Loop - review site for education

Loop – review site for education

LOOP is an innovative, student-driven ratings and review site for schools and colleges in England.

LOOP has been developed in partnership with a group of colleges and sixth forms. It is a social enterprise and is co-directed by a board of student-advocates, recruited from partner colleges. We worked with SHM foundation, an organisation that tackles social issues in education, health and the arts, to bring this project to life.

We were approached to re-develop their platform the Learning Review Site. Our reincarnation called Loop, allows students to rate their schools and can be used as a valuable feedback tool for schools and prospective students and their parents. It’s a Tripadvisor for schools and colleges.

LOOP has two core aims:

1) Change: helping schools and colleges to improve what they do based on students’ reviews and ratings. LOOP works collaboratively with institutions to strengthen the feedback loop, ensuring that reviews are used to drive better decision-making.

2) Choice: informing future students and parents who are making decisions about where to study. LOOP aims to become a destination site for people who are considering where to study.

For more information please visit www.loop.uk.com

We have really enjoyed and benefited from our collaboration with the House since 2013 and we are really proud of the new brand and platform they have created for us. They've also helped greatly with our search for funding and introduced us to some valuable me contacts. Thanks!
Rose Dowling, Loop

What was the problem?

The SHM foundation had a website that allowed students to review their schools and tested this over an 18 month period. However the actions for their users were complicated and unintuitive which was discouraging the users to engage with the site. Sign in was required before submitting a review which placed a large barrier to entry for users. The systems in place made it difficult for students and schools alike to reap the benefits from the platform. In addition to this it was not completed clear as to the impact the site was making.

And how did we solve it?

The House re-assessed and workshopped the fundamental processes that are at the core of the web platform, producing a fully responsive website that is simple to use and has clear intuitive processes allowing the schools and the students to effectively write, read and respond to posts as well as un up-voted commenting system. The processes encourage the user to leave reviews that will be useful to their school or college and their fellow pupils. The site also provide essential details for each institution to allow prospective students to gather all the important information they need to choose a school or college direct from the Loop platform as well as an overall rating calculated from the results taken.