Everything schools ask us

An AI admissions assistant that sits on your school website, answers parents from facts your team has approved, and turns those conversations into enquiries and booked visits for your admissions office.

Older website chatbots follow a decision tree: the parent picks from options you wrote in advance, and anything unexpected dead-ends. Gatehouse understands the question as asked, in the parent's own words, and answers from your approved facts. It also does something with the conversation afterwards — scoring it, recording it, and putting it in front of your team.

It answers from approved facts only. Ask it something outside them and it says it doesn't have that answer and offers to connect you with the school — then records the enquiry. It is designed to refuse rather than to guess.

English and Arabic today, including Arabic greetings and right-to-left display on your Arabic pages. If you need another language, tell us — it is a matter of preparing and checking your content in that language, not of rebuilding the product.

Yes. You choose its name, its tone, its colours and its photo, and you can tell it what it must never do — for example never discuss bursary amounts, or never compare your school to a named competitor.

Yes, in every tier. You publish the slots you are happy to offer; it books families into them and puts the booking in your diary with their details. If a parent asks to book, it books straight away rather than making them wait for a callback.

No. It opens once, unprompted, after a visitor has been reading for a while, and re-engages at most a couple of times in a conversation. It does not offer a visit to someone who is clearly still browsing — but it acts immediately when a parent asks for one.

We build your knowledge base from your prospectus and website first. Your team's part — reading and approving those facts — is about an hour. Then one line of code goes on your site.

Usually not. If you can paste a line of code into your website's settings or footer, you can install it yourself. If your site is managed by an agency, send them the line and it takes them minutes.

Yes. It is a single script that runs on any website — WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, a bespoke build, or a school-specific platform. It does not need a plugin or a rebuild.

You do, in the dashboard, and it takes seconds. Change a fee or an open-morning date and it returns to draft until someone approves it — that step is deliberate.

Remove the line of code and the assistant is gone from your site immediately. Tell us and we will stop. We would rather that than a renewal you resent.

In a managed database hosted in Ireland (EU). Full details, including our application host, are confirmed in writing during procurement. See security and privacy.

No. Platform staff see usage numbers, not family details. Seeing your families requires a login your school has granted.

As long as you choose. A scheduled clean-up permanently deletes anything older, and an individual family's record can be erased on request.

It is built for adults enquiring about a school. It will not discuss an individual application or a named pupil, and it does not make or hint at admissions decisions.

Yes — we put a data processing agreement in place before a school goes live, and we are happy to complete your security questionnaire.

One annual price per school: £6,000 a year for a day school of up to 600 pupils, £9,000 for a senior or large day school of 600 and above, £12,000 for boarding or international of any size, and per campus for groups and federations. Plus a one-off £750 to set you up. The full table is on pricing.

Not yet, and deliberately. Every school is set up by us so that the knowledge base is right before parents see it. Card checkout will come once that first step can be safely self-service.

Yes. Each school gets its own assistant and its own approved facts, with reporting across the group. That is the Group plan.

Elm Education Ltd, a UK company founded by Phil Lupton — teacher, school leader and national education adviser. See about.