A Little Bit Often: How Small Improvements Help Schools Grow

Pete Moore · October 2026

When I was in my early twenties, my grandmother made an enormous, beautiful tapestry that was hung in a court building in South Australia. She was an amazing needleworker, and I remember looking at what she had made and asking, “How on earth did you do that?”

“I did a little bit often,” she said.

That answer has stayed with me. Something extraordinary had come from small amounts of careful work, repeated over time. I think about her and that tapestry quite often, especially when I’m working through the challenges of leading a school.

I recently joined Peter Baron on the Independent School Moonshot Podcast to talk about Oak Hill’s enrollment growth and the work behind it. Over the period we discussed, our enrollment grew from around 134 students to nearly 200. Much of our conversation kept coming back to that same idea of a little bit often.

Start by listening

When I arrived at Oak Hill in 2023, the school was going through a challenging period. It had wonderful teachers, a beautiful campus, and a community that cared deeply about it. I also kept hearing that Oak Hill had so much potential.

My first task was to understand what people meant by that.

I met with employees and trustees and held listening sessions with parents. I asked what they loved about the school and what they would change if they could. I took notes, collected feedback, and looked for patterns.

That process helped us find practical things to work on. Some needed longer planning, but others were changes we could start making quite quickly.

It also reminded me that my experience as Head of School can be very different from the experience of a parent, teacher, or student. Something that seems minor from my office might be a recurring frustration for someone else. And when we’ve been in a school for a while, some of those frustrations can become almost invisible to us.

Small things affect trust

Communication was one of the concerns we heard again and again. Families weren’t always confident that information would arrive early enough, or that things would happen when we said they would.

One example has stayed with me. Early in my time at Oak Hill, people were trying to get parents to sign field trip permission slips in the parking lot. The trip was happening, but the communication and preparation hadn’t happened the way they should have.

That might seem like a small administrative problem. From a parent’s point of view, though, it raises a bigger question. If this was missed, what else might be getting missed?

We started building a more consistent approach. We put dates on the calendar earlier, included upcoming events in our newsletters, and made sure families got the details with enough time to plan. As a leadership team, we reviewed what was coming up, who was responsible, and how it would be communicated.

None of that was glamorous, but done consistently, it helped the school feel more reliable over time.

Make the experience better

Communication was one part of a much wider effort.

Families told us they missed having a lunch program, so my colleagues looked into what was possible and helped bring one back. We worked to make school information easier to find. We also tackled the uneven look of our campus, where some buildings looked beautiful and others were showing their age. Each of these was something families noticed in their everyday experience of the school.

I learned to pay attention to those details while putting myself through college in Australia. I worked in a hotel’s banquets department, helping with weddings and conferences. The placement of the tables, the sound from the microphone, the lighting, and the timing all shaped how an event felt.

Schools are similar. What happens when a family drives onto campus? How are they greeted? Can they find the information they need? Does an event feel thoughtfully prepared?

My colleagues do a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes to create those experiences. When a family describes an event as wonderful, I think about all the small decisions that helped make it feel that way.

Capture what you learn

One of the most useful habits we’ve built is keeping clear checklists and reviewing our work afterward.

For an event, we list the tasks, who is responsible, and when each one needs to happen. Afterward, we ask what went well and what we would do differently next time. Then we update the checklist. That last step is the one that’s easy to skip. Without it, the learning stays in people’s heads, and a year later we find ourselves trying to remember what we did.

Early in my time at Oak Hill, we used this approach for our school barbecue. Colleagues noticed that we weren’t rushing out on the day to buy things we had forgotten. Better planning improved the experience for families and took stress off our employees.

The aim is to give people a better starting point each time. We keep what worked, change what didn’t, and keep improving.

Growth takes patience

When schools are worried about enrollment, it’s understandable that they look for something that will make an immediate difference. Better marketing matters, and so does explaining clearly what makes a school worth choosing. But the experience families have needs to match the story we tell.

For me, enrollment work begins with the families already in our school. Are their children known and supported? Are concerns addressed? Is school life organized in a way that builds confidence? What might stop a family from recommending us to someone else?

At Oak Hill, we saw encouraging feedback and real improvements before enrollment began growing at the pace I had hoped for. About two and a half years into the work, I found myself wondering whether it would pay off in a bigger way. Then the growth picked up.

I can’t point to one change and say it caused the result. There were many improvements, made by many people, over time.

If another school leader asked me where to begin, I would say to listen carefully, find the frustrations that keep coming up, and pick practical things to improve. Keep track of what you learn, notice the progress, and keep going.

I still think about my grandmother’s tapestry. She understood that patient, consistent work could create something beautiful. A little bit often is still some of the best advice I’ve been given.

You can watch my full conversation with Peter Baron in the video below.

Pete Moore has worked in schools for more than 25 years, as a teacher, division head, and Head of School. Read more about Pete or get in touch.