Podcasts and teachers
A recent report published by the Edge Foundation and written by Anna Pedroza, founder of Pedroza Comms, has shed new light on educators’ use of podcasts. The social media habits of teachers report is based on a survey of 5000+ school-based educators and includes some interesting insights about podcasts.
Initially, it looks like podcast consumptions is pretty low (our first blog on the research did suggest this). But compared to the general public, educators appear to be more likely to listen to podcasts.
Respondents were asked if they listen to education-related podcasts and 57% said they didn’t listen to education related podcasts suggesting 43% do listen to them. In contrast, 22.8% of the general public listen to podcasts each week (RAJAR) – an increase of 12.6 percentage points since 2017 when it was 10.2%.
So, although the majority of educators don’t listen to podcasts, as a sector they are more likely than the general public to listen. Subject specific podcasts are most popular but interests are widely spread with research and theory, career development and PD, and resources and ideas all popular. More niche topics, such as education technology, are understandably less popular.
Seniority also impacts on whether you’re likely to listen to education related podcasts with a much smaller number of headteachers saying they don’t listen to podcasts than teachers (43% compared to 61%). It’s not a surprise that they listen to more podcasts about leadership and it’s also interesting to see they’re more likely to listen to news and current affairs.
But teachers and middle leaders are listening to podcasts with subject specific ones the most popular. The data also showed that more maths teachers listened to podcasts than the average with 35% listening to subject specific podcasts compared to the average of 20%. This may be influenced by the long running and popular Mr Barton Maths podcast.
More broadly, it’s really important to do your research. There are hundreds of education podcasts, a recent tweet from Laura McInerney about which education podcasts she should listen to led to more than 100 suggestions. So, audiences may be spread quite thinly over quite a few podcasts.
What does it mean for education marketing and comms professionals?
- There are significant numbers of educators listening to podcasts even if they’re not in the majority. Securing a spot for your CEO or client on a popular education podcast could help you reach a lot of your audience.
- If you want to target school leaders and have content that is relevant to them, then podcasts could be a good approach.
- Broad consumption trends don’t provide all the information, make sure you understand your target audience.
For more interesting findings about teachers’ social media use download the report here.
Teachers' use of social media
A new report about the use of social media by teachers, and others in schools, has been published by the Edge Foundation. Anna Pedroza, founder of Pedroza Comms, worked with the Edge Foundation to design the research, analyse the results and write the report.
The social media habits of teachers report is based on a survey of 5000+ school-based educators (working with Teacher Tapp) the report is packed with interesting, and sometimes surprising, findings about educators’ attitudes to social media and their behaviour.
Twitter is the most used platform, but it’s not the whole picture
More educators use Twitter for work related activities than any other social platform and its followed by WhatsApp and Facebook. It’s quite different to general consumer use where the top three UK platforms are WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, with Twitter trailing in fifth position.
Beyond Twitter there’s also some variation dependant on role, for instance EYFS and KS1 teachers are greater users of Facebook and the highest users of Pinterest and Instagram. For subjects English and maths teachers are the highest users of Twitter and art teachers the lowest users.
However, it’s important to remember that almost a fifth of educators don’t use social media for work related activities.
Headteachers, not teachers, are the biggest users of social media
Just 6% of headteachers report not using social media for work related activities. Twitter is the most popular platform with three quarters (76%) of headteachers using it compared to just half of classroom teachers (54%).
Possibly linked to this high usage, headteachers are more likely to trust Twitter for education-related content than classroom teachers (62% compared to 52%). This may be linked to the fact that they’re most likely to be using social media to keep up to date (35% compared to 18% of classroom teachers) and Twitter is a useful provider of news.
Headteachers are also most likely to use LinkedIn for work related activities – possibly because there’s lots of leadership content on the platform, or because it is useful for senior careers or recruitment.
Educators think about their job even when not in work mode
Anyone who says teachers don’t work hard enough should consider educators ‘non-work’ use of social media. ‘Looking for resources’ was the fourth most likely reason they would spend time on social media - almost half of respondents said they’d done this in the past week. Although it underlines how committed many educators are to doing their job well, it’s also concerning when teacher workload is a concern.
