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Forms Best Practice Guide

Learn how to best structure your forms and the important information to provide as part of your form messaging.

Georgie O'Neale avatar
Written by Georgie O'Neale
Updated over 2 years ago

Enrolment Forms

Enrolment forms can include a lot of information, so it’s important to keep the instructions, fields, and structure consistent and in line with best practices.

Welcome page text

This should be an extension of your school website, with a well-branded experience that clearly informs the form user what they're applying for.

Key inclusions:

  • School Name

  • Form Name

  • Brief welcome message

  • Form Fee (if applicable)

  • School Contact Information - this will be shown on all pages of the form

  • Phone Number

  • Email Address

‘Before you start’ text

Provide context by informing the form user exactly what they need to provide in order to successfully complete the form.

  • List all documents the form user needs to have ready

  • Include any policies they should be aware of

There's also a space for 'More information' to be added to the front page. If there's nothing further you need to provide on your form's welcome page, leave this area blank, and this section won't appear on your form.

Form fields and structure

The form structure should guide the form user through a clear chronological sequence. Remember, they can leave the form at any stage, so it’s important to capture their basic details during the early stages if you want to be able to contact them.

If you have multiple enrolment forms as part of your process, our suggested order below can be split into different forms to support your process.

*Note: the list of fields below is a general guide, and may not be applicable to your school.

Student Details

  • First Name

  • Last Name

  • Date of Birth

  • Gender

  • Proposed Entry Year

  • Proposed Year Level

  • Feeder School

  • Country of birth

  • Indigenous status

  • Religion

  • Citizenship

  • Primary language spoken at home

  • Student status (boarding/day student)

  • School connection (existing family, parent is staff member)

Parent/guardian details

  • Title

  • First Name

  • Last Name

  • Email

  • Any DVO or court orders restricting sharing of information with this guardian

  • Relationship type

  • Occupation

  • Occupation Group

  • School education

  • Qualification level

  • Residential Address

  • Phone Number Collection of fields with:

    • Phone Label

    • Phone Number

Student Profile

  • Interests

  • Supporting application information

  • Additional Learning Needs

  • Medical details

  • Emergency contact information

  • Enquiry Sources/How did you hear about us?

Documentation

  • Birth certificate

  • Immunisation

  • School reports

  • Naplan

  • Visa Documents

  • Passport

  • Behavioural Reports

Terms and Conditions

  • Detail terms and conditions with checkboxes

  • Link to policies

  • Signatures

Review

Payment

Form completion message

This message will display as soon as the form has been successfully completed. It should advise the form user that their submission was successful and has been received by your school. The message should also highlight the next steps. For example, that they’ll receive an email with the PDF version of their form and payment confirmation, and the school will review the application and be in touch via email. You can edit and preview this message at any time in the form editor.

'This form is unavailable' message

If your enrolment forms become unavailable, a message will be displayed in place of the form. You should use this opportunity to explain why the form is unavailable. For example, “we aren't currently taking enrolments at this time,” or "system error". If you know when the form will be available again, your 'unavailable' message should also include these details.

Event forms

It’s best to keep event forms simple, with the relevant information that's required listed for that specific event type. Number of registrations for these form submissions will be calculated based on the event attendance status field (marked as either yes or no), and the registrant details for the selected event will be added too.

Event Form fields

Event selection

Parent/Guardian

  • First Name

  • Last Name

  • Email address

  • Event attendance status

Child Details

  • First Name

  • Last Name

  • Proposed Entry Year

  • Proposed Year Level

  • Event attendance status

Other Guest details

  • Number field or Additional Guest names

No available events message

If there are no upcoming events, or the current events are full, your 'no available events' message should clearly communicate this to the form user.

Explain the situation to the user, and let them know if they should return to the form at a later time, or if they should take another action. You can edit and preview this message at any time in the form editor.

Default Forms

Lead generation forms are great ways to capture prospective families in the early stages of their enrolment journey. These forms can include:

  • Enquiry Forms

  • Request Information Pack Forms

  • School Prospectus Forms

At this point, the commitment and involvement from families should be low. There should also be next to no (if any) roadblocks for them receiving the information they're looking for. With that in mind, it's best practice to keep these forms basic, capturing only the information you need in order to provide them with direct answers to their requests or questions.

Default Form fields

Parent/Guardian

  • First Name

  • Last Name

  • Email address

Child Details

  • First Name

  • Last Name

  • Proposed Entry Year

  • Proposed Year Level

  • Request information pack/prospectus via email or mail

Best practice tips for overall Form Conversion

  • Multi-page enrolment forms should display up to 10 questions per page, depending on the size of the fields

  • Organise the questions on a page logically and group fields about the same topic together, for instance, “Medical information” or “Child’s interests”

  • Start with the easy questions to gain trust from the prospective family and get some investment, then ask any sensitive questions at the end to avoid drop-off early on in the form and increase conversion

  • Only make fields mandatory that you need

  • Only ask what you need to keep the form short and increase conversion

  • Add help text if you notice a question is misunderstood by prospective families. Keep the help text as short as possible

  • Avoid using tooltips unless you need a lot of room to explain the question. If you use tooltips, avoid scrolling within them.

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