Education Marketing

 Somewhere around the age of 16 I had a furious row with my physics teacher, in which I suggested his interpretation of physics was so far removed from real science that it was little short of a lie.  The trouble was I had started to recognise the very basics of quantum mechanics – at least enough to know that Heisenberg had by and large destroyed reality.

Time has not been kind on physics – take an A level course and the first thing you are told is that everything you learned at GCSE was wrong – not just a simplification, but actually wrong.  Take a degree in physics, and you’ll probably be told the same about A level.  Try to come to terms with Entanglement (probably the greatest issue in physics today) and you enter not so much a parallel universe but a universe travelling in the opposite direction.

I have no idea how this issue can be dealt with, and sadly there is nothing in the government’s latest statement on science that suggests they even know there is an issue.   But nevertheless it has not stopped the Schools Minister from outlining a £140 million strategy to educate the next generation of scientists and mathematicians and help recruit and train more science and maths teachers without any recognition of the fact that in recent months New Scientist has run major articles on the fact that time either does not exist or else it runs backwards.

So, the Government wants the very best teachers to increase the number of young people opting for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects and following a related career which will help the UK compete in the global economy.

And it also wants to ensure that lessons are lively for budding scientists, with more “flash bang” excitement to bring these fascinating subjects to life while maintaining academic rigour.

The £140 million package over the next three years is more than double the amount spent between 2005 and 2008.  It includes…

• £31 million for recruitment and retention including £11.4 million so that teachers can retrain to become maths, physics and chemistry specialists – every teacher who retrains will receive a financial incentive of £5,000;

• £50 million for continuing professional development including:

£18 million to fund the regional science learning centres plus continued funding for the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics;

£4.5 million for schools to encourage them to release teachers for professional development at our science learning centres;

• £34 million to help boost the number of young people studying science STEM subjects post-16 including up to £9 million so that more pupils can take the three GCSEs in physics, chemistry and biology;

• £9 million to improve pupils’ learning experience through enhancement and enrichment activities including doubling the number of science and engineering clubs in schools from 250 to 500.

Work on improving teacher training includes:

• A special partnership (called Transition to Teaching) between employers and the Training and Development Agency for Schools to attract more scientists and mathematicians into teaching. The programme will be formally launched in the spring and will begin training new teachers from the autumn;

• Continuing to pay the teacher training bursary for maths and science (£9,000) and the golden hello (£5,000); giving additional £1,000 payments to ITT providers for each physics or chemistry trainee teacher they recruit; offering additional courses to enhance physics, chemistry and maths subject skills for those entering teaching who do not have a recent degree in the subject; expanding the student associate scheme to give science and maths undergraduates a taste of teaching with a view to encouraging them to pursue teaching as their career.

The PISA study on the attitudes of 15 year olds to science found:

• 75 per cent agreed that they study science because they know it is useful for them;

• 71 per cent agreed that making an effort in science subjects is worth it because this will help them in the work they want to do later on;

• 71 per cent agreed that studying science subjects is worthwhile for them because what they learn will improve their career prospects;

• 54 per cent agreed that what they learn in their science subjects is important for them because they need this for what they want to study later on.

The report also found that although English teenagers say that studying science is useful for their futures, fewer say that they want to work in science-related careers or to study science. Although students agree that science is useful and beneficial, most do not wish to be involved with it in their future lives.

• 34 per cent agreed that they would like to work in a career involving science;

• 33 per cent agreed that they would like to study science after secondary school.

There’s more each day on the Education Blogs at www.blog.educationmarketing.org.uk and the direct marketing blog at www.blog.hamilton-house.com

Tony Attwood – phone 01536 399 000

Hamilton House Mailings plc reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB.  Phone 01536 399 000.

In terms of selling direct to teachers there are three main options: solo mail, shared mail and email.   So which one is best.

In my experience a fair number of companies make a choice on emotional and cost grounds.  As in the firms that don’t use shared mailings because “we would never want our products to be advertised alongside items from other companies”, and the companies that go for email rather than shared on the grounds that email is cheaper.

A much more reasoned way of working out whether to use solo, shared or email is to look at the return on investment – how much profit you make for each £1 you spend on advertising.  But this is a complex issue, and I know from experience that discussing ROI is one of the easiest ways to lose an audience.  So I am going to try another approach with a set of basic rules which although not complete are, to my mind, better than the emotional response  

Solo mailing is ideal for testing – it gets the highest response rates so the number you have to mail is often small.   Doing a trial mailing to 400 schools in this way will cost you around £150 or so – and that shouldn’t break the bank.   All you need to work out is how many sales you need to recover your £150 and make a bit of a profit.  If the answer is less than 3% its worth a try – over 3% and it is maybe possible, but getting harder to achieve.  (I am talking here of response rates from a list of schools that include many or all who are not established as your regular customers.  Mailing customers should result in higher response rates). 

