I co-founded School Space with James Lloyd seven years ago when we were both in still in secondary school. It began as a school project, looking at how we could better utilise the school’s spaces by renting them out at evenings and weekends to businesses and community groups.
Since then, we’ve expanded the business and now offer a fully managed service – which includes marketing, event supervision, cleaning and invoicing – to primary and secondary schools across Oxfordshire and London.
There’s a social mission locked into our company articles, which is to help schools generate more income. This means that regardless of whether a school is interested in using our services or not, we’re always available for advice or guidance on how to make lettings safe and effective for SBMs. Below are the tips I’d recommend, based on our experiences.
Lettings success involves three key factors
The nature of your facilities, your geographical location and marketing reach will make the biggest difference to how much you’re able to earn. Other important factors include how safely your lettings are run and how your customers are managed, and it’s worth noting that most lettings will approach your school reception. If you want the bookings, train your receptionist to take email addresses and pass them on to you – failing to copy details down is the easiest way to loose a booking!
Be mindful of what can go wrong
The three main concerns for schools to bear in mind are risk of damage, bad debts and whether bookings are appropriate (i.e. nothing that will contravene the Prevent agenda, films of a certain nature being shown, or even made, and so forth).
Lettings may imply endorsement
Meetings of radical groups are obviously best avoided, but political parties fall into an interesting space. We’ve previously had requests from the three main political parties; our usual response will be to flag them on our systems and let schools decide whether to grant approval. After all, it’s their premises and their call as to whether they want to be seen as allowing certain groups to meet in their venue.
There’s a spectrum of opportunity
There’s a big difference between what a village primary school with one hall can offer versus a London primary with seven-form entry. With the caveat that every school is different, it makes more sense for a village primary to manage their lettings in-house, since the amount they can charge for their facilities likely won’t be enough to warrant the cost of an external manager.
Smaller rural primary schools could conceivably generate between £10,000 and £20,000 annually from lettings, depending on their in-house staffing arrangements, while a town or city primary should be aiming to generate around £40,000. Most of the lettings customers we seek are regular bookings who will use the same schools week in, week out.
Check your security
Make sure your offices are lockable, particularly with GDPR rules now in force, and keep lettings restricted to a single entrance – preferably with an automatically closing and locking door, so that the site isn’t left open and unsecured to the public. The route to the meeting space should be as simple and non-wearing (on carpets, floors, furniture) as possible
Keep it clean
A nice floor can make a big difference to the type of bookings that come in, so keep yours bright and revarnish them if needed. Don’t forget to give groups access your toilet facilities. These are very basic tips, but all concern areas that business managers will have a say in, and might make a huge difference to how successfully your premises can be marketed.
Jemma Phibbs is the co-director of School Space.