Education podcasts, still an emerging media
Despite the 100s of education podcasts available, 57% of respondents said they didn’t listen to education related podcasts. It seems that although consumption of podcasts is huge in the consumer world, it’s not a priority for educators.
However, as people become more senior they are more likely to listen to education podcasts. 61% of classroom teachers said they didn’t listen to education podcasts but this reduced to 43% for headteachers.
What does it mean for education marketing and comms people?
- Broad trends don’t tell the whole story - Different subjects, phases, roles and experience all show different behaviours. Get to know your audience.
- Different to consumer behaviour –Twitter is still the dominant platform it’s not about Instagram or TikTok.
- Resources, resources, resources - Teachers are eager to find resources using social media, even when they’re not in work mode.
- Over reliance on Twitter is risky – globally there is a growing number of people leaving Twitter for other platforms how this will impact edutwitter is not known but it’s important to have a backup plan
For more information download the report: https://www.edge.co.uk/about-edge/our-networks/education-comms-network/the-social-media-habits-of-teachers/
Engaging new school governors and trustees – case study
“Working with Anna and Pedroza Comms has been an absolutely fantastic experience, and we couldn’t be more pleased with the results.”
The National Governance Association is the membership organisation for governors, trustees and governance professionals in state schools in England. The charity aims to improve educational standards and wellbeing of young people by increasing the effectiveness of governing boards and promoting high standards.
The NGA asked Pedroza Comms to help them reactivate their Visible Governance campaign which had been impacted by the pandemic. They wanted help to produce and launch a new film and to increase the profile of governance with employers.
A new film introducing governance
Working with the NGA, and an animation company, we scripted and produced a 2 minute film explaining the role of governance volunteers. Designed to be accessible to everyone, the film created an engaging story about governance and encouraged viewers to find out more.
To launch the film we recruited existing school governors and trustees to talk about their role. We also used new research from the NGA’s survey of their members to PR a news story about the fact that governance vacancies were at their highest since 2016. We targeted the sectors that our case studies were employed in, as well the education sector media.
We also produced a comms toolkit for the NGA to share with their key stakeholders. This included graphics, the video and suggested copy for social media posts and news items.
Results
We secured a reach of 1.9m with more than 10 pieces of coverage and the story featured in the Tes, Schools Week, Education Executive, the Chartered Institute of Public Relation’s Influence Magazine, Construction Management and a host of education podcasts including the popular Education on Fire.
We also helped build a stronger link between the NGA and employer organisation the British Educational Suppliers Association, which resulted in the NGA being invited to host a webinar about the benefits of governance to their members.
Feedback from the NGA
“Working with Anna and Pedroza Comms has been an absolutely fantastic experience, and we couldn’t be more pleased with the results. Anna came in at a crucial time for us as we wanted to enhance a campaign dented by the pandemic.
“We needed inspiration and direction and this is exactly what we got. Anna brought a wealth of experience and fresh ideas that reinvigorated the campaign, extending its reach and impact. We have learnt a huge amount in our time working with Pedroza Comms, the NGA team really enjoyed the experience and we have all come away feeling better equipped for future projects.”
Sam Henson, Director of Policy and Information, National Governance Association
Read the press release here.
Research and PR – can we do better?
We work a lot with our clients on research related PR – it seems particularly important in the education sector. But at times, we do feel there is more we could have got from the research if we’d be involved at an earlier stage.
Our founder, Anna Pedroza, has put fingers to keyboard to write about this topic for the CIPR’s Influence magazine. Covering topics from PRs needing to build their research skills, to reducing organisational research silos, to understanding what makes a great research headline, the article is a fascinating read.
If you’re a CIPR member you can read the article here: https://influenceonline.co.uk/2022/09/06/pr-and-research--could-we-do-better-
If you’re not a CIPR member then do get in touch and Anna would love to share some of her thinking.
Finally, for an example of our research based work our case study about PrimarySite is worth checking out.
