolment journey, everything reinforces everything else. The message they read prepares them for the experience they have. The experience they have proves the story you told. The story you told gives language to what they felt. The Compounding Effect When story works in both directions – externally for families and internally for teams – something interesting happens. Better-fit families enrol because the experience helped them understand fit clearly. Those families stay because the school they experience matches what they were told. They tell others about you because the integrity of that alignment is rare and worth sharing. Your team stops burning out because they're not constantly managing the gap between promise and reality. They start taking pride in the work because they see how their piece contributes to a coherent whole. Marketing and Admissions stop feeling like separate departments with competing priorities. They become collaborators in delivering one integrated experience. Your school's reputation strengthens not because your messaging got more polished, but because what families experience is increasingly aligned with what you said they'd experience.