Roundtable: Student Retention Techniques

[Bob Hubbard]

What ideas and practices do you use or can you think of that will aid in student retention?


My suggestion would be to have a dedicated section of your website, possibly password protected, for the education and recognition of your students. Some of the things you can build into it are:
* School Announcements - Post all your news, promotions, upcoming events and seminars.
* Student Birthdays - Wishing them a Happy Birthday earns you good will, especially with parents and younger kids.
* Student of the Month - Nothing boosts satisfaction like some public recognition
* Class Schedules & Calendars - Helps keep your students informed on when classes are, as well as when you're closed and when special events are.
* School History / Lineage
* New Student Announcements & Resources - A nice way to say hello and welcome new students to the school, also helps give them all the "newbie" info.
* Form Meanings and walk throughs
* School Rules & Policies
* Tournament Information and Results
* Monthly Training Tips
* Seminar Information
* Black Belt Club - Special information for your BBC or other "specialty" groups.
* Demonstration Team - Have a demo team? Great way to promote it and recognize the members who are representing your school

You can also setup a forum, public or private, to encourage community within your school.

 

[sadantkd]

One thing that I've found really works well is to encourage students to befriend new-comers. Make them feel welcome and comfortable. Then, encourage a team attitude amongst them. Be wary of cliques forming, but if a student feels that he'll actually be missed, he's a lot more likely to keep coming, or to return if he does have to take some time off.

 

[Archangel M]

Brainwashing, threats and cultism.

Kidding aside, the one thing I didnt see mentioned was cost. In my opinion the things that will keep students in the door are constant challenge, ego reinforcement through rank and responsibility within the program, a convenient schedule and a reasonable cost.

 

[terryl965]

All good points but one of the main thing is that it is a life journey and not a baseball leagues, training occurs all the time whether you are in the dojo or in life.

 

[brianlkennedy]

I make a point of at least once a month getting each of my students aside and spending at least 10 minutes or so, one on one talking with them about "how things are going", in particular how things are going with the classes. I have found out more solid information about my classes doing this. And a lot of times it involves things that I think are going great...but my students think "suck".

take care,
Brian

 

[jks9199]

Some of these ideas are interesting -- but clearly aimed at kids.

What are some the keys to getting and retaining adults?

 

[foggymorning162]

For Adults my instructor will periodically put out a survey asking us what we want more of or less of. For kids they want stuff they need constant reenforcement that they are doing a good job and not just verbally so our junior students will periodically get insentive stripes on their belts. It has nothing at all to do with their rank it's just a hey you did a good job.

 

[joe-jitsu]

We're a pretty young club and have both kids and adult classes.

For our kids class (we average about 12 students at any given time of the year), we celebrate their birthdays at the end of class. My wife will bake cupcakes and we'll bring some juice and sing happy birthday while lined up in formation. The kids (and parents) LOVE it! We'll eat and drink and then finish with a couple of games like splitting the class into fair and equal teams and playing tug-o-war, freeze tag (kids are unfrozen when tagged by a free person and then have to do a pre-established technique like 5-times), "Sensei-says", etc.

We do the same for our adult class (about 10-12 mostly college-aged men & women at any given time also) as far as the birthdays (just bringing in the cupcakes) and they love it too. We also use surveys (surveymonkey.com as well as printed surveys to fill out at the end of class to see what we're "doing right and doing wrong" so to speak. I also will end the class by asking everyone what they thought about what we worked on and get really good results. I will always ask everyone if there is anything they would like to focus on during the next class, especially anything they think they need more work on, and I always get all kinds of answers. This all seems to work really well for us and we get more inquiries from our website (usually referals) EVERY week!

Hope this helps everyone out. )