Vacancies for school governors and trustees at their highest since 2016
Our client, the National Governance Association, has launched new research showing that vacancies for school governors and trustees are at their highest since 2016. 67 per cent of governing boards reported at least one vacancy and of these, 38 per cent reported two or more vacancies. The results are part of the NGA’s 2022 annual governance survey which also found that, post pandemic, 63 per cent of respondents reported issues with recruitment compared to 55 per cent in 2019.
Governing boards are responsible for the strategic direction of a school or trust and their decisions impact hundreds, if not thousands of pupils. With the typical board consisting of nine or ten governors or trustees, the high vacancy rate means some boards may struggle to drive improvement and provide sufficient scrutiny and financial oversight.
Overall, the NGA estimates there are currently more than 20,000 vacancies.
To coincide with the new research, Pedroza Comms worked with the NGA to produce a film about school governance which aims to demystify the role and encourage people to find out more about how they can help the schools in their community.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRqJ_bFipHk
Emma Knights, CEO of the National Governance Association said: “School and trust governance needs to be recognised and celebrated for its positive role in ensuring pupils and staff can flourish. Huge thanks are owed to all those committed volunteers carrying out this role with such care and reflection. These findings make for sobering reading: schools need more good people and we need to get the message out far and wide to engage the thousands we need to fill governance roles. This is why we have launched a new film today explaining what school governors and trustees do and their role in helping our schools to succeed.”
Chartership awarded to founder of Pedroza Communications
We’re delighted to announce that Anna Pedroza, founder of Pedroza Comms, has been awarded Chartered status by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. One of seven to achieve the award in Spring 2022 she now joins an elite community of 418 Chartered practitioners - just 0.44% of the estimated number of comms professionals in the UK (PRCA Census 2019).
Getting chartered involves a rigorous day-long assessment on ethics, strategy and leadership. Anna said of the process: “The assessment was pretty challenging but it was also enjoyable to have a day of high-level professional discussion with colleagues at the top of their game. Preparing involved lots of reading and thinking about my own professional practice, and I also had advice from some great PRs who’d been through the process.”
CIPR President Rachel Roberts Chart.PR, MCIPR said: “Many congratulations to this latest round of PR professionals to become Chartered and achieve the PR industry’s highest standard of professional distinction. Becoming Chartered recognises not only an individual’s PR capability, but also expertise in strategy, leadership and ethical practice.”
Anna is keen for other PR practitioners to become Chartered and is part of the CIPR’s Chartership Support Buddies who are all available to share their experience of becoming Chartered, offer advice and generally encourage people.
Anna added: “I’d love more PRs working in education to take the plunge and become Chartered so I’m keen to help with advice and support.”
To get in touch with Anna about Chartership email: anna@pedrozacommunications.co.uk
Bridging the gap: edtech and the struggle to level up
A new short report, produced by our client Tassomai, focuses on what needs to happen for edtech software to deliver specific benefits for disadvantaged children and young people.
Bridging the gap: edtech and the struggle to level up draws together key points from a roundtable discussion which included secondary school leaders and teachers, and other key organisations including Education Endowment Foundation, Learning with Parents, Equal Education and ImpactEd.
Chaired by Joe Hallgarten, CEO of the Centre for Education and Youth, the roundtable report highlights three key things where edtech has the potential to help:
- Data from edtech software can help teachers and leaders to understand more about disadvantaged learners but it needs to be easy to analyse so it can inform teaching and learning decisions which will benefit disadvantaged learners
- Edtech’s capability to personalise learning to individual students can help teachers to tailor support to individual children which has the potential to narrow the attainment gap
- Designing edtech software for disadvantaged learners from the start can help to ensure their needs are prioritised
Tassomai is a learning app used by many teachers to provide online homework and revision, Murray Morrison, who is the founder and CEO, commented on the publication of the report saying: “Narrowing the attainment gap remains the key challenge for the education system, especially as we steer our way out of the pandemic.
“Edtech software has huge potential to support and enable effective learning, but there is fervent discussion about how it should be designed and delivered so that it benefits every learner, especially the most disadvantaged.
