Admissions Officer (Visitor Experience)

Responsible to: Registrar

Salary: Competitive

Contract Type: Full time, Permanent

Hours of Work: Monday to Friday 8.30am - 5.00pm, 37.5 hours per week.

Job Purpose

The Admissions Officer (Visitor Experience) is a recruitment and conversion specialist responsible for attracting, engaging, and converting high-quality applicants across the school’s entry points, including both day pupils and full boarders. Responsibility will be allocated for a specific age group; Kindergarten to Year 9 or Year 10 to Postgraduate with post holders required to flex between these if required. The post holder owns the visitor experience both online and on campus, the scholarship and bursary process, the relevant feeder school and international agent relationship network, and the key assessment touchpoints that define a family’s first impression of the school for the specific year groups. They are also the primary relationship manager for families seeking a premium school placement. The ultimate measure of success in this role is conversion. Prospective families who engage with the school should leave with no reason to look elsewhere.

General Responsibilities

This is a high-energy, relationship-focused role that combines warm, emotionally intelligent family engagement with rigorous pipeline management. It demands exceptional interpersonal skills, a confident and knowledgeable pitch for the relevant academic programmes, and the commercial focus to manage a diverse pipeline of domestic and international families through to confirmed enrolment. Customer service is at the heart of this role. Every family, regardless of entry point or country of origin, should receive an impeccable admissions journey from first contact to first day.

The post holder works in close collaboration with the Admissions Officer (Data & Compliance), who handles international compliance and agent management, and the Admissions Coordinator, who manages logistics and scheduling. This structure allows the Visitor Experience Officer to concentrate entirely on high-impact family engagement, conversion activity, and senior market relationship-building. The role involves regular domestic and international travel during key recruitment seasons.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategy Contribute to the development of the year groups’ recruitment strategy by providing market intelligence on competitor positioning, demand trends, and opportunities to grow the relevant boarding, day, and international entry pipelines.
• Work collaboratively with the Admissions Officer (Data & Compliance) to develop and refine metrics for predicting year-group fill rates and measuring conversion success from key feeder schools and agent partners over time.
• Stay informed of developments in the independent school and IB sector for the relevant year group, including competitor programme developments, scholarship positioning, and boarding market trends, and actively use time spent at fairs, agent meetings, and school visits to gather first-hand market intelligence, feeding relevant insights back to the Admissions Manager promptly.

Leadership and Management

• Recruit, train, and manage Pupil Ambassadors and Staff Tour Guides for senior-age visits, ensuring each individual is well-prepared to deliver an authentic, confident, and persuasive representation of life in the senior school.
• Lead the transition and 'Welcome' process for new families, coordinating with House staff, relevant Programme Coordinator, and academic leads to ensure a seamless handover from the admissions process into school life.

Academic and Pastoral Provision

• Develop a confident working knowledge of the school’s relevant academic pathways, including the PYP, MYP, IB Diploma, IB Career-related Programmes, GCSE/IGCSE, and Postgraduate programme, enabling informed, compelling conversations with students and parents about transition between parts of the school, subject choices, university progression, and the demands and rewards of senior school life as required.
• Be genuinely fluent in the educational proposition of the school, its curriculum, pedagogy, and pastoral approach, and able to speak about it with depth and conviction in both one-to-one and group settings.
• Champion a whole-school approach to conversion, actively engaging teaching staff, HsMs, relevant Programme Coordinators, and academic leads in the admissions journey, ensuring that prospective senior pupils and their families experience the breadth, ambition, and community of the school during every visit, not just the admissions function.

Child Protection

• Exercise high levels of emotional intelligence and discretion when liaising with academic and pastoral staff regarding prospective senior pupils, ensuring sensitive information shared by families is handled carefully and shared only with authorised colleagues.
• Maintain full compliance with the school’s Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy throughout all family-facing activities.

Marketing and Recruitment

• Manage the end-to-end recruitment journey for all applicants, including domestic and international boarders and day pupils, ensuring a high-touch, personalised experience that drives conversion at every stage.
• Design and deliver the gold-standard on-campus visitor experience for applicants and their families, including bespoke campus tours, webinars, information evenings, open days, and taster days, ensuring every touchpoint reflects a premium brand and leaves a lasting positive impression.
• Build and maintain strong working relationships with feeder schools at the appropriate level, both domestically and internationally, growing the top-of-funnel enquiry pipeline and reinforcing the school’s reputation as the natural next step for ambitious pupils.
• Maintain a comprehensive feeder school and agent contact database within the CRM, tracking engagement levels, visit history, and conversion rates to inform future outreach and strategic investment decisions.
• Develop and implement yield management strategies to reduce pupil withdrawal between offer and arrival, providing personalised follow-up for hesitant or undecided families, with particular attention to boarding applicants and those joining from overseas.
• Represent the school at domestic and international recruitment fairs, agent meetings, and school visits, delivering a compelling and confident narrative of the school’s IB programme, boarding offer, and Postgraduate year.
• Ensure every physical and digital touchpoint of the visitor journey reflects a premium brand experience, working closely with Marketing on collateral, web content, and social media relevant to this age group.
• Work in close partnership with Marketing to ensure that lead generation campaigns, events, and digital activity translate into meaningful family engagement and confirmed enrolments.

