Choosing a school is one of the biggest decisions a family makes, and more and more of it happens on a screen. Many families moving country choose a school before they have set foot in it. Local families compare five or six schools from their phones before booking a single visit. Every school site says it is holistic, caring and excellent. What separates the strong ones is that they answer the questions parents actually ask: what will this cost us, how do we apply, what will our child's day look like, and how do the students do?
Below are the seven habits we saw on the strongest sites, each with real examples you can visit. Every example was checked on 13 October 2026. Fees, dates and results change every year, so some details may have moved since.
Habit
Publish the fees in full, with the year
Cost is the first filter for most families. The best sites list tuition for every year group on the page, in plain text, along with the one-off charges: application fee, deposit, levy, boarding, bus. They also say which academic year the figures are for. A fee schedule hidden in a PDF, or behind "contact admissions", makes a school look evasive, and many parents simply move on to the next one.
- International School of Kenya Nairobi, Kenya
Under "Tuition Fees: 2026-2027", annual tuition for every grade band from Pre-K to Grades 11-12, plus the application fee, the one-time capital levy, the annual levy and bus fees with sibling reductions.
- Peponi School Ruiru, Kenya
Termly fees for full boarding, weekly boarding and day pupils, "in effect from September 2026", with the registration fee, acceptance fee, caution deposit and sibling discounts, all on the admissions page.
- Tanglin Trust School Singapore
A "FEES SCHEDULE 2026/27" table with termly and annual tuition for each phase, Nursery to Sixth Form, plus the application fee, enrolment fee and capital levy, and when each is due.
- St. Andrew's School Bloemfontein Bloemfontein, South Africa
Monthly and annual tuition by grade band, the boarding fee per term, the early-payment discount and its deadline, and even the price of a single meal for day pupils.
Habit
Write the admissions process out, step by step
Families applying from abroad are often working to a deadline and a relocation date. They need to know what happens next and what each stage costs. A numbered process (application, assessment, interview, offer, deposit) answers the anxious emails before they are sent, and fewer applications stall halfway.
- Brookhouse School Nairobi, Kenya
Six named stages, from application and a taster day through interviews to the offer letter, registration and admission, with the registration fee of "KSh 45,000 per child" stated on the page.
- International School of Kenya Nairobi, Kenya
The documents to upload, the assessments used in each division, how applications are reviewed "on a rolling basis", and how the deposit secures a place.
- Hilton College KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
A dated timeline for 2028 entry, from the assessment in January 2027 to priority and general offers, a warning that the process takes about 18 months, and the entrance fee due on acceptance.
- Peponi School Ruiru, Kenya
Four plain steps (enquiry, visit, application, offer), the Registrar to contact, and how a place is confirmed.
Habit
Show a real day, with the times
Parents picture their child's actual day: when to leave home, when lunch is, when to collect them, what happens after lessons. A timetable answers what words like "holistic" never can, and it's one of the easiest pages to build.
- Swiss International Scientific School Dubai, UAE
Separate timetables for Early Years, Primary and Secondary, from the doors opening at 7:30 to lunch and pick-up, with a shorter Friday timetable for each.
- British International School Budapest Budapest, Hungary
Registration, lesson and lunch times for each phase, and plain answers such as Early Years children being "collected at 3:15 pm".
- British International School of Charlotte Charlotte, USA
A short outline of the day, from "School starts at 8:45 am" to "After-school clubs until 4:30 pm", and paid care until 6:00 pm for working parents.
Habit
Let families walk the campus online
A family in another country can't drop in. A labelled 360-degree tour or campus map lets them see the classrooms, labs, pitches and boarding houses for themselves. It also means the eventual visit is spent on questions, not on finding the library.
- International School of Kenya Nairobi, Kenya
A 360-degree tour of named spaces, from a Grade 5 classroom and a biology lab to the swimming pool and the track, linked from the admissions pages.
- International School of Beijing Beijing, China
A virtual tour and campus map whose legend names every building, from admissions to "Gym 3 with Climbing Wall" and the roof-top garden.
- One World International School Singapore
A dedicated 360-degree tour page for the campus, with an in-person visit offered alongside it.
Habit
Publish results openly, with the year
Results are the hardest evidence a school has, and parents compare them. A dated table, ideally over several years and set against a benchmark, reads as confidence. "Excellent results" with no numbers reads as the opposite.
- St Andrew's School, Turi Molo, Kenya
Three years of A level, AS and IGCSE grade bands side by side (2024, 2025 and 2026), so parents can see the trend as well as the latest year.