“This report captures the thrust of those discussions and I hope it will make a valuable contribution as we put the pandemic behind us and focus once again on one of the key challenges we can all play our part in tackling.”
To download the report visit: www.tassomai.com/edtech-and-the-attainment-gap
Marketing support for EdTech companies – case study
“It’s been a pleasure to work with Pedroza Communications on this important project. They combine expertise in marketing and education, with a real passion for ensuring that EdTech can make a positive impact in schools.”
Nesta is the UK’s innovation foundation helping people and organisations to bring great ideas to life. As part of their work around education they launched a partnership with the Department for Education (DfE) to support more effective use of technology in education. Part of the DfE’s EdTech strategy, the EdTech Innovation Fund and EdTech R&D Programme involved 18 EdTech companies. It was designed to help them with product improvement, evaluation and testing, and scaling their businesses.
One of the barriers to success for the EdTech companies was limited expertise and experience in schools marketing. Nesta approached Pedroza Communications in 2021 to develop and deliver a programme of support which included:
- One to one support and guidance to help develop marketing plans
- Training about the schools market in England
- Resources and tools to support aspects of marketing
Research and planning
Our first focus was to understand more about the EdTech companies so that we could tailor support to meet their needs. Building on our existing expertise, we surveyed the companies identifying a range of needs including business wide issues, strategic marketing plans and more tactical advice and support.
We also felt that it would be really useful for EdTech companies to hear direct from school leaders so, using our networks, we recruited school and Trust leaders to provide advice to the companies on approaching schools.
One to one support
We worked with each EdTech company to agree a focus for our work together and provided one to one support including:
- Advice on marketing strategy
- Review of marketing messaging and guidance
- Advice on marketing mix and tactics
- Help with a specific issues
The English schools market
To help the EdTech companies understand more about the schools market we designed and delivered a training webinar about the schools’ market covering:
- Messaging to schools
- Engaging and connecting with schools
- Common EdTech challenges
- The impact of the pandemic on the schools market
The training also included a Q&A with the chair of a multi-academy trust who also led an EdTech business, as well as practical case studies of EdTech marketing approaches.
Impact
All of the EdTech companies felt that that the support had a great deal of impact, with one saying: “External counsel is having a significant impact on our planning and operations” and another adding: “The advice and insights provided were incredibly useful and far exceeded our expectations.” In particular the evaluation found our support had helped to:
- Increase confidence in marketing
- Improve marketing strategy
- Inspire new ideas and thinking
- Support and enable positive internal conversations
Feedback from Nesta
“It’s been a pleasure to work with Pedroza Communications on this important project. They combine expertise in marketing and education, with a real passion for ensuring that EdTech can make a positive impact in schools. The EdTech companies have been really positive about the support they’ve received and how it has contributed to their ability to engage and promote themselves to schools.”
Sylvia Pau, Assistant Programme Manager, EdTech Programme, Nesta
Image credit: Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Maximising downloads using new research – case study
Edurio provides a survey management and data visualization platform for schools and multi academy trusts and works with over 100 trusts as well as 1500 schools. They regularly publish state of the national reports based on substantial data sets of student or staff survey information. They approached Pedroza to increase the reach of a new report called Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Amongst School Staff.
Strategy
We reviewed the results of previous launch campaigns and found that, although there was national coverage, reach in the sector media was limited. We wanted to try and secure placement in the Tes and also felt we could secure more placement in stakeholder newsletters, magazines or blogs.
Based on this, we worked with the team to identify the most news worthy findings and interviewed two MAT leaders to get their views on the findings. We drafted a press release with a clear call to action to download the report from the landing page.
Our sell in initially focused on the news story and this was followed up with offers of expert comment from our MAT leaders, the CEO of the Confederation of School Trusts, and Edurio’s own spokespeople.
Results
Campaign reach was 3.1m. We secured coverage in the Tes and Schools Week and a further 10 education sector publications, blogs and podcasts, plus coverage in the regional media. The report also prompted discussion by commentators for instance this piece in Schools Week.
Most importantly, our work drove considerable traffic to the landing page and we helped Edurio to secure their highest number of report downloads.
