What Parents, Pupils and Staff Value About Your School
VAT on fees has made independent schools harder to fill and harder to fund. Join leaders from Ibstock Place School and St Mary’s School, Colchester, to hear how asking parents, pupils and staff what they value helps them decide what to protect, what to change and what to say to prospective families.
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Share Tuesday 17th November, 11:30 pm – 12:30 pm | Online
In this session, you’ll hear from two schools at different stages. J-D Price and Sophie Gillen from Ibstock Place School in Roehampton have listened to their community for years, and will share what parents, pupils and staff have told them and what they changed as a result. Lee Faith, who became Principal of St Mary’s School, Colchester this year, will talk about what a new head needs to know about what his community values, and how he’s finding out in his first year.
Why now
Since VAT was added to school fees, parents have been weighing up the cost of an independent education more carefully, and fewer families are signing up. Every place matters more, and so does being clear about what makes your school worth choosing.
Staff are under strain too, and keeping them motivated and in post matters as much as recruiting pupils. Pupils’ day-to-day experience is, in the end, what parents are paying for. Most leaders have a good sense of what their community values, built on experience and the conversations that reach them. Asking each group directly gives you evidence rather than assumption.
What you’ll get out of it
This is a session about using what your community tells you to make better decisions, not just about running surveys. By the end of the hour, you’ll have:
- A clearer sense of what parents, pupils and staff value about a school, and where that can differ from what leaders assume
- Examples of how schools use that evidence to decide what to protect and what to change, from provision and fees to how staff are supported
- Ideas for using what current families say to sharpen how you talk to prospective ones
- Ways to spot early signs that families or staff are unhappy, while there’s still time to act
- Practical advice for getting started, or for getting more from what you already do: who to ask, what to ask, how often, and how to share what you find
There’s time for questions throughout.
Speakers
Lee Faith
Principal of St Mary's School, Colchester
Lee became Principal of St Mary’s, an independent girls’ school in Colchester, Essex, in the summer term of 2026. He joined from Ibstock Place School in London, where he was Deputy Head (School Improvement and Standards), and has held senior leadership roles covering whole-school standards, teaching and learning, and pastoral care. Lee is a Team Inspector for the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI), holds the National Professional Qualification for Executive Leadership (NPQEL) and a Level 7 Senior Leadership Apprenticeship with Distinction, and is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Educators.
J-D Price
Deputy Head (Pastoral) of Ibstock Place School
J-D leads pastoral care at Ibstock Place, a co-educational day school of around 1,000 pupils aged 4 to 18 on the edge of Richmond Park, and is the school’s Designated Safeguarding Lead. He was previously Senior Tutor, and has long championed the school’s links with its wider community, from community projects on sports tours to charity fundraising throughout the school year.
Sophie Gillen
Deputy Head (Admissions, Futures, Partnerships and Policy) of Ibstock Place School
Sophie joined Ibstock Place in 2012 as a teacher of French and Spanish, and still teaches languages alongside her leadership role. She has held a range of posts at the school, including Deputy Head of Sixth Form, Teacher in Charge of International Applications and Executive Director of Admissions and Pathways, before taking up her current role. She studied Modern and Medieval Languages at the University of Oxford and began her career at Cranleigh School.
Who this is for
This session is for heads, bursars, finance and operations leaders and governors in independent schools, whether you already gather feedback from your community or are thinking about starting.