Welcome to tonight's #edchatie live hour-long discussion.
Before we begin, please introduce yourself and remember to always include the hashtag #edchatie in all of your tweets so they can be seen and included later in the transcript.
oK to kick it off. I have not had to do the PR rigmarole in my current school but back in Albemarle, I was responsible for there school websites which was the primary news outlet for the various schools #edchatie
Fred Boss, 2nd level art teacher currently working with @NCCAie
Looking forward to hearing about how schools in primary and post primary as well as at third level use PR (and why)
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TBH Albemarle was a unique experience compared to Irish schools. We had two TV stations and numerous print outlets always looking for news stories so it was mutually beniefical relationship. for the first year found it exciting to have cameras in the school #edchatie
#edchatie What do others think this involves in their own school situation? #PR In mine there's a variety of ever expanding avenues that it incorporates
oK to kick it off. I have not had to do the PR rigmarole in my current school but back in Albemarle, I was responsible for there school websites which was the primary news outlet for the various schools #edchatie
#edchatie personally I think #PR has an ever important role in schools where in certain areas schools are certainly in competition with each other for students
All PR/reporters would go through ACPS PR director who would assist with the reportage. Phil earned his crust in the aftermath of August 12 riots in Charlottesville in handling the media which allowed admin to react to the riots vis a vis staff and students rather .. #edchatie
Have those meetings now with management, does you school want to introduce #Coding short course in the future or maybe it is already established & you seek guidance to improve quality of deliver! Excellent CPD on offer 😆 I might be bias 👨🏻💻#Edchatie#JCCiA#LCcs
Our 2 year #juniorcycle@JctCoding initiative -Coding In Action- involving 50 schools, comes to an end in March We are planning a big final event to mark this achievement with these schools We will also be moving to recruit c60 more schools for phase II Watch this space #jcreform
than doing news interviews. I think schools should have a plan for dealing with the media when dealing with bad news more than a plan for PR. #edchatie
Yup but in these cases its possibly the informal PR via parents on the ground that it is the most important tool a school can deploy. You can have all the bells & whistles you want but word-of-mouth is VITAL #edchatie
I think to also open up current parents to what is going on in school too #edchatie An awful lot goes on parents don't know about-obviously I mean in a good way-that's the way we use our school Facebook page
What do you mean by PR? Social media use etc?
For us, it would be more for engagement with current parents, as well as hopefully attracting new parents. Can also be great for engaging with local business and services.
It's a great forum for sharing school culture.
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We use our school app and Facebook, information put on website too but it's the lesser of the three by far #edchatie but same person in charge of all 3
I think yes it's a primary function for a lot of schools. Secondary function (or primary if school promotion/attracting numbers isn't an issue) is to disseminate info 2 current staff/students/parents. Active up-to-date info on school events/calendar/exam info is common #edchatie
Eistear from Mayo. PR is essential to building a strong, united school community, where parents, teachers and students are informed and involved. It's also key to marketing the school to outside world. Both are equally important. #edchatie
Our Facebook page is by far the most effective method we have to communicate with local community -but our school app is popular too for school messages to parents and students-it's obviously private compared to Facebook #edchatie
It's also a way to promote events and achievements to the whole school community - very important especially with bigger schools where there can be a lot going on. #edchatie
not 'new' but maybe moving away from post-holders as posts were lost in the past and posts had to be reviewed. Now often voluntary by young staff / IT literate / enthastic staff * those with time lol #edchatie
#edchatie yes that makes sense, what about for simple things like events or sports or awards students get etc. Is there someone who contacts papers, emails photos, sends on information in your school? Is that someone's role or part of a post?
I think it's particularly important where you might be looking to change aspects of school culture. Parents often cant see the changes in action and engaging them often in it online can aid the change.
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Ha yes i know. That's the way it started in my school and many still have do it based on interest (depending on what it is)but it's now a post holders official role as seen as important and needed in school #edchatie
We're at the halfway point in tonight's LIVE #edchatie discussion on the topic of "How important is the role of PR in a post primary school?"
What are your thoughts and ideas?
