The client

Manchester Islamic Educational Trust (MIET) comprises of three independent schools; two secondary and one preparatory, named Kassim Darwish (KD) Grammar School for Boys, Manchester Islamic High School for Girls and Manchester Muslim Prep School. The Trust is long-established and collectively provides an empowering, faith based education with the vision of developing a new generation of proud British Muslims, underpinned by their core values of Faith, Learning and Life.

The brief

Following an extensive selection process, MIET chose Creativeworld to support them in achieving an improved brand reputation to differentiate their schools from local competitors, boost student recruitment and ensure consistent external perceptions of all the multi academy trust’s schools. Our wealth of experience developing brand strategies for schools meant we were a perfect fit for MIET’s school marketing requirements.

Our solution

Creativeworld recognised the need to begin this project from a strategic standpoint to make certain that the Trust’s Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and Board understood why a new brand direction was needed to achieve their goals. We know that clarity and active support from leaders is key to a successful education brand strategy implementation, so we worked with each of the school’s SLTs through individual discussions to make this happen.

Following this, we carried out a thorough school marketing audit including primary research via focus groups with the Board, staff, students and parents to attain feedback on current perceptions of the Trust, including the brand, core values, ethos and its future. Analysis of the research enabled us to determine the strategic direction needed and we developed a report of recommendations for presenting to the Board. This was centered around development of a school branding and marketing strategy, covering a re-brand and associated marketing elements, including digital marketing for schools solutions, as well as suggestions regarding an internal re-structure to ensure staff roles were aligned with this new strategic direction, from both an internal and external perspective.

MIET chose to implement all of our proposed recommendations, encompassing new brand development, brand guidelines and a communications toolkit, which we created with a focus upon the Trust’s core values of “Faith, Learning, Life”. Subsequently, in line with the new branding, for each school we designed, built and developed new school websites, school prospectuses (printed prospectus and digital interactive versions), school videos, internal and outdoor school signage, social media support and branding for schools, and delivered a student recruitment campaign.

As a result, MIET now has brand consistency across all three schools; they’ve since achieved over 3 times as many student applications for their previously under subscribed schools and overall, are now clearly showing their external stakeholders they are completely aligned in sharing the same values and strategic direction.

View our Education Spotlight to find out how we can help your school or multi academy trust with branding requirements, and like MIET, how you can take advantage of our range of education marketing services; from branding strategies for schools through to digital marketing for schools solutions, prospectus design, school website design, social media strategy for schools and education signage, or contact our expert education marketing team here.

The brief

Accrington Academy is committed to providing an education with character. The Lancashire based secondary academy and sixth form commissioned Creativeworld for our education marketing and advertising expertise to reflect this vision, requiring creation of a new prospectus design and support with student recruitment for an open evening event.

The academy put their trust in our long-established marketing for education knowledge to effectively communicate their student centric ethos and mission to bring out the ‘best in everyone’.

Our solution

We created a vibrant prospectus design refresh in line with the current Accrington Academy branding; portrayal of their innovative values and supportive, inclusive ethos being at the forefront of our design approach. Subsequently, we developed a new prospectus design and print run for the academy sixth form, utilising the same styling for brand consistency and introducing complementary colours to showcase their career pathway strategy, which helps students identify the best course choice for their goals and passions.

Thrilled with the prospectus design refresh, the academy additionally wanted this to run throughout their digital marketing, display materials and external signage. We produced and managed a paid social media advertising campaign on Facebook and Instagram to promote the sixth form open evening; a quick and effective method to reach the academy’s specific target audience.

Complementing the digital marketing activity, we delivered the design and production of outdoor railing banners to advertise the open evening and further drive the student recruitment campaign, as well as the creation of pull-up banners for the main academy, to assist in illustrating their key brand values and extra-curricular enrichment opportunities at future events.

To discover how we can help your school with a new education prospectus and support with your overall school marketing plan, view our new, interactive Spotlight on Education or contact our expert marketing team here.

Education Partnership Trust appointed Creativeworld to redevelop their branding to reflect the core values of their organisation. We then developed full brand guidelines and toolkits to ensure correct application of the EPT brand internally with staff, externally with suppliers and with their member schools.

As part of this remit, we were also tasked with the design and installation of new signage at the Multi Academy Trust headquarters in Blackburn and The Heights in Burnley.

Ribblesdale High School appointed Creativeworld to redevelop their online presence, to include their Main School website, Parents website and Transition website for Year 7 students.

As part of the designs for the website we considered pathways for each of their key stakeholders and how each area would differ slightly in colour whilst remaining consistent with the Ribblesdale Brand. Our brief was to evolve the existing website design, in doing so we also wanted to create space for more expansive imagery utilising the full width of the screen. Our web designers introduced a fixed banner to house the School logo, designed to complement the brand and signature Ribblesdale curve depicting the hill upon which Clitheroe castle sits.

In addition we created an Ribblesdale ‘EdTech’ website to host virtual learning events for other schools. The Department of Education and delivery partners identified twenty schools and colleges which have demonstrated excellence in their use of technology to support teaching and learning and have the capacity to help others. Ribblesdale were identified as one of these demonstrators as part of a consortium of schools able to offer support and learning for other schools across the country.

Creativeworld were pleased to partner with the excellent performing Heckmondwike Grammar School for their brand development and implementation across the School’s communication channels.

Full Brand Consultation…

We were commissioned by the successful Grammar School to deliver a full brand consultation and implementation, we had to ensure we met the needs of the audience as well as consider the profile of the School.

Brand Discovery…

The initial brand discovery stages (what works, what doesn’t) included a full consultation period with all stakeholders, including Staff, Parents, Communities, Students, Alumni, this was carried out through focus group work, interviews and written feedback from all groups. From this feedback a proposed new brand strategy was created, with the ideas to develop the brand and the usage.

Brand Guidelines…

We created a set of Brand guidelines as well as a toolkit to cover the main aspects of the school’s communication channels, including signage, digital media, prospectuses, stationery, presentations and internal communications literature. This has assisted the School to become more joined up with their branding across all formats.

Services

– Branding
– Stakeholder engagement

The primary HECKMONDWIKE logo is the preferred option for use on the majority of applications. However, if available space is at a premium, then the secondary landscape version can be used as an alternative to maximise legibility.

For single colour applications, such as newspaper advertising, there is a single colour greyscale version of the HECKMONDWIKE logo.

There is also a single colour line mark version which can be used for less refined reproduction processes such as screen printing.