Feedback from Edurio
Ernest Jenavs, CEO of Edurio was delighted with Pedroza’s support and said: “Pedroza Comms brought solid PR expertise, creative thinking and enthusiasm to their work with us. They provided great support throughout the planning period and we felt they went the extra mile in developing ideas, reaching out to contacts and providing advice. Their understanding of education helped them to get to grips with our research and identify the findings which were most newsworthy.
Anna and her team secured great pick up in the sector media including the Tes and Schools Week, as well as coverage with leading education podcasts. Most importantly, Pedroza Comms helped us to secure the highest number of downloads for any of our reports.”
Download the report here.
Read the launch press release here.
Less than half of school staff feel their workplace is diverse
Largest study amongst school staff on equality, diversity and inclusion
Today we’re helping to launch new research, produced by our client Edurio, a leading provider of stakeholder feedback solutions to schools and multi-academy trusts, which shows that less than half of school staff (43 per cent) feel their workplace is diverse. The report, titled Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Among School Staff, is the largest review of EDI amongst school and academy trust staff in England involving more than 16,500 staff from 381 schools. It found that less than three-quarters of Minority Ethnic staff (69 per cent) feel that their workplace is committed to promoting EDI compared to 83 per cent of White British/Irish staff.
The study discovered that leadership teams are perceived to be less diverse than the wider staff body. Less than a third (28 per cent) believe its leadership team to be diverse. Almost nine out of ten (88 per cent) of those in a leadership position are confident that all staff are treated equally. However, this compares to just two-thirds (70 per cent) of those that do not hold a leadership position.
Furthermore, only a third of staff (36 per cent) consider the diversity of their school’s staff body to be representative of their student population. Almost half (47 per cent) of respondents in urban areas, most notably London and the West Midlands, believe their school to be diverse. This compares to a quarter (24 per cent) of those in rural areas.
The report by Edurio highlighted key differences between those who identify as male compared to those who identify as female. A higher proportion (65 per cent) of men feel confident that decisions around promotion are made without bias at their school. This fell to just over half (57 per cent) of women. Furthermore, two-thirds (64 per cent) of men are confident that their career is advancing in alignment with their personal needs and responsibilities compared to only 58 per cent of women.
Ernest Jenavs, CEO of Edurio said: "The last year has highlighted the magnitude of global challenges around EDI. The diverse backgrounds and identities of employees in education should have no adverse effect on their experience but we still have some way to go to get there. Many school and trust leaders have stepped up to better understand the challenges. We have looked deeper into EDI among school staff across England than has ever been done before. Edurio would like to thank every individual who has shared their experiences. This report is only the first of a number of publications shedding light on how the education sector can become more inclusive for all school staff."
Other notable findings from the research include:
- 68 per cent of women and 70 per cent of men from a Minority Ethnic background are confident that all staff are treated equally in school. This compares to 75 per cent of White women and 81 per cent of White men.
- Respondents viewed opportunities for advancement differently. Four in 10 staff (43 per cent) are not confident that decisions on promotions are made without bias. Between non-disabled and disabled staff there was a significant difference: just 45 per cent of disabled staff felt confident that decisions around promotion are made without bias compared to
60 per cent of non-disabled staff. - Religion also played a significant role in how valued staff feel at their school. It found that 65 per cent of respondents who selected a religion other than Christianity, said they feel very or quite valued in their workplace. This is lower than those who selected Christianity (73 per cent) and those who identify as agnostic or atheist (71 per cent).
Evelyn Forde MBE, Headteacher of Copthall School, said: “I was very impressed with the content of the questions used in the EDI review. I felt they were specific and the focus on being able to capture how ED&I is woven throughout a school (or not) was expertly done. This is an important piece of research and I would encourage all school leaders to engage with its findings."
Leora Cruddas, CEO of the Confederation of School Trusts, said: “Edurio’s latest research is a fascinating snapshot of EDI in schools today. Although we have all made great strides towards building an inclusive workspace, it is clear we have more work to do. I urge all school leaders and their staff to continue to listen and evolve.”
To download the full report visit here.