Architect, not decorator
We listen before we design. The best school stories are already being lived. We surface those and give them shape. Strategy and creative are grounded in what we hear.
Clarity and Alignment
Your team knows your school inside-out. Yet, you've noticed families slipping through the cracks, or the team struggling to align around the best path forward. You can see the benefits of introducing shared language, reducing key-person risk, and delivering a better experience for your families.
Enrolment Journey Mapping Workshop
Format One full day or two half-days
Best for For schools where the enrolment journey lives in someone's head.
For schools where the enrolment journey lives in someone's head.
Your situation
No single picture of how the enrolment journey actually runs. Different staff describe the process differently to families. When someone leaves, the process knowledge leaves with them.
The work
- 01 Pre-workshop research
We speak with key staff and review your current processes.
- 02 Workshop day
Over a day of collaboration, your team maps the full enrolment journey together using Bolsta's 6-Step Enrolment Journey and the Experience Builder framework.
- 03 Synthesis and delivery
We synthesise the enrolment journey into a custom enrolment journey map that you can continue building and refining over time.
You get
A complete enrolment journey map covering every phase
Key moments identified with experience design principles embedded
A reference document for your team and future new staff
School Marketing Playbook Workshop
Format Half-day workshop
Best for For schools new to marketing.
For schools new to marketing.
Your situation
Where do you start when it comes to marketing your school? How do you know if what you're doing is moving the needle? Start marketing proactively - with a tight budget in mind - with the School Marketing Playbook workshop.
The work
- 01 Pre-workshop review
We review your current marketing activity, learn about your strategic growth goals, and understand your capacity.
- 02 Half-day session
Your team works through five areas together: content, media, campaigns, enrolment, and community. For each area, you assess where you sit today using three tiers of maturity, and identify what to prioritise next.
- 03 Playbook delivery
We turn the session into a finished School Marketing Playbook with prioritised actions across three years your team can follow.
You get
A customised Marketing Playbook, unique to your school.
A year-round rhythm your marketing person can follow week to week
Three levels of 'maturity' across each of the five buckets, giving you an embedded strategic plan
Experience Training
Format Single-day intensive
Best for For teams who want to be trained in experience design.
For teams who want to be trained in experience design.
Your situation
Train your team in experience design using the Experience Builder framework (inspired by Human-Centred Design, Design Thinking, and more). Learn a shared language and model for designing delightful family-centred experiences, as well as responding constructively to communication challenges.
The work
- 01 Pre-work
We work with your team to identify a real moment your school is facing (a tour, an open day, a crisis).
- 02 Training day
Your team learns the Experience Builder's nine-dimension framework by applying it to that moment. The day combines teaching, practical exercises, and live design work. Your team learns by doing.
- 03 After the day
Your team leaves with a fully designed experience ready to implement, reference materials they keep, and a method they can reuse across tours, events, and key touchpoints.
You get
A shared framework for designing experiences
A fully designed moment from the day's application work, ready to implement
Reference materials your team keeps and uses after the training
Custom scopes
The three offers above are common starting points. We regularly work with schools on custom scopes, unique to their particular situation.
- 01 Team training tailored to your marketing, communications, or experience gaps
- 02 Strategy advisory for marketing, enrolment, or communications decisions
- 03 Capability building for marketing and admissions staff
- 04 Alignment sessions for new leadership or team members joining mid-year
What schools say
“I consider Jacob a trusted extension of our marketing department, who not only comes up with thoughtful ideas and well structured strategy input, but based on the very strong relationship we have developed over 5 years, he is willing to ask me the difficult questions. I really appreciate that because iron sharpens iron and it makes us better.”
David Gray Director of Mission & Community Belmont Christian College
Is this you?
Schools come to this stream when...
If any of these sound familiar, it's worth a call. I've started here with many of the schools I work with.
- 01
Different staff describe the enrolment process differently to families.
- 02
A key person left and took the process knowledge with them.
- 03
You've experienced rapid growth, and you know that your marketing and communications is no longer fit-for-purpose.
- 04
You sense the work has lost coherence but can't point to exactly where.
