Written by Chris Barr, former Head of School and current Chief Commercial Officer at Schoolbox.
Having previously led a school community through periods of real disruption and uncertainty, I have a genuine appreciation for what many school leaders across the world are dealing with right now. Keeping a school community safe is one thing. Keeping people connected, informed and confident during difficult periods is just as important to keep an element of normality.
In times like these as teachers and leaders we learn very quickly that learning and teaching itself can continue. Schools are incredibly resilient organisations and teachers will always find a way to keep students moving forward. What becomes much harder to maintain is clarity and connection across the whole community. And when clarity starts to slip, everything else becomes more complicated than it needs to be.
Capability Doesn’t Always Create Clarity
Having led a school through extended disruption, such as political unrest and COVID, this was the part that proved the most difficult to manage. It wasn’t because the school lacked capability. Like most schools, we had strong systems in place and good people working incredibly hard.
What became clear very quickly was that having capability doesn’t necessarily guarantee clarity.
The challenge wasn’t the systems themselves, it was how those systems came together, or more accurately, how they didn’t. From inside the school it felt like everything was under control. We knew what we were doing, we were making decisions quickly and everyone was working hard to keep things moving.
But from the outside, to parents in particular, the experience wasn’t always as clear as we thought it was.
When the School Experience Feels Fragmented
This is something I see in many schools today, particularly across the international sector. There is no shortage of technology. Schools have a learning platform, a student information system and a growing collection of tools that support different parts of the school.
Individually these systems work well, but they are rarely designed to be experienced as one connected environment.
Communication is spread across multiple places, making it difficult to maintain clarity. While learning naturally looks different across subjects and year levels, the way information is shared often lacks consistency. Updates arrive through various channels, and important messages from across the school compete for attention, requiring parents to sift through multiple sources to stay informed.
As a leader, you know nothing is technically broken. But the overall experience no longer holds together in a simple way. It stops feeling like one clear, organised school.
I saw this play out in very familiar ways while leading through disruption. Parents were asking questions about things that had already been communicated. Students became unsure where they should be looking for their work. Staff were wasting time duplicating effort simply to make sure information was visible.
Over time that duplication starts to take a real toll, creating friction across the organisation. More effort is required to achieve the same outcome. Confidence becomes harder to build and sustain. And time that should be focused on teaching, learning and leadership gets redirected into managing the gaps between systems.
What Parents Actually Experience
One of the biggest lessons for me during that time was understanding what aspects parents actually judge when they experience a school.
Families don’t see the complexity behind the scenes. They don’t evaluate the effort being made by staff. They are simply experiencing the school from the outside and asking some very straightforward questions.
- Do I understand what is happening?
- Can I see what my child needs to do?
- Does the school feel organised and in control?
When the answer to those questions is yes, confidence builds very quickly. Trust follows naturally and the school feels stable, even when conditions are changing around it.
When the experience feels fragmented, that confidence starts to erode. Not necessarily because the school is doing a poor job, but because it no longer feels clear.
In international school markets in particular, that perception matters. Families are making active choices about where their children are educated, and they are often comparing that experience in real time.
The Problem Schools Often Try to Solve
What I’ve noticed is that many schools, unintentionally, end up solving the wrong problem during periods of disruption.
The conversation tends to focus on access. Can we get learning online? Can we communicate with families? Do we have the right tools in place?
These are important questions, but they are internal measures of readiness. They describe what the school has available, not necessarily how the school is experienced by the community.
I remember this being one of the harder shifts for us as a leadership team. Internally we felt like we were moving quickly and making strong decisions. But that effort didn’t always translate into clarity for families.
From a parent’s perspective the question is much simpler: does this make sense?
Making the School Easier to Understand
A simple way to test this is to look at how many places, portals or platforms a parent needs to check each day to understand what is happening in the life of the school and their child. If the answer is several, then the school is effectively asking families to do the work of connecting those pieces together.
The schools that seem to navigate change most effectively are not necessarily the ones with the most technology. In many cases they are the ones that have made their school easier to understand from the outside.
When I look at schools doing this well, there is a fairly consistent pattern.
The difference isn’t that they keep adding more tools. In many cases it is the opposite. They focus on reducing the number of places families need to go to understand what matters.
Parents know exactly where to look. Learning, communication and key information come together in one place so families are not forced to piece things together across multiple systems.
Access is simple and consistent. Communication is timely and relevant. Learning is visible without needing explanation.
Just as importantly, these schools build strong habits across their staff. There is a shared approach to how things are communicated and presented so clarity is maintained day to day, rather than being recreated every time something changes.
In most cases this isn’t about replacing existing systems. Schools often already have capable platforms in place. The shift comes from thinking more deliberately about how those systems come together to create a coherent experience for students, staff and families.
A Simple Test for Leadership Teams
There is also a very simple way for leadership teams to sense-check this in their own school.
If parents need to check multiple places every day to understand what matters, the experience is probably fragmented.
If communication relies on repeated reminders rather than becoming routine, the process is not yet embedded.
And if understanding what is happening requires effort from families, confidence will always be more fragile than it needs to be.
I often encourage leadership teams to reflect on one simple question: if a parent engaged with your school today, would they immediately understand what matters, where to go, and what their child needs to do? Or would they need to piece it together themselves?
In periods of disruption that difference becomes highly visible. Clarity, consistency and connection are often what sustain confidence in a school community when everything else around it is uncertain.
Acknowledging the Work of School Communities
Finally, my thoughts are with the many school leaders, staff and families around the world currently navigating significant disruption. Leading a school community through moments like this requires extraordinary care, resilience and calm judgement. The work being done to keep students learning and communities connected should never be underestimated.
