Virtual tours for school open days - a guide for admissions teams

Open days are still the moment many families fall in love with a school, but the decision usually starts much earlier - online, often late in the evening, on a phone. A 360° virtual tour lets parents and pupils walk around your school at that moment, whenever it suits them.

We have photographed virtual tours for primary, secondary, independent and special schools, sixth-form colleges and universities. This guide collects what works best.

Why schools use virtual tours

• An open day that never closes. Families abroad, parents working shifts and pupils moving in mid-year can look around at any time.
• Better-prepared visits. Families who have already seen the library and the science labs arrive at the open day with sharper questions.
• A true picture. Unlike a brochure, a tour shows the actual spaces, which builds trust.
• One link for everything. The same tour works on your admissions page, in emails to prospective parents, on social media and on Google Maps.

Which spaces to include

Think about what families ask about most. A typical school tour covers:

• the main entrance and reception - the first impression;
• a typical classroom for each key stage or subject area;
• the library and learning resource centre;
• science labs, art, design and technology rooms;
• the hall, theatre or performance spaces;
• sports hall, playing fields and outdoor areas;
• the dining hall and, for sixth forms, the common room or café;
• boarding houses, if you have them.

Every panorama gets a room name in the tour - "Science Lab", "Sixth Form Café", "Chapel" - so visitors can jump straight to what matters to them. Our tour of Kingston Grammar School, for example, links the library, theatre, gallery, chapel and labs into one walk-through.

Safeguarding and timing

We photograph empty spaces, so no pupils appear in the tour. Shoots are usually booked during holidays, at weekends or after the school day, and we agree the list of rooms with you in advance. Displays with pupils' names or photographs can be taken down beforehand, or blurred afterwards.

Plan the shoot for a time when the school looks its best: grounds in summer or early autumn, freshly decorated rooms, displays up to date. A tour photographed in July is ready well before the autumn open-day season.

Where to use the tour

• Admissions and "visit us" pages - embed the tour with the code we provide.
• Emails to enquiring families - one link to the full tour.
• Google Maps - as a Google Street View trusted photographer we can publish the tour on your Google listing, where parents searching for schools nearby will find it.
• Printed prospectus - a QR code that opens the tour on a phone.
• Social media - full-size 360° panoramas can be posted on Facebook as interactive images.

Keeping it current

Schools change: a new sports centre, a refurbished library. Individual panoramas can be replaced or added later without redoing the whole tour, and the web address stays the same, so links in old emails and brochures keep working.

Want to see more? Browse our virtual tours for schools or contact us to plan a shoot for your school.