Time for the school report to evolve?

Client

Capita SIMS

Objective

Capita SIMS, a leading EdTech firm, wanted to generate awareness and leads for its home-school communication and reporting tools for primary schools.

“I can’t recommend The Influence Crowd highly enough. It's one thing to claim you know how to target schools but it's another to actually deliver on it. And to keep on doing it.”

Graham Cooper
Head of Education, Capita SIMS

Our strategy

To achieve Capita’s goals, we knew we needed to pick a topic that would be relevant to both school leaders and parents as this would increase the possibility that the national press would pick up the story.

We decided to look at whether the traditional school report was fit for modern times, as this would interest broadcast media, the education press and education influencers on social media. This angle would also lay the groundwork for promoting more innovative ways of communicating with parents so that we could generate leads for Capita.

The campaign

We conducted new research to find out what parents and teachers liked and disliked about school reports. The findings told us that the majority of parents simply wanted to know whether their child was happy at school, but many weren’t receiving this information. This created the news angle to entice the media and bloggers to cover the story.

We further enhanced the story’s appeal to the media by securing great spokespeople to support Capita, including Brain Lightman, the former general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL).

A best practice guide for schools was developed with input from headteachers, parents and the experts at Capita SIMS which was full of practical tips for primary schools. Entitled ‘Could do better: Is it time for the school report to evolve?’ this online content generated leads for Capita, as teachers and heads were asked to provide their contact details to download the guide.

An infographic was also created to engage online bloggers and influencers within the education sector to draw more people to download the report.