Home
What is Ocean 3D Virtual Familiarisation?
Ocean 3D Virtual Familiarisation enables pupils, students, families and staff to explore and understand a real school, college or other education environment before they arrive.
Using interactive 360° digital tours accessible through an ordinary web browser on smartphones, tablets and computers, users can move around the environment at their own pace, look inside classrooms and facilities, understand routes and layouts, and find information relevant to their own visit.
The principle is simple: unfamiliar environments can create uncertainty and anxiety. Allowing someone to become familiar with a place beforehand can help remove some of that uncertainty and support a more confident arrival.
In education, virtual familiarisation can support school and college transition, SEND and accessibility provision, orientation, admissions and open days, while also giving prospective learners and families a much clearer understanding of the environment when making choices about where to study.
There is now independent peer-reviewed evidence supporting the principle . A 2026 study involving 359 children found that those given access to an interactive 360° virtual tour of their school before starting showed significantly lower school avoidance, greater school liking and greater cooperative participation than the control group.
The potential value for pupils with SEND has also received external recognition. Ofsted described the initiative as “commendable and thought-provoking” and recognised the potential benefits of enabling pupils, particularly those with SEND, to familiarise themselves with their school environment.
Virtual familiarisation may also form part of an organisation’s wider approach to accessibility and reasonable adjustments. Counsel’s opinion obtained by Ocean 3D concluded that, depending upon the individual circumstances, a virtual tour can amount to an auxiliary aid under the Equality Act 2010 and may be a reasonable step where it helps address substantial disadvantage.
Ocean 3D’s approach is not about replacing physical visits or human support. It is about giving people another useful way to know what to expect before they arrive.
Screenshots
Ocean 3D Virtual Familiarisation is browser-based and requires no specialist hardware, software or app download. Tours can be accessed on most modern smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops and Chromebooks, and can also be displayed on classroom screens and interactive displays. Users simply open the tour through a web link or an embedded page on the school or college website. An internet connection is required.
Set-up is managed by Ocean 3D and requires relatively little input from the school or college. We arrange a suitable time to capture the environment, normally when disruption can be kept to a minimum (e.g. school holidays or evenings). The time required depends on the size and complexity of the site, but we typically expect to capture approximately 1,000m² per day, per technician. For example, for a location of 10,000m² we would normally put a team of technicians on site. Once captured, processing, accessibility features, information points and other agreed content are added before the tour is reviewed and published. A typical tour can usually be ready for use within a few working days of scanning, depending on the size and content requirements. No software installation or app download is required for end users.
The tours are designed to be intuitive and require little or no training for end users. For commissioning organisations, Ocean 3D provides guidance on managing and using the tour effectively, including accessibility features, information points and different ways the tour can support transition, familiarisation, admissions and other appropriate uses. Additional training and ongoing advice can be provided in person or online as required.
School must create the account.
Parents and carers can access the virtual familiarisation tour directly through a web link or the school or college website, without creating an account or downloading an app. This allows families to explore the environment together before a visit, transition or open day, and return to it as often as they wish.
Ocean 3D Virtual Familiarisation Pricing
Paid SubscriptionOne-Off Fee
Pricing starts from £1,500, plus travel costs, for initial creation and is based on the size and complexity of the environment, the number of locations to be captured and the content and functionality required. This indicative 'from' price represents a small village school or nursery.
A typical project includes capture and creation of the interactive virtual familiarisation environment, agreed information points and content, accessibility features, multilingual functionality, implementation support and an initial hosting period.
Annual hosting and support charges apply after initial creation and are clearly identified in our quotation.
To make budgeting easier, once the initial deposit has been paid we can also offer 1, 3 or 5-year agreements with monthly invoicing. These agreements can lock in the agreed pricing for the contract period, giving schools and colleges greater cost certainty.
Larger schools, colleges, multi-site organisations and organisations commissioning several locations can be quoted as a package. We provide a clear quotation based on the organisation’s requirements before any commitment is made.
Optimised for a quick response
