Essential in my experience
When we started running our Academy classes for junior and senior high school students, we had a few teething problems.
The most important of these was that our students and parents did not know the classes existed, and did not understand how the classes could help them.
We had an awareness problem.
After a few false starts we came up with an orientation that seemed to work, and once we refined it we saw sign up rates among our 6th grade students of 95-100%.
Here’s what we do now.
We run explanation sessions for students and parents. The sessions are scheduled in class time, and replace the annual class observations that kindy to ES5 students have.
The sessions last about 20 minutes, and go from halfway through the class until the end. Parents can then leave with their children.
In the session we use slides to present information, talking in Japanese. We show the materials we will be using (including The Fluency Course), talk about how our Academy program will help the children with their studies in junior high school and beyond, explain the schedule, the fees, and how to sign up, and take questions.
We try to have the students do some simple activities too, both to show their parents that they have acquired some English and to put them at ease.
After the session we have some time for parents and students to look at materials or ask us any questions one to one.
Some things we emphasise in the presentations:
- Our Academy classes are designed to complement what students do in school and juku
- We focus on fluency so students end up with good reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills
- In our third year course students have moved beyond JHS content and are doing high school level activities
- Our students do well in both eiken tests and entrance examinations, the ones that stay with us until high school do well in the 共通テスト university examinations
- Students find our classes interesting and fun because they are so active
We also have an extensive reading program so talk about that as well as the Fluency Course classes.
After all the sessions are finished we have an online signup where parents choose up to two days they can join, then make the class lists.
This year will be interesting bacause we have 48 6th graders so may not have space for all of them. In that case we will do first come first served as the online signup gives us time stamps. A good problem to have!
How are you marketing your JHS classes to existing students?
I gave students doing the Fluency Course (all levels) a questionnaire last week. All but one said they enjoyed it and wanted to continue, but one or two also said they wanted a dedicated listening component so I may have to add that separately for next year.
That is fantastic timing and reminds me of something we’ve been meaning to do for a while.
Stay tuned!