independent school brochure: A sample analysis, The

Research in Education, May 2001 by Copeland, Ian C

The status of the school prospectus or brochure is in a sense ambiguous. On the one hand, there is the seemingly factual statement that `The prospectus is quite often the first contact that a prospective parent has with a school ... School publications have two functions: firstly, to inform the reader about what is going on; and secondly, to present the image of the school' (Medgett, 1997: 89). On the other hand, however, is the parental reading or interpretation of the prospectus, where `there is almost bound to be an element of "public relations" in some brochures and probably very rightly. But some parents are sceptical of "PR" and, faced with any brochure, will believe that the schools are putting a "gloss" on everything' (Stillman and Maychell, 1986: 59). The potential ambiguity resides in the distinction between the factual statement and the overstatement.

Commentators have found the school brochure a useful research tool for several different reasons: one values the brochure simply as a ready source of evidence about schools (Weeks, 1987); another regards the brochures' content as a source of data which are uncontaminated by the researcher's predilections (Knight, 1992); others consider that the prospectus yields insights into prevalent policy in education in general (Maguire et al., 1994) and also into particular policies in schools (Fuller et al., 1997). To these four reasons the present commentary adds the element of novelty because, although there has been an examination of the prospectus of a number of prestigious boys' schools which have enrolled girls over time to explore the question of the degree of co-education achieved (Fuller et al., 1997: 405), there has been no exploration of the independent school brochure in its own right. With these considerations in mind a sample of independent school brochures was sought.

The nature of the sample

Independent schools whose premises chance to be within seven local authority districts in central southern England wee contacted by letter with a request for a copy of their current school brochure for the academic year 1997-98. There were fifty-eight positive replies, which produced a response rate of 57 per cent. They split roughly into two halves of boarding and day schools. Some, however, were both. Their nature was diverse and such as to render precise categorisation difficult. Thus there were schools for senior students but some admitted at age 11 and some at 13. These schools for senior pupils constituted just over a half the sample and divided roughly equally between single sex boys or girls and mixed. However, there were also some schools which admitted pupils from the age of 3 years and where they could have been educated to the age of 18 or 19. However, such schools often contained boys and girls to age 8 or 11 and then became single-sex. In addition to the difficulty of categorisation by gender, the foregoing also points to the fact that there were differences in the age of admission and transfer of students. The reality was that there seemed sufficient flexibility within the schools that their pupils could follow the State and/or the private pattern of education. Hence the commentary which follows relates to all the brochures except where specific differences are highlighted. The analysis was a part of a larger project which included the current prospectuses of State, special, primary and secondary schools.

The technical aspect of the brochure

In technical terms, particularly with regard to the quality of paper, the reproduction of text and photographs, almost all the brochures (95 per cent) reflect the highest possible standards and are comparable with other brochures in different fields. Indeed, it could be argued that they surpass the quality of handbooks produced by concerns such as finance houses, whose main pages are matt. The predominant format of the independent school brochure is either glossy paper throughout or glossy pages with supplementary matt pages tucked in a pocket on the inside back cover. This level of quality contrasts sharply with State-sector brochures, where only a small minority of secondary schools achieve such standards.

The preferred size with but three exceptions was A4. The hand of the professional was clearly evident in the ways in which the text had been set out and broken up. The length of text was usually balanced by accompanying photographs which confirmed a previous observation that `visual material commonly takes up half of a prospectus' (Fuller et al., 1997: 407).

Semiology or the science of signs is relatively new and possibly inexact. It assumed importance, however, in a context where the then government attempted to create a quasi-market in education such that schools would be compelled to compete to attract the attention of parents and so drive up standards in the process. In the context of transition from secondary to postcompulsory education and training 'a semiological analysis of college prospectuses forms an important and fruitful area of analysis in the new market context' because `concerns with self-presentation, surface appearance and image' (Gewirtz et al., 1995: 121) become increasingly important to those who manage education. `Education is just one more commodity to be sold to the consumer ... brochures resonate with the ideas and concepts which underpin the tactics deployed to sell commodities such as coffee or Tampax' (Maguire et aL, 1994: 3). Semiology may be an inexact science but the message may be that while high technical quality in the production of a school brochure is a positive aspect, there may also be a negative side which raises suspicions of 'PR'.