Admissions and The FISH! Philosophy [Blogpost 109]

While watching TV the other day, I was reminded of a video I had seen many years ago when completing my Special Education credential at CSU Hayward.

The video highlighted the importance of customer service, a positive attitude and teamwork which together lead to great results. The focus was on showing that everyone - despite strengths and weaknesses - has the ability to be successful. I have been unable to find the original video I saw in the class, however, elements of it are included in The FISH! Philosophy promotional video. The four principles of The FISH! Philosophy are Play, Make their day, Be there, and Choose your attitude. The notion of customer service, a positive attitude and teamwork which together lead to great results is applicable to a multitude of situations and most certainly to the work within an admissions office.

I have, throughout my career in education, always worked within teams (be it team teaching in London for four years, working as a peripatetic teacher in Portsmouth, as a volunteer in Montessori schools, with homeroom teachers as a Resource Teacher in California, as homeroom teacher with my grade level team here in KL, and as the Student Support Services Coordinator also here in KL) and been acutely aware of the importance of being a strong team, having a positive attitude and the correlation to success.

In my role as the Head of Admissions, I am aware of the role of “customer service”. I choose to italicize customer service as I prefer to think of imparting our school values (belonging and connection, kindness and compassion, excellence and positivity) as a more encompassing and accurate term in an educational setting. Each and every day, we welcome a number of families from around the world to visit our school and experience a snapshot of our school community. They have the opportunity to see our facilities, observe teaching and learning in action, and meet with members of our school community. As a result, they leave with a palpable sense of our school as a community and that which we value.

Yesterday, I gave a tour to a family looking to enrol their high school son. During the tour they had the opportunity to observe various classes in action, speak with one of our High School math teachers (who comes from the same country as them, spoke with them in the home language and was also able to speak about our school and compare/contrast with their national system), meet with and ask questions about our programmes with both our Middle/High School Principal and our IB Diploma Programme Coordinator.

In terms of results, our enrollment (which is often the most obvious way of measuring) is growing. We are proud of the work we do and appreciate the positive comments (another measure of success) we receive from prospective families face-to-face as well as those we receive via email and were most happy to receive the following yesterday evening:

“Thank you very much for your warm welcome earlier today, for taking time to give us a tour and to answer all of our questions. We were impressed by the professional and friendly staff, challenging yet positive environment in which your students can learn and share.”

We do, of course, continue to reflect on how we can improve the experience for prospective families and those who apply and subsequently enroll in our school.

Does The FISH! Philosophy (customer service, a positive attitude, teamwork and great results) resonate with you?

References

• The FISH! Philosophy https://www.youtube.com/user/ChartHouseLearning