So you mail the trial mailing, it gets the percentage you need, and then you quickly do all the other schools on your list, certain in the knowledge that you will make the profit you want.

Shared mailing is ideal for getting people interested, and regular reminders about products.  Most firms selling products up to £50 in value tend to find they get fewer sales with shared mailings, but they earn more for each £1 spent.  This is a reflection of shared mail’s pricing structure – you can send a leaflet out for anything between 5p and 10p per school (depending on weight etc) – which is about a quarter of the cost of solo.    Selling books and reports I found the best way to use shared was with a one colour two side leaflet with up to six books advertised, and a simple order form at the end.

It is no longer a fact that shared mailings cannot be used for heavier items – price changes in recent years have meant that items up to 100g or even heavier can be worth putting in a shared mailing.

Finally email.  Here the matter has got very complex by the fact that there are a number of different approaches to email.   For this comparison I am just going to take “generic email” – email that goes to the school’s main email address which is usually “admin@” or “info@” or “office@”.   Such emails go to the school administrator who then passes it on – often by printing the leaflet out (since many schools still don’t have email addresses for each member of staff).   The price of email addresses can be anything from 1p to 10p each, and generally speaking you get what you pay for.   Only a handful of companies guarantee the delivery of their school email addresses – and non-delivery on non-guaranteed lists and lists culled from CDs can be fairly useless.

Emails are ideal for a promotion in which your main interest is in taking senior managers (the head, deputy and the like) to your web site via a live link, or getting them to send in an email requesting information.   It is possible to get sales of up to 1% for products (we tested on products costing around £20) where the teacher has the choice of ordering on line, by fax, by phone, by post and by download.  Email is much harder to make a profit from when trying to sell without the web site, and when selling to a head of department (eg the head of maths).

There’s more information on www.educationmarketing.org.uk – or you can call me on 01536 399 000

Tony Attwood

The government has announced compulsory “practical cookery” lessons for teenagers in England as part of its anti-obesity campaign.   Each teenager should get around 12 lessons at some time in their secondary school life – they could be as a once a week one term course, or it could be several intensive periods, or spread out over time.The schools secretary is asking the public to come up with ideas for the classic English dishes and international cuisine that children should learn to cook.

From September, all KS3 schools that currently offering food technology classes will teach practical cookery.  The remaining schools (about 15%) will  teach the compulsory classes by 2011.   No indication has come as to how the new project is to be fixed into the curriculum.

The emphasis will be on making sure pupils can master simple, healthy recipes using fresh ingredients.  The parents will have to pay for the ingredients. 

Cookery is already compulsory in primary schools and the government began an overhaul of school dinners three years ago after Jamie Oliver campaigned against the poor quality of school dinners.

The Schools Procurement Site (www.top5.org.uk) is very light on supplies to do with cooking – if you would like to be listed you’ll find a suppliers information section on the menus on the left.

Tony Attwood

Read about selling into education on www.educationmarketing.org.uk

Advertise your products on the School Procurement Site www.top5.org.uk

These notes on schooling and education are written by Tony Attwood and are provided by Hamilton House Mailings plc – www.hamilton-house.com   To receive regular updates on what is happening in schools, and in terms of selling into schools, you can subscribe free of charge to the daily Education Marketing news service: education-marketing-subscribe@yahoogroups.com  

The government has says it suspects some councils and schools may be flouting the new tougher, mandatory School Admissions Code which came into force one year ago.  New policies have to be finalised by April 15. The Code rules out subjective arrangements, which penalise low-income families, or vulnerable children, with disabilities, special educational needs or in care. 

The independent Office of the School Adjudicator, which regulates the admission system, has investigated objections against 79 schools in the last year, where their admission criteria and practices have breached legislation or the Code.  

Complaints investigated include:

• children in care are not given highest priority as required by law;

• unfair or unnecessary supplementary information forms asking for personal details about parents such as asking for copies of birth or marriage certificates;

• unclear and confusing admission arrangements, when the law requires them to be fair, objective and clear;

• the use of subjective tests and criteria such as asking parents to give their reasons for applying for a particular school and then making a subjective judgement about whether those reasons are better or worse than those given by other parents; and

• schools retaining first preference first policies, asking about the order that parents have ranked their choices of schools or where parents or children have been asked to attend an interview. 

 The Government It will publish new guides for parents in the spring to help them understand the system and how they can complain if they find admissions that they think may be unlawful. The Code balances the right of parents to have a fair hearing and the right of schools to be protected against admitting more pupils than originally planned, if that will have a detrimental effect on children’s education.

From today, by law all admission authorities, governing bodies, admission forums, schools adjudicators and appeals panels now have to adhere to the Code – previously they only had to have ‘regard’ to it.

