On Running A School Business: 

4 Simple Ways to Boost Your School’s Ratings Through Academic Awards

Running a school business requires a great deal of experience and the right qualifications. It also requires excellent business management and marketing skills. 

Nowadays, more and more school proprietors are learning to sell their schools to prospective parents and students. One common way to do this is through registering and participating in national and international academic competitions and awards,

For a long time, academic awards those honours students ought to earn for university/college applications. Sometimes, schools offer these awards; other times, they do not. 

Although the GPA is the most important factor in admissions decisions, high school awards play a huge role in promoting competition in the classroom. In addition, internal and external contest help keep students attentive, active and meaningfully engaged. 

From spelling bees to STEM–focused challenges, academic competitions help facilitate learning environments that motivate students to go beyond their limits and break barriers. Irrespective of their intelligence quotients (IQ), students who participate in academic competitions build and develop creative attitudes, solid work ethics as well as emotional maturity.

However, academic competitions also hold potential for a number of business-boosting benefits, top of which is boosting the ratings of the schools. 

For instance, MFA in creative writing programs in North America are ranked based on the performance of past and current students in national and international literary awards. 

The same goes for medical schools. When graduates of certain medical, law or business schools perform remarkably well in their chosen fields of practice, educational bodies take note and rank the schools higher. High school students attract applicants to their schools when they excel in baccalaureate exams.

School proprietors can also boost the rankings of their private schools when they give academic awards to their students and when they register their students in external academic competitions. 

There is a long list of high school academic awards to consult for ideas. Not only will a well-prepared student bring glory to the school, he/she can also make it easier for prospective parents and students to locate and enroll into the institution.

This article will focus on the ways participation in both internal academic awards and external educational competition can help boost the academic reputation of a school. Evidence will be drawn from experience and reliable research studies. Below are our top four tips for using academic awards as a tool for enhancing your school’s academic reputation:

1.      Help Management Pay Close Attention to the Students’ Goals and Needs 

Most schools are run like prison camps. The authorities act with flagrant disregard for the needs and goals of the students. This stifles creativity and can adversely affect the performance of students.

Participating in competitions will foster the development of positive relationships between students and teachers. School management can learn firsthand what the students need in the classrooms, laboratories and libraries. 

For instance, your students have been registered for a national or international mathematics competition and they need to acquire foreign textbooks (which aren’t in the curriculum) in other to enhance their calculation skills and speed. 

The contest will encourage the proprietor to acquire new books. The teachers will also be expected to be flexible with the curricula and their teaching methods.

Another example. Students in science-focused high schools might be interested in business model-writing competitions. The proprietor will have to consider hiring an economics or business studies tutor to coach the students. 

After all, the world has changed and even scientists need some knowledge in business management to help them establish their own startups. You’ll never know who’ll set up the next Google, Microsoft or Facebook.

Think of all the effective outcomes your students can accrue from the exposure the competition. They will be more motivated; academic performance will sour and parents will give your school better reviews.

After every competition, participants can be invited to fill surveys. Ensure you ask questions that provide useful data that will help the school management make decisions that are more informed. 

Remember, paying attention to the needs, opinion and goals of students help boost school rankings.

2.      Encouraging Teamwork and Cooperation Among Students

Most academic experts encourage student competitions because they help to foster collaboration and teamwork amongst students and teachers. 

Various team-based educational competitions (such as the Google science contest, the Technovation awards and other prestigious high school academic awards) require students to tackle problems creatively. Accomplishing such tasks often require excellent communication skills, trust, cooperation and teamwork.

Young students acquire a lot of business management skills from studying their colleagues, leaning each person’s strengths and weaknesses, and figuring out how best to contribute to the common goal.

Competitions for students go a long way to prepare the student for the real world. When past students do exceptionally well in the real world, school rating automatically increase.

3.      Helps Students Choose Academic Idols

Schools are judged based on the students’ attitudes towards academics. One way to boost student’s academic consciousness is through various introductions to heroes in the educational setting.

One way to do this is through promoting educational competitions in schools, especially at the elementary and high school level. Students in elementary and high school grades are easily influenced by prizes and awards. Celebrating contest winners in the presence of their peers is a good way to encourage the adoption of academic heroes. 

4.      Consolidating Educational Self-Concept

Contrary to popular opinion, academic competitions don’t merely create winners and losers. It does a lot more for every participant. Social psychology experts have shown that competitions enhance the educational self-concept of students. This is because contests are designed in such a way as to reward contestants with rich rewarding experiences that leave them better prepared for future opportunities.

Proprietors can go out of their way to design high school academic awards in such a way that every participant is rewarded, whether they win or not. It is important to encourage student participation in educational competitions.

Look at sports for instance. Athletes do not give up just because they haven’t won medals or trophies. They often adopt different mindsets, by cherishing the experience and the technical expertise they would have acquired. Their self-esteem doesn’t plummet. In fact, it is raised a notch higher than it was before they went into the competition.

In conclusion

School proprietors should spend a lot of time researching and preparing their student for school competitions. Not only will this help the students excel in the real world, but it will also help keep them focused on the right things. In the end, the school will have many remarkable students that will make the proprietors proud. 

About the Author:

Chioma Iwunze-Ibiam writes creative non-fiction and prose fiction. Her works have appeared in Romance Meets Life, Flash Fiction Press, MTLS, Saraba Magazine, Sentinel Magazine and others. Her first novel, Finding Love Again, was published by Ankara Press. She owns and manages Creative Writing News.