There is a version of term planning that feels productive but produces very little of value. Every week is accounted for, every channel is scheduled and every post is planned three months in advance. It looks organised. In practice, it's a way of making sure nothing interesting ever gets published.
Good school marketing comes from a team that knows what they are trying to say, has the time and permission to notice when something worth saying is happening, and has a structure that makes it easy to act on what they find. A spreadsheet alone won't give you that.
What a term plan is actually for
A term plan is a framework for decision-making rather than a content calendar in the traditional sense. It answers three questions. What are the key moments this term that families need to hear about? Which themes reflect the school's character and priorities? And what space is left for the unexpected?
The third question is the one most plans leave out, and it is often the most important. The moments that resonate most with prospective families (the photograph that captures something true about school life, the story that shows exactly what the school stands for) are rarely the ones that were planned six weeks in advance.
The problem with over-planning
When every slot in a content calendar is filled before term begins, the team has no room to respond to what actually happens. A remarkable piece of pupil work, an unexpected community moment, a conversation with a parent that reveals exactly what families are looking for: all of these get passed over because there is no space for them in the plan.
Over-planning also tends to produce generic content. When the goal is to fill the calendar rather than to say something meaningful, the result is a stream of posts that look busy but communicate nothing distinctive about the school.
A more useful structure
A term plan that works tends to have three layers. The first is fixed: key dates, admissions milestones, events that need to be communicated in advance. The second is thematic: the two or three ideas that the school wants to develop and explore across the term, drawn from its genuine priorities and character. The third is open: a deliberate allocation of space for the stories that emerge as the term unfolds.
The ratio between these layers will vary by school and by term. But the principle is consistent: a plan that leaves no room for the unexpected will produce predictable, forgettable content.
The role of the marketing team
For this kind of planning to work, the marketing team needs to be present in the school, in its everyday life as well as at formal events. They need relationships with teachers, with pupils, with the people who know when something interesting is happening. And they need the confidence to act on what they find, without waiting for approval at every step.
This is a cultural question as much as a structural one. Schools that treat marketing as an administrative function will always struggle to produce content that feels alive. Schools that treat it as a creative and strategic function, one that requires access, trust and a genuine understanding of the school's character, are the ones whose marketing actually works.
Starting with the term ahead
The simplest way to begin is to look at the term ahead and ask: what are the three most important things we want families to understand about this school by the end of it? Not the three most important events, the three most important ideas. Everything else (the calendar, the channels, the individual pieces of content) should serve those ideas. The plan is the container. The ideas are what matter.