Return to school: three media creation tips
Are you ready for your students to return on March 8th? Are you desperate to return to ‘normality’? Are you looking forward to waving goodbye to zoom meetings and Microsoft Teams class lessons? Are you excited to once again hear the laughter and the hustle-and-bussle of students in your school’s corridors?
March 8th 2021 will probably be a day that we look back on in years to come, as the beginning of the end. The return to school for students and the start of the ease in restrictions that we have experienced nationally during the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve lost loved ones, we’ve lost businesses and we’ve truly looked back and realised ‘we never realised how good we had it’.
I’m sure that you have already thought about documenting the return to schools on March 8th 2021. Perhaps you haven’t. You have a busy time ahead, and it might be that you just want to get on with doing what you do best - educating and nurturing the students in your care.
But, for those that recognise it as an opportunity to engage with your community and your audience, we’ve come up with three ways to record and document this historic moment, whilst at the same time using the resulting media as an advert/piece of promotional material for your school. There is no harm whatsoever in using day’s like March 8th as a moment to take stock, to look back on where we’ve been, to mourn what and who we’ve lost, but also to celebrate how we have come together, united and how we’ve come out the other side.
Here are three media creation tips for your school, for during the return to school in March 2021.
Document testimonials.
Every school should do more testimonials in general. Do more interviews with your students. Give them a proper opportunity to tell you and the world about their experience at your school. Testimonials give you the opportunity to present the thoughts and feelings of your students. Side note: There’s no need for the footage of the students to be super-polished, with no ‘erms’ or mistakes or long pauses. Viewers don’t expect for your students to be media trained. Some ‘erms’ and embarrassed side-glances etc are endearing. Not only will this come across well in a video, and will make your audience go ‘awww’ - it will also show that your school encourages its students to engage share their thoughts, express their feelings, engage with your school and its principles, embrace technology, enjoy media, and grow and develop into young adults full of confidence and character.
Create a video time capsule.
Why not create a video time capsule? Document what happens at the school on this historic day, your interviews with pupils and staff, children once again embracing and interacting with each other, playing in the school yard, engaging in education and extra-curricular activities. You could even make reference to a current news event, hot potato, or a popular trend/meme etc. This is one of the only times that we recommend ‘time-stamping’ a piece of work, it will make the experience more enjoyable when you look back at the video in 20 years to see what has changed and what a difficult time your school went through and came out the other end.
. Produce a thank you video.
Say thank you. Do it properly. Thank your students, their parents, your staff and your community. Thank the NHS, the key-workers, the public. Encourage your audience, tell them how proud you are to be part of a community that got through the COVID-19 lockdown. It’s important to say thank you properly for their efforts and dedication. Don’t just send out a tweet saying thank you. Thank them properly, create a video with a genuine thank you and a message of encouragement. Use this opportunity to update them with what happens next, and how you plan to grow stronger and more capable than ever to look after and educate your students.
As always, we’re here to help, and if you need any guidance on how best to do the above. Give us a call today or send us a message and we’ll get back to you. Don’t forget, this series of events is unlikely to happen again in our lifetime. It is not only a character building experience that your students have gone through, but it will have also changed the character of your school too. It’s up to you how you use this opportunity, but if you can see the benefit of
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Company Ten helps schools all across the United Kingdom do digital marketing better. From video production and photography to social media management and training, and a lot of things in-between - we are specialists in helping schools use ‘digital’ to their advantage. We’re not just flogging our services either, we actually want to help! So that’s why we offer free monthly training in digital marketing - to help you and your school improve and do better. We want you to be able to utilise everything that the world of digital marketing in education has to offer.