#edchatie Schools should cultivate a relationship with their local newspaper.. Identify someone junior within that organisation who needs to develop a local network. To them, a cooperative school fills column inches on quiet days
been in schools for this kind of directive too. My understanding is PR is more by teachers - maybe 1 in particular or a small team and what you describe is more in response to a critical incidence/reporter type asking questions which is always passed up along the chain #edchatie
Do you use the statistics part of Facebook to track engagement with users/followers of your school's page?
If so, does it help with planning ahead for other posts?
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We do use them as it's very effective to see how active it is and also helps push followers towards other social media /notification areas school has like it's app #edchatie
Also in PR terms, local newspapers and radio stations can be great resources. We had a local paper do a piece with photo on our new sensory path earlier this year. It got loads of positive attention. Plenty of local papers are looking for things to cover in community
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#Musique - We will have a presentation on how to use music and songs for languages learning at our #French teacher conference on March 2nd. Christine and the Queens will probably make to the French classrooms #FTC2019#edchatie#mflie#mflire
I think it means a lot of things certainly not just Social media-any way that the school can let people maybe on the outside see what it's really about so yes promoting a Schools culture-helping people see what the school is about really-all part of it #edchatie
I would be very interested to know how people keep a track of all of the different and potential PR goodies that go on daily within a school - especially large schools.
How is it planned for/reported on?
#edchatie
In reply to
@Tumedel, @GermanTeachIRL, @mssweeneyhomeec
Good luck from Ireland! 🍀
Loreto Rumbek is South Susan we’re our Pay It Forward partner of 2018 and received 5% of our course fees.
We are hoping to pay it forward to an Irish-based charity this year.
Send us your nominations please! 🤓
#edchatie#socialenterprise#charity
Get staff on side&students actually too & be persistent in asking for information in the beginning and make a success of for example the school Facebook page-people more than willing to contribute/let you know what they are doing once they buy into it/see it in action #edchatie
In reply to
@fboss, @GermanTeachIRL, @mssweeneyhomeec
more of a celebration of past year but good for the archives too. We recently had a 20th birthday celebration for our adult ed dept and old yearbooks/records were so nice to look back on
*sidenote it sparked a debate re GDPR as to whether we'd have this stuff in futute
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Staff continually encouraged to promote activities etc. We have a school app, which centralizes all PR items. It is an excellent PR tool, and also has the option of sharing to social media platforms Facebook and Twitter. #edchatie
#edchatie Late to this folks. Apologies. Cara McDermott. Further Ed. Teach Digital Marketing and look after social media. Yes Google Alert is NB. For school and sometimes staff.
Sorry, Had to duck uot for a bit #edchatie We did have someone who was in charge of local publicity, contacting the papers etc when students won national awards and the like. It worked out well.
Word of mouth is very NB for PR. Let the students tell the story. Or parents. In a more general sense, nothing beats face to camera video to help beat the elusive FB algorithm. Snapchat is dying. Instagram stories are growing. #edchatie
Interesting to know how many schools run their own social media and also keep track of the rapidly changing scenery as to how it works, how best to use it and when it's waxing/waning
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Word of mouth is very NB for PR. Let the students tell the story. Or parents. In a more general sense, nothing beats face to camera video to help beat the elusive FB algorithm. Snapchat is dying. Instagram stories are growing. #edchatie
Sorry late drop by Mary guidance counsellor now but with many other hats with rhetorical comment I guess #edchatie I’m 20 yrs in education how times have changed - post for PR allocated before other school posts, schools and PR, marketing, data analytics ...
We're into the famous final five minutes of tonight's LIVE hour of discussion on #edchatie looking at "How important is the role of PR in a post primary school?"
Any last thoughts, ideas, issues, solutions or questions?
I agree about the need for balance but I've been teaching for 30 years and for too long, a lot of what we did in school did not reach the wider community. Now i let them know! #edchatie
Agree-we utilise videos on our school Facebook-focus is on photos and videos & interviews. Much more effective-parents main fans of Facebook, but you'd be surprised by amount of students too, past students too #edchatie