Our approach
How we work
Compass, not manual
We build your capability by designing principles, systems and guardrails that give you a new lens for your work. We want to see you extend, adapt and build excellent and coherent work long after the project is complete.
Lantern, not spotlight
A family's journey with your school starts well before they enquire and continues well after they enrol. We design for that whole arc, so that every touchpoint helps families find their way to a place that is right for them.
Mirror, not megaphone
We help you hear yourself clearly, and then reflect back to you what you need to understand to make progress. Real partnership means being honest about what's working, what isn't, and where the real wins lie.
If you're wondering if one or more of the engagements on this page could benefit your school, let's have a conversation.
Book a 30-minute call
With Jacob
jacob@bolsta.education
Common questions
Before you get in touch
Do we need to do the Audit first?
No. You can start with any of the three service streams. The Audit is available for schools that want a comprehensive diagnostic first, but most schools begin with a focused workshop or project.
What happens after the workshop?
Workshops produce concrete deliverables your team uses immediately — journey maps, playbooks, designed experiences. Often they surface the next logical step, but there's no pressure to proceed. You have what you need from the workshop either way.
What if we are not sure which offer fits?
Most schools don't come in knowing which stream fits. Book a 30-minute call and Jacob will help you figure out where to start based on your situation. No pitch, no obligation.
Can you work alongside our existing agency or marketing team?
Yes. Bolsta typically directs strategy while partners handle tactical execution. The role is getting clarity and story right first, so whatever you build — with us or with other partners — is grounded in real strategy.
How long does an engagement take?
Workshops are typically one day or a half-day, with pre-workshop interviews and document review in the weeks before. Larger projects like Brand Story Strategy span two terms (around six months). Timeline depends on scope — the call is where we work this out.
What's included in the price?
Everything listed under each offer: pre-workshop research and interviews, facilitation, and the finished deliverable your team keeps. Travel is additional for schools outside the Hunter Valley.
Who needs to be in the room?
It depends on the workshop. Journey Mapping works best with marketing, admissions, and at least one member of leadership. The Marketing Playbook needs whoever is responsible for marketing activity. Experience Training needs the team responsible for delivering the moment you're designing. Jacob helps you decide who to include in the pre-workshop call.
Do you come to us?
Yes. Workshops are run at your school. Travel is included for schools in the Hunter Valley; additional for schools elsewhere in Australia. Remote delivery is available but in-person is strongly preferred for this kind of work.
What if our team is sceptical about workshops?
It's common. Jacob designs workshops to produce useful outputs, not just conversation. Teams leave with artefacts they use the next week. The pre-workshop interviews also mean Jacob arrives informed about your context, not asking basic questions the team has already answered before.
Can we combine more than one workshop?
Yes. Some schools run Journey Mapping and the Marketing Playbook back-to-back across two days. Others space them out over a term. The call is where we figure out the right sequence for your situation.
When to call us
We partner with school leaders and their teams.
Something that once felt strong has started to fade, and misconceptions are creeping in to fill the gap. The team no longer shares a clear, confident sense of who the school is. We help you re-find and re-anchor the core story, mission and culture, then build the language to hold them.
See related case studiesWhat families see doesn't match how good the school really is, because the visible work has aged out of step with it. We make the rebuild a chance to align story, system, and creative, instead of replacing one piece with another that still doesn't fit.
See related case studiesFamilies slip away between enquiry and enrolment, the journey feels clunky, and the tour depends entirely on who's running it. We map the whole journey and design the moments that decide how a family feels, from the first phone call through to day one.
See related case studiesAdmissions, marketing, communications, and leadership are each holding a different version of the school, and there's so much to fix it's hard to know where to start. We diagnose first, then bring everyone into one map and one language with a sequence matched to your capacity.
See related case studiesWhether you need more of the right families enrolling or the staff to grow with, sustained growth, or sustained slippage, is rarely about marketing alone. We look at the whole enrolment ecosystem and identify the few moves that will move the most.
See related case studiesA new principal, a strategic plan reset, an anniversary, an expansion: moments where the school's story needs to be re-told. We work with leadership to make sure the new chapter is actually heard and felt, and embedded into culture for years.
See related case studies