How Schools Can Improve Student Retention and Protect Revenue

If your school is working flat out to recruit new pupils but quietly losing existing ones, you do not have a marketing-for-new-enquiries problem.

You have a retention problem.

This came up loud and clear in my recent Selling Education podcast conversation with Brendan Schneider, one of the most experienced voices in K12 school marketing. When I asked him to rank what matters most for sustainable growth, his answer was immediate.

Retention first.

Because if you are pouring new pupils into a system that is already leaking, you are making recruitment harder, more expensive, and more stressful than it needs to be.

Saying that they are required to continue to the next year, contractually, is not a retention tactic.

And whilst ‘retention’ may not be what I traditionally worked on with schools, as we focus mainly on sales conversion of enquiries to new enrolments, Brendan quite rightly points out that we should look at retention in earnest, and my No Fluff enquiries are telling me the same.

So why are we treating ‘retention’ as something for somebody else to do..? I understand that Admissions’ role is to enrol those new pupils, but if they have to keep refilling the bucket, surely retention needs to be treated differently? It may have more moving parts, but still.. It’s part of your revenue pipeline.

Retention is a growth metric, not a pastoral nice-to-have

Most schools talk about retention in vague terms. “We’re generally happy.” “It’s about relationships.” “We’ll deal with it if an issue crops up.”

That is not a strategy.

Brendan described how his school treated retention as a measurable, managed pipeline, not a hope-based outcome. They tracked it. They discussed it regularly. They involved senior leadership. And crucially, they acted early, not once families had mentally checked out.

Retention deserves the same discipline as enquiries, visits, offers, and acceptances. If it affects your revenue and your capacity, it is a commercial metric whether you like the word or not.

Set a retention target and treat it like a KPI

Start with facts, not feelings.

Know your re-enrolment rate for the last two years. If it is 87 percent, write it down. You may want to delve deeper by year group. Then set a realistic improvement target for this year. Even a three to five percent uplift can make a serious difference to your numbers and workload.

Track it regularly, not retrospectively once the damage is done. Make it visible. A shared dashboard, a simple tracker, even a whiteboard in the admissions office. If the team cannot see it, it will not change. There’s just too much else to do!

And yes, leadership needs eyes on it too. As Brendan put it, when heads and senior leaders take ownership of the numbers, retention stops being “an admissions issue” and becomes a whole-school priority. As it should be.

Build a retention pipeline, not a panic response

One of the strongest recommendations I can make is treating retention like a pipeline with defined stages.

Not just “they’re here” or “they’ve left”, but clear points such as:

• Early warning signs
• Concerns identified and discussed
• Mid-year confirmation
• Recommitment

This matters because most families do not leave suddenly. The signs are usually there months in advance, if you are looking for them.

The schools that perform best are the ones that surface risk early, assign ownership, and follow a clear workflow. Not every issue can be fixed, and not every family should stay, but far more can be retained when there is structure rather than silence.

Create a retention action group, not another meeting

Brendan talked about the power of a retention committee made up of people who actually have influence. Admissions, academic leaders, pastoral staff, finance, and senior leadership.

The goal is not to just talk. It is to decide who is best placed to act and then do something, early. Giving ownership at each stage is vital. It cannot just fall to overstretched Admissions.

This is also where data meets reality. Patterns emerge. Certain year groups. Certain transition points. Certain expectations that were never aligned in the first place.

None of this requires fancy software. It requires intention, permission, and follow-through.

Your retention campaign should include touchpoints throughout the year to ‘check in’. Not just academically. And that culture of a school, the feeling, the belonging - that is intentional and not left to chance.

Fix the leaky boat before you spend more on fuel

Retention will never feel as urgent as recruitment because it is quieter. But it is where the biggest gains often sit.

As Brendan put it, recruiting into a system that cannot hold on to its pupils makes everything harder downstream. Improve retention NOW, and recruitment becomes less frantic, less costly, and more predictable.

Before you launch another campaign, attend another fair, or blame the market, ask yourself a simpler question.

Are we keeping the pupils we already worked so hard to enrol?

If not, that is where the real work starts.

If you would like to discuss working with No Fluff on your retention pipeline, and indeed admissions pipeline, get in touch. We are the #1 experts in selling education.