- Brookhouse School Nairobi, Kenya
Headline 2026 A level and IGCSE grade figures, stated on the page rather than in a report to download.
- Stamford American School Hong Kong
The class of 2026's IB average, "34.09 points", set against "the 2026 global average of 30.88", with the universities that made offers.
- Cheltenham Ladies' College Cheltenham, UK
The 2026 IB average point score against the global average, and named destination universities in the UK and abroad.
Habit
Answer the practical questions of a family moving country
A relocating family's real worries are logistics. How does our child get to school? Who meets them at the airport? What do they eat? Where do we stay when we visit? Schools that answer these on the page show they understand the families they are asking to trust them.
- Peponi School Ruiru, Kenya
Full boarding, weekly boarding and day options side by side, the escorted airport transfer each term, and the bus times: "The daily bus arrives at School at 7.30am and departs at 4.15pm."
- St Andrew's School, Turi Molo, Kenya
For visiting parents: camping on campus on visiting weekends, nearby hotels and lodges with distances, the school airstrip and buses to Nairobi and Kampala.
- International School of Kenya Nairobi, Kenya
How the bus service works, with a bus monitor on every route and alerts about delays, how lunch is paid for, and "All meals are halal and nut-free."
- International School of Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Bus fees by neighbourhood, departure and journey times for each division, and "All morning buses are scheduled to arrive no later than 7:50 am."
Habit
Make visiting easy, with dates
A visit is still where most families decide. An open day with a date and a time, or a booking button for each campus, turns interest into a visit in the diary. Online open days and consultations reach the families who are still abroad.
- Peponi School Ruiru, Kenya
The next open day with its date and hours, "Friday 23rd October 2026 - 8:30 am - 11:30 am", plus separate dated open mornings for the prep school and kindergarten.
- Brookhouse School Nairobi, Kenya
Personalised tours with a separate booking button and phone number for each of its two campuses.
- Hilton College KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Dated welcome days, a weekend of classes and campouts, and a tailored family tour that can include a night in a boarding house.
- Australian International School Singapore
An online open house with its date, alongside booking for an in-person tour or an online admissions consultation for families abroad.
Common mistakes
The mistakes we saw most often
These came up again and again on the sites that didn't make the list. We've kept them anonymous: the point is to check your own site, not anyone else's.
- Fees only in a downloadable PDF, so a parent has to open a file just to learn whether the school is affordable.
- A fee table that never says which academic year it covers.
- A results page that is only a list of PDF reports, with no figures on the page.
- A transport page that describes the bus service, then asks parents to contact the school for the routes.
- An "Upcoming open days" section with no dates in it.
- Menu links that open news items from years ago, which tells a parent the site is not looked after.
- Links to fees or new-family pages that return an error, or sit behind a password.
- School hours that differ between two places on the same page.
The numbers
Why it matters: the numbers
of parents choosing an independent school visited school websites, and 40% ranked websites and social media among their three most influential sources. Family and friends (69%) and visits or open days (58%) ranked higher still. Source: Independent Schools Queensland, What Parents Want 2025 (3,308 parents, Australia)
international schools worldwide, teaching 7.7 million students, with Africa home to 12% of them. Growth is now driven mainly by local families, not expatriates. Source: ICEF Monitor, reporting ISC Research, February 2026
international schools in Kenya, so a family choosing one has plenty of alternatives to compare online. Source: Tes Magazine, reporting ISC Research, September 2025
The parent survey is Australian: we found no published Kenyan or East African survey of how parents choose schools or use school websites. Counts of Kenya's international schools also vary with the definition used; the figure above is ISC Research's. The pattern is the same everywhere: almost every parent checks the website, and the website's job is to earn the visit.
Your own site
A 10-point check for your school site
- Tuition for every year group on the page, in plain text, with the academic year.
- Every one-off charge listed: application, deposit, levy, boarding, bus.
- The admissions process in numbered steps, with what each stage costs.
- Deadlines and term dates for the coming year.
- A school day with times, for each age group.
- A labelled campus tour or map that works on a phone.
- Results with the year, ideally over several years and against a benchmark.
- Transport, meals and boarding answered on the page, not by email.
- The next open day, with a date, and a way to book a visit.
- No link on the site leads to an old news item, an error or a password page.
Try it live
Want to see these habits in one site?
We built Nuru, a concept international school site. Parents turn a 3D model of the campus, pick an age group and follow a whole school day stop by stop, then see the full cost of a year, extras included, before they book a visit. Try it, then tell us about your school.