School Communications: 4 Questions Asked by Every Multi-Academy Trust
Academisation has brought about increased competition between schools, who must now continually seek to improve their offering to stakeholders and distinguish themselves in the ever-changing marketplace of education.
High-quality communication is one way multi-academy trusts can demonstrate their value and make considerable gains. However, it’s an area where best practice is not something all schools are accustomed to.
At Eduprise, we work with multi-academy trusts across the UK to enhance the quality of their communications. In this blog, we’ve answered some of the most common questions asked by MATs about communications.
Why Are Communications Important for a Multi-Academy Trust?
Successful trusts are able to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences in order to achieve their long-term goals. A trust’s audience encompasses numerous demographics, from immediate stakeholders (think parents and staff) to people with less direct but no less important ties to the school, such as prospective parents, potential hires, and the wider community.
Effective communication enhances the reputation of a trust with its broad audience. On a more granular level, successfully communicating with each audience segment brings its own benefits. For example, effective internal communication builds morale among staff and contributes toward a working culture that focuses on achieving common goals. Combining this with an engaging recruitment campaign will help to establish your trust as an employer of choice for educators in the area.
External communications are what facilitate regular contact with outside stakeholders. For example, keeping parents updated on their child’s learning is essential in making them feel involved. Word of mouth is often a decisive factor when parents are choosing a school, so by keeping current parents satisfied a trust can improve admission numbers in years to come.
How Do We Maintain Good Communications as Our Trust Grows?
The key to maintaining effective communication across a number of schools is having a repeatable process and scalable infrastructure in place.
Implementing a frictionless, clear communication process ensures that everyone within a trust understands how to share good news and keep in contact with parents, stakeholders, and the local community.
With a scalable communication infrastructure designed to facilitate that process, trusts can more effectively release, manage, and monitor school communications. This infrastructure can then be put into place at every school that joins the trust with minimal downtime.
Why Should Our Trust Be On Social Media?
In our digital age, most people have at least one social media account. For a multi-academy trust, it is important to recognise that social media is an established, prominent channel of communication that they cannot afford to neglect.
Through platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, trusts are able to disseminate important information, communicate directly with stakeholders, and — most significantly— share the good news and success stories happening across their schools more widely. Being contactable through social media helps a trust to appear open and accountable, while consistent social media messaging serves to enhance the public perception of your trust.
If your trust is struggling to make an impact on social media, take a look at our blog, 3 Ways Your School Can Immediately Improve Its Social Media Presence.
How Do We Get Journalists to Publish Press Releases About Our Trust?
The first thing to consider is the newsworthiness of your story. Put simply, if your story does not appeal to a large audience, or is not relevant to the readership of a publication, it will struggle to be published. Newsworthiness can be determined by reflecting on the editorial voice and news values of the publication you are seeking publication in. Key criteria include timing, scale, proximity, prominence, and human interest. Our team consults closely with trusts on this topic; if you’d like to learn more about having your stories published, get in touch.
When you are certain your story is newsworthy, the next thing to consider is the structure and quality of your press release. It’s important that the release is written to a high standard, using clear and easy-to-follow language in the third-person perspective. Finally, you should ensure the release is well-written enough to enable publication with minimal editing required on the media outlet’s behalf.
Although it is impossible to guarantee that a press release will be used, removing as many barriers to publication as possible gives your story the best chance of being published.
Got a Question? Get in Touch
If you have a question about school communications that hasn’t been answered in this blog, or you want to find out how Eduprise can help to improve your trust’s communications, send us a message — our team will be happy to answer any queries you have.
