eNews: 3 August, 2022


Let us take some photos for you

If your homepage gallery images look like the one above with the only thing missing being tumbleweeds, then please reach out. Chances are you're not happy with your pics but just can't get you're head around what to do or the expense associated with a pro photographer. We have a solution. Over the last few issues of our eNews, we've shone a light on using a smart phone to take photographs for your website. You can see some examples here.

If you'd like us to take photos for your website, using a smart phone, we are happy to extend a special and limited offer.

Web Pics $295 plus gst

Please note:
  • We're trialling this service at this stage and initally can only support schools in the greater Melbourne area.
  • We'll be onsite for approxiamtely 2 hours
  • Please read 'Photography Preparation on the Day'

Please contact me at helpdesk@sponsor-ed.com.au or on 1300 755 010 if you'd like to book or learn more.

Image below taken on an iPhone 13.



by Sinead Bannon



Operations Manager
The sponsor-ed Group

Let's talk calendars

Let's face it, if there's one thing that bugs you, it's when a parent asks for information about a date that's very visible in your school's calendar. At Updat-ed, we have a belief that displaying an event in one place only will just not cut it. So, in this article we'll look at how you can encirlce your parents with dates and never have students turn up on school closure day or (the worst!) someone turns up in school uniform on footy fun day - tragic!!

Option 1: The Parent Portal
Did you know that if youre using Compass, Sentral, Google or many other 3rd party calendars, you can have those dates feed the website calendar automatically. So, we now have two places - parent portal and website

Option 2: Three different display options
Your website can display your calendar as a Dot Module, Quick View and as a Grid



Option 3: Add your calendar to multiple locations
Not only are there many calendar display options, why not add the calendar to multiple locations throughout your website. Homepage, newsletter page (a very high traffic webpage) and contact us page as a minimum. If you are using sponsor-ed eNews as your newsletter, add the calendar to the footer. Just use the Widget feature (click here for the Cheat Sheet)

Option 4: Our free app called Updat-ed
Your website calendar dates feeeds the app automatically. Easy!




If you need any help sorting out all your calendar options, please contact Sinead at helpdesk@updat-ed.com.au or on 1300 755 010




by Sinead Bannon


Operations Manager
Updat-ed

Want Community Engagement? Create your school's Spotify playlist

Recently, I was sitting in a funky inner-city restaurant, Mr Miyagi and was marvelling at how well the music fitted the feel of the restaurant. So, I wondered if they had a playlist on Spotify; boom, they did. Then I thought about how schools could use this tool.


The benefit of this strategy for Mr Miyagi's is that the brand lives every time I fire up the playlist. Simple marketing and very simple community engagement.

So here's an idea. What about your school's own Spotify playlist. You could get the community, parents, staff and students to contribute and say, twice a year, refresh the list (music changes often they tell me). 

All you need is to get a millennial (haha) on staff to put their hand up to curate the list and obey one simple rule; listen to the music before adding it to the playlist. The same people that told me that music changes often also tell me that's there some pretty fruity stuff out there. Best listen first.

And if you'd like Mr Miyagi's Spotify playlist, click on the image below.





by Denis Masseni



Founder
The sponsor-ed Group
ACEL Fellow

Teachers and the Media, grrrrr

The way teachers are talked about in the media has a flow-on effect to how people feel about becoming a teacher, and how teachers see their place in the community, says Nicole Mockler, Associate Professor of Education, Univeristy of Sydney. Why is this an issue?

It puts the emphasis on the purported deficiencies of individual teachers rather than on collective capacity to improve teaching.

Nicole's research (click here for the article in Saturday's The Age) found the focus on ‘‘quality’’ was far more on teachers than, say, teaching approaches, schools, schooling, education systems or anything else.

So, why are we at sponsor-ed getting into some deep issues about the teaching profession? Well, for some time we've been advocating giving your teachers a profile beyond the classroom (see page 11 of the paper 'What principlas need to know about the principles of school marketing')

One strategy that some sponsor-ed schools have taken up simply promotes teachers via the Recent News articles on the website and in the newsletter. The aim of the piece is to establish the teacher's qualifications and ongoing professional development, combined with a little of the human stuff like their passions and what they love about teaching. All designed to manage perceptions of teacher's capabilities.

Bentleigh Secondary College went so far as to total the number of qualifications and professional development hours undertaken by their principal team.

FYI; a team with over 100 years of combined teaching and learning experience, eleven bachelor and master degrees, and a total of over 10,000 hours of continuing professional development. 

These people are seriously committed educators. 

The images below show the way in which Bentleigh Secondary College promotes their teachers. The process found one of their teachers had worked at NASA. And so was borne the nickname The Astronaut!

Control the narrative.



by Denis Masseni



Founder
The sponsor-ed Group
ACEL Fellow