Find the words for what makes your school special.
We unearth your story by listening to your community, and craft the language to tell it everywhere.
Messaging Workshop
- Format
- Single intensive day
- Price
- From $6,000
- Best for
- For schools who sound like every other school.
Your situation
No shared language for how the school tells its story. You either sound like every other school, or staff and families are using language that isn't reflective of you really are. Both extremes feel unhealthy.
The work
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Pre-workshop interviews
We interview your key staff beforehand to hear how they currently talk about the school. This surfaces the gaps between what different people say and what families actually hear.
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Workshop day
We guide you through curious, engaging conversation to reveal your core school character, the messages that carry it, and the stories that make those messages memorable.
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Messaging document delivery
We synthesise the workshop into a finished messaging kit covering pillars, stories, and character.
You get
- A comprehensive messaging kit, tailored for school use.
- A set of custom AI prompts to help your team stay on-message
- Shared language your people draw on for website copy, prospectus content, social media, and daily conversations
Story Strategy
- Format
- Two terms, around six months
- Price
- From $14,000
- Best for
- For schools whose current brand story no longer fits who they have become.
Your situation
Your school has changed, but the brand story has not kept up. You need a comprehensive strategy that is co-designed with your community, not delivered top down.
The work
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Working groups
We run working groups with your students, parents, staff and leadership. Each group brings their lived experience to the table, as we explore the emerging common threads.
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Strategy development
We synthesise what your community has shared into a strategic framework. Each element of the strategy is built from the language and convictions your people already hold. We manage the process end to end, so the strategy is yours without becoming another project your team has to completely own.
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Strategy delivery
Your school receives a brand story document covering its character, messaging pillars, signature stories, brand narrative, moodboards, and creative manifesto. Plus, experience principles that give your team a practical filter for daily decisions, and AI prompts for generating on-brand content. The strategy is designed to anchor everything that may follow: visual identity, communications, and the moments families experience.
You get
- A comprehensive brand story strategy
- A strategy your own people have shaped, ready to anchor communications, experience design, and creative work
- Unique aspects to our approach, like experience principles and the creative manifesto, give you usable, inspiring ground to power your creativity and communication into the future.
Custom scopes
We regularly work with schools on custom scopes, unique to their particular situation.
- Tour experience design using Bolsta's tour design canvas
- Custom story and experience engagements
- AI prompt development for messaging and content
- Voice and tone development
- Storytelling training for staff
- Newsletter and content strategy
Trusted by schools across Australia and Europe
Questions we’re often asked.
We’ve done this kind of work before and it didn’t change much. How’s this different?
In our experience, story or brand work that doesn’t stick was either done to the school rather than with it, or the school was never properly equipped to own what got handed over. Our process is built around how schools actually operate, and we keep refining it for the longevity and usefulness of the work. It’s also why we increasingly hand over generative principles your team can apply, rather than fixed guidelines that gather dust on a shelf.
How long does this kind of work take?
It depends on the engagement. The Messaging Workshop is a single intensive day, with some pre-work beforehand. Story Strategy runs across about two school terms, and we’d want you going in eyes open: this is meaningful, foundational work, and that means it takes time to do well, including the approvals along the way. We’d rather set that expectation up front than rush something this important.
Will this improve our enrolments?
It works on what enrolment growth is built on: how clearly families understand and trust your school. It isn’t a quick lever like an ad campaign, it’s the foundation the rest stands on, so we’re honest that it’s slower and deeper than a tactic. If you’re weighing levers like advertising, this is the work to do first, so any campaign is optimised, working with your culture rather than against it, and pointed at long-term results.
Why is storytelling important for schools?
Because a school isn’t a product, and families aren’t really shopping. They’re anxious, hoping to choose well for their child, looking for somewhere they belong. Story is how they work that out. Not the polished, aspirational kind every school reaches for, but the kind grounded in what’s actually lived on your grounds each day. Told honestly and consistently, it does two things at once: it helps the right families recognise themselves and choose with confidence, and it helps the school recognise itself. A mirror held up to the community, not a megaphone pointed past it. That, for us, is the shift that matters: from school marketing to school storytelling.
