Starting a school is an overwhelming experience. Many teachers or entrepreneurs dream of opening a school. However, this dream comes with tons of questions and the requirements of lots of planning and research.
Do you also have such dreams or want to know how to start a school?
Don’t worry—you have landed at the right place. Here, we will share with you a step-by-step guide to starting a school.
Step-by-Step Guide to Start Your School
Build a Community
The first and foremost step to starting a school is that you build your community. Here community means a support system for your new beginning. You can communicate with the people operating in this field. You can meet and schedule meetings with founders, directors of schools, and other stakeholders. You can learn from these people’s mistakes and experiences and receive guidance.
Determine the Type of School
The second step is to finalise the type of school you want to open. Is it a preschool, primary, middle, or higher secondary school? You can also identify whether the school will follow CBSE, ICSE, or state board pattern. You can determine it by understanding your vision, experience, and mission of your school. You must know the opening of different types of schools has different requirements.
Define the Ownership
Defining ownership of the school is crucial to registering it. Whether you prefer a sole proprietorship, partnership or want to work as a trust, non-profit organisation, or franchise model school. Go through the legal documents, seek advice, and decide your preferred ownership type. You must know that a society, trust, or Section 8 company can open a school in India.
Do Ground-level Research
Now, when you identify the type of school, look for a suitable locality. Understand the requirements of the school in your preferred area, competition, accessibility, and other factors. This field research will help you find a suitable place for your school.
Read the Rules & Regulations
Only your research won’t work. You will need to go through the legal documents to understand the process of opening a school. These will help you create a roadmap by understanding the terms and conditions.
Form a Legal Entity
Take your first step by forming a trust and advisory body for the upcoming school. Share your vision, craft a mission, and build a team working for the same vision. You can use your connection to form the team. In your advisory body, you can include stakeholders, legal personnel, interested and visionary individuals, experienced professionals, etc.
Secure Funds
For opening the school, you will require a good amount of money. You can seek loans, personal or community investments, business support grants, and/or subsidies for school openings. You can also raise funds from people.
Define Budgets
It’s time to define the school’s budget. Allocate the budget for location, school curriculum, staffing, infrastructure development, and others.
Find the Location
Find and finalise the location of your school based on your budget, market research, land availability, and other factors. School locations can be away from the city’s traffic. However, they must have good connectivity from different locations to the school.
Develop the School Framework
Design the curriculum of your school that signifies your teaching philosophy and aligns with the preferred patterns or any accreditation requirement. Develop the school infrastructure and decide what makes your school different from others (Such as smart classrooms, AI learning, Tech-enabled classes, exceptional faculties, and more). Moreover, establish the student discipline policy, the quality of your school teaching, and any policies related to fees, examinations, hybrid learning or others.
Market the School
Marketing and establishing a brand takes time. Invest and plan in marketing to attract students and their parents to your school. Invite potential teachers to come and join. You can offer admissions for free or at minimum charges, talk about your school’s uniqueness, and other ways to attract prospective students or parents. You can develop your school’s website, use social media platforms, and use traditional media for advertising.
Start Recruitment & Admission
Now, when the school infrastructure is ready or about to be completed, start recruiting teachers and staff, initiate the admission process, and decide the date on which the school can open. According to your budget, you can also organise the school’s inauguration and send invitations to prospective parents, interested organisations, investors, stakeholders, government institutions, and others.
The school opening process takes time, and the journey can have ups and downs. You just have to keep patience, hope, and an approach to learn and modify the process.
Tips to Build a School in 2024
Tip 1: Stand Out with Senses Intelligent Panel
Technology is booming and perfectly integrates with the traditional education system. In 2024, a unique and enabling school is in demand to create a multi-approach teaching and learning environment.
The Senses interactive panel is a replacement for traditional black-and-white boards in the classroom.
This is a tablet -like giant panel, on which you can write and erase with hand gestures, teach students with multi-media resources, transform your classroom with Artificial intelligence tools, save and share sessions, and modify the teaching and learning process.
Installing Sense panels in your school will also offer you an edge to make your school intelligent and different from thousands of schools in your area.
Want to know about the Senses Panel in detail? Schedule a personalised demo!
Tip 2: Go through Legal Process
Read and understand every document carefully. Follow all the legal procedures while finalising the location, recruiting staff, marketing the school, or making policies for discipline. If someone has invested in your school, make the legal documents for the stake, sign contracts, document every expense, keep all the bills and follow the legal guidelines. You can hire a legal advisor to support you in the entire process. Here are some of the permission required to open school:
- Formation of Society / Trust / Section 8 company
- Bank Account in the name of Society / Trust / Section 8 company
- A lease Document that states the land is being leased to the school or a Sale Deed if the school has bought it or otherwise. The lease deed should be in the school’s name, and the Duration of the Lease should be 30 years.
- Change of Land Use (Diversion) (CLU) document of the land on which the school is building is going to get built
- Approved Map by the concerned authority
- State Board Affiliation
- EPF & ESIC Permission and Registration
- CBSE Affiliation
- No Objection Certificate from the State Government
- Affidavit of Non-Proprietary Character of Society
- Fire Safety Certificate
- Health and Sanitation Certificate
- Building Safety Certificate
- Police Verification Report – All School Staff, including Class IV Staff
- Safety Audit Report from Local Police Department
Tip 3: Stay Motivated
A new beginning requires lots of motivation, from raising funds to finding a perfect location and recruiting exceptional staff to increase admission; everything more or less can be challenging. The best thing you can do is stay motivated, calm and determined throughout the process.
Wrap Up
To start school, making a roadmap is essential. You can follow the step-by-step guide, meet the experts, form a body, and calculate the market risk and success rate. You can also ideate what will make your school unique and position it in the market. Senses Electronics, one of the leading manufacturers and suppliers of intelligent interactive panels, assists you in making your school intelligent with its feature-enriched panel, equipped with a camera, voice recognition system, NFC authentication, share & save feature, text and shape recognition, subject wise teaching resources, internet connectivity and more.
FAQs Related to Opening a School
- What Permissions are Required to Start a School?
To start a school permission required to open a school are:
- Formation of Society / Trust / Section 8 company
- Bank Account in the name of Society / Trust / Section 8 company
- Lease document stating the land is being leased to the school or Sale Deed if the school has bought it or otherwise. The lease deed should be in the school’s name, and the lease’s Duration should be 30 years.
- Change of Land Use (Diversion) (CLU) document of the land on which the school is building is going to get built
- Approved Map by the concerned authority
- State Board Affiliation
- EPF & ESIC Permission and Registration
- CBSE Affiliation
- No Objection Certificate from the State Government
- Affidavit of Non-Proprietary Character of Society
- Fire Safety Certificate
- Health and Sanitation Certificate
- Building Safety Certificate
- Police Verification Report – All School Staff, including Class IV Staff
- Safety Audit Report from Local Police Department
- Who can open a school in India?
Only a trust, society, or Section 8 company in India can open a school.
- How much money is required to start school?
The amount of money required to open a school depends on the school’s location, its type (preschool, primary, or secondary school), compliance, regulations, curriculum, staffing, etc.