Data and Assessment

• Coordinate the CAT4 assessment process and other entrance examinations applicants, liaising with Academic departments to ensure efficient scheduling and the timely, sensitive communication of results to families.
• Oversee the full enrolment lifecycle from initial promotion in partnership with Marketing and application management, through to assessment coordination, taster day delivery, offer communication, enrolment confirmation, and the welcome programme, in partnership with the Admissions Manager.
• Implement visitor feedback surveys following every campus visit and open day, using insight to continually improve the visitor journey, identify conversion barriers, and provide the team with actionable improvement priorities.

Additional Responsibilities

• Undertake domestic and international recruitment travel as required, planning trips efficiently to maximise pipeline outcomes.
• Participate in relevant whole-school events, information evenings, and marketing activities as required.
• Provide proactive input to the wider admissions team during peak recruitment periods, supporting colleagues across year groups and entry points where needed.

This role requires domestic and international travel during key recruitment seasons, and post holders should expect occasional weekend working in connection with open days, recruitment fairs, and school events.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Education, Training and Qualifications

• Essential: HND or equivalent level of education, or demonstrable experience in a professional customer-facing or relationship management role.
• Degree-level education or equivalent.
• Strong IT literacy including Google Workspace and CRM experience.

Desirable:

• Degree-level education or above.
• Familiarity with the IB Programmes or other academic qualifications.
• Admissions, Marketing, communications, or events management training.

Experience

• Essential: Minimum 2 years' experience in admissions, school engagement, hospitality or a client-facing commercial role.
• Demonstrable experience delivering exceptional customer or visitor experiences.
• Experience engaging confidently with young people and their parents in a professional or educational context.

Desirable:

• Experience in an independent school admissions or education marketing role.
• Experience managing scholarship or competitive entrance processes.
• Experience of international recruitment travel and agent engagement.
• Experience leading tours, open days, or similar recruitment events.

Skills

• Warm, engaging communication style with the ability to build rapport quickly with families from diverse backgrounds.
• Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage a complex pipeline of applicants.
• Ability to adapt tone and approach when speaking to a diverse range of people.

Desirable:

• Experience with HubSpot or similar CRM.
• Understanding of the CAT4 or similar standardised assessment tools.

Interpersonal skills

• Essential: High emotional intelligence and professional warmth in family-facing interactions.
• Ability to exercise discretion and confidentiality in all communications.
• Collaborative and flexible team player who works effectively across departments.
• Motivated by targets and energised by the challenge of conversion.

Desirable:

• Strong network within the senior independent or international school sector.
• Experience representing an organisation at competitive international education fairs.

THE APPLICATION PROCESS

St Leonards is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive culture, where all members of the community - colleagues, pupils and families - are seen and valued. This culture ensures that St Leonards delivers an outstanding global education in a multi-cultural living, learning and working environment. Applications should be made via St Leonards. Closing date and time for applications is Noon on Friday 19th June 2026. Interview to take place ASAP. We reserve the right to close the vacancy earlier. Any questions may be directed to in the first instance. All successful applicants will be required to undertake a Criminal Record check and either hold or be accepted for membership of the Disclosure Scotland Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme.

About St Leonards

St Leonards is a friendly and forward-looking independent, coeducational, boarding and day school situated on an historic campus at the heart of the university town of St Andrews. The school enjoys an unrivalled location - there are sandy beaches, world-class Links golf courses, and historic sites on its doorstep. St Leonards delivers the inspiring, globally-recognised International Baccalaureate curriculum (which has been praised by university admissions officers for its focus on deepening learning, offering wider subject options, and enriching minds) for pupils aged five to 18, and was the first school to be accredited as an all-through IB school in Scotland. It is one of just two schools in the UK to actively offer all four IB programmes, ensuring a seamless learner journey. The youngest pupils follow the Primary Years Programme, which goes hand-in-hand with the vibrant Outdoor Learning programme at St Leonards. This is followed by the Middle Years Programme and (I)GCSEs. In the Sixth Form, pupils choose between the Career-related Programme and the Diploma Programme. St Leonards enjoys a rich sporting heritage, and continues to boast a strong record of achievement with pupils representing the school nationally in golf, rugby, lacrosse, hockey, horse riding, and small-bore rifle shooting. The leading five-tier Golf Programme continues to go from strength to strength, the Duke of Edinburgh Award is the fastest growing of all Scottish independent schools, and an exciting calendar of trips and activities ensures pupils leave St Leonards equipped with the skills required to succeed in today’s ever-changing world.