The Code sets out that:

• anyone who has a connection with the school or who could in any way be perceived as being partial must not sit on an appeal panel or act as clerk;

• appeal panel members and clerks must now receive suitable training before they hear appeals – including on the statutory admission code and related law, including the Sex Discrimination Act, Disability Discrimination Act and Race Relations Act.

• specific timescales within which an appeal must be held;

• all parents must have appropriate guidance and information from admission authorities, to help prepare their case for appeal;

• all appeal panels must have regard to the impact of additional admissions on the quality of education and use of resource in schools; and

• local authorities and diocesan bodies should consider centralising the recruiting and training of panel members and Clerks, and take responsibility for administering the appeals process – leading to greater independence and consistency in administration, clerking and decision-making.

School Admission Appeals Code is available at: www.dcsf.gov.uk/sacode  

There’s a lot more information and a link to every school in the UK on www.schools.co.uk   If you are looking to sell products or services to schools you’ll find a lot more information on www.educationmarketing.org.uk

The strongest schools and colleges in the country are being urged by the government to export their formula for success and collaborate with weaker schools to bring standards up to the levels of the best.

Schools Minister Andrew Adonis has launched a prospectus explaining how high performing schools, sixth-form and FE colleges can do even more for their communities by getting involved in academies and trusts.

The Government is providing up to £300,000 set-up funding for high achieving schools that sponsor less successful schools to become academies to help raise their standards.

The government suggests that some weaker schools have made huge leaps in results thanks to federations with stronger schools and today’s announcement takes forward Children, Schools and Families Secretary Ed Balls pledge in July that successful universities, colleges or schools would be exempt from paying £2 million to sponsor an academy.

The argument is that good schools can support struggling ones by becoming part of an academy federation, enabling them, supported by state capital and funding, to share quality teaching and learning and their good leadership and ethos. 

Adonis’ line is that, “Good schools will be able to spread educational excellence to more children in their local communities. In return partnership with an academy or within a trust offers reciprocal benefits such as staff development, sharing of expertise and best practice and expanded learning opportunities for students.

Examples of good schools which have become involved in weaker ones through trusts, academies and federations include: Thomas Telford School; Greensward College, The Bramston School and The Rickstones School in Essex; The Priory Federation of Academies in Lincoln; the Ridings High School and King Edmund Community School in South Gloucestershire; the Haberdasher Academy Federations; and Chester-le-Street Learning Community Trust in Durham.

34 schools have become trust Schools and 307 schools are working towards trust status, of which 218 are working in partnership with other schools to acquire a trust, enabling schools to develop formal collaborative arrangements.

Latest figures show about 30 FE and sixth form colleges have already expressed an interest in the trust schools programme and seven are confirmed trust school partners.

For schools the message is obvious.  For business there is an opportunity too, because one of the biggest issues will be the question of how information is shared, and how communication between schools is improved.

The prospectus “Academies and Trusts: Opportunities for schools, sixth-form and FE colleges” is attached

You can read more about Education Marketing at www.educationmarketing.org.uk  

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Tony Attwood

 All parents will get regular electronic reports on their children’s progress in future – going far beyond the traditional annual school report, Schools Minister Jim Knight announced this week.

All secondary schools in England will be expected to have ‘real-time’ reporting systems up and running by 2010 and all primary schools two years later – although many schools already run these systems.

Real-time reporting means parents will be able to access frequently updated information on children’s achievement, progress, attendance, behaviour and special needs wherever, whenever they want – using secure, online systems.

Other systems could include text alert systems, school intranet, email or even video-conferencing.

A £600,000 pilot is being run by Becta the government-industry body specifically looking at lowering the cost of devices and connectivity and informing parents about the educational benefits of a home computer.

The Government has invested £5billion in schools ICT since 1997, with another £837million earmarked over the next three years – leaving it with the highest levels of embedded technology in classrooms in European Union and one computer for every three pupils.

Here’s the full detail

a 12-week public consultation on the best way to achieve universal home access – focusing on key issues such as who should pay for access and how do to ensure that children use the internet in a safe and purposeful manner.

a £600,000 Becta pilot scheme to test different ways ensuring all families have access to a computer at home in 50 schools across Birmingham, Worcestershire, Stockton and Brent – working with partners Dell, Intel, RM and PC World to reduce the cost of devices and broadband connection – and stress the educational benefits of home access to parents and teachers. This includes subsidising the cost of acquiring home technology for a whole year group – with direct funding for schools and parental contributions.

an additional £30million for low income families from the most disadvantaged areas gain access to internet and computer technology at home – funding from within the Department’s current budget which is being diverted to this particular programme. The Government has already invested £60million in the two-year Computers for Pupils scheme, which target 1000 schools in England’s most deprived areas.

a high-level study, called Beyond Current Horizons, working with the best thinkers in education and involving a focussed consultation with the industry, parents, learners and the community, to access the long-term social, economic and cultural impact of technology on children’s lives, their education and beyond between 2008 and 2025.

Tony Attwood