My friend Nils wrote an epic piece about the boiling frog. Drop a frog into boiling water and it jumps out instantly. Put it in cold water and raise the heat gradually, it won’t notice until it’s too late.

It’s not really about frogs. It’s about us.

It’s about leaders in international and independent schools, many of whom are standing ankle-deep in warming water: comfortable enough, for now, but with a nagging sense something’s changing around them.

There’s no single crisis. There’s no alarm bell. Just the slow burn of incremental shifts: new school competitors, hybrid learning models becoming mainstream, AI redefining teacher roles, and parents asking different questions than they used to.

Each trend alone feels manageable. But together, they’re bubbling the water.

We only notice the metaphorical water is boiling when we’re already in too deep.

I’ll give you one recent example.

Independent and international schools in the UK were likely to see a 20% value-added tax slapped on their fees were a Labour government to come into power in 2025. They’d been talking about it since 2017, but how likely was this?

The polls were pretty shocking in 2022, 2023 and 2024 for a Conservative government mired in scandal, controversy, and economy-crashing decisions. With each passing month it became increasingly obvious that Labour were coming to power.

It should have become obvious in 2022 that the private school business model was about to be completely broken. That gave people a maximum of three years to work out what to do. Three years as the water around them boiled.

But the fact is, between 2017 and 2022 most independent schools did little to work out a strategic approach that could soften the blow for parents were a 20% rise to come in.

And arguably, between 2022 and January 2025, when the new tax came into play, nothing much changed in their strategy either. The strategy in most cases was this: pass the cost onto parents entirely.

Since January 2025, they’ve already lost over 11,000 students as a result of the added tax. Not all of those losses are down to government decisions - they’re also down to a lack of proactive, creative, long-term strategy.

This isn’t just a story for the privileged, or for private schools. Every day, we hear the same refrain from school leaders all around the world:

“Costs are rising. We have no choice but to pass them on or cut jobs.”

Staffing costs, energy bills, tech upgrades, security, compliance: it all adds up. And it’s true, schools can’t operate on goodwill alone.

But what if we challenged the idea that price hikes are always inevitable? What if there was another way?

In 2018, the U.S. imposed sweeping import tariffs, raising costs for manufacturers and retailers overnight. Logic suggested they’d simply pass those costs to customers. But many didn’t. They held prices steady.

Why? Because they understood the long game. They saw that protecting customer loyalty, foot traffic, and trust was more important than preserving short-term margins.

Retailers leaned on four strategies:

  • They absorbed costs where they could, squeezing internal efficiencies instead of external wallets.

  • They pivoted to alternative suppliers, skirting the worst of the tariffs.

  • They used selective pricing, raising prices only where customer price sensitivity was lowest.

  • They trimmed what they offer - fewer frills, same price, but ensuring that the perception of overall value stayed intact.

What does this mean for schools, in the independent, international and cash-strapped state sectors? This is exactly the kind of challenge we’ll be working through at our new event this autumn.

Bridging The Implementation Gap is a six-week online prep series, culminating in a hands-on working day in Warsaw with leaders from NoTosh, Management Kits, and the Technology Readiness Council.

We’ll tackle the implementation gap in strategy, especially where it concerns technology and transformation.

If you’re tired of reactive planning and want sharper, more flexible strategy, you’ll want to be there.

The best strategies aren’t just smart on paper. They’re resilient in practice.

The schools that will thrive in the next 5–10 years aren’t the ones who build better boardroom strategy slides. They’re the ones who learn how to implement new ideas strategically, operationally, and in ways that work on the ground.

Bridging the Implementation Gap is co-designed by NoTosh, the strategy experts at Management Kits, and the Technology Readiness Council.

Together, we’re zeroing in on the implementation gap, that frustrating chasm between what your tech strategy says and what your team actually does.

If you’re ready to stop adjusting to change, and start leading it, this is your call.

Let’s not wait for the water to boil.