WyEd :: education & communication consultancy

Architects

Impress local authorities and gain a competitive edge on the competition by offering to work with local schools near your developments. Building work is often seen as inconvenient by local communities but with a good schools programme you can start reversing this impression, especially if your plans put sustainability at the core. With quality educational resources you can make your design and building work a fantastic curriculum topic for local school children, for example in Geography, Literacy, ICT and Design Technology. You may even get some good design ideas from the children!

WyEd can create a more general resource which you can use again and again, or for an even stronger impact, employ us to create materials for specific design projects.

Why miss such a cost-effective opportunity to promote your sustainable practice, expand your influence and smooth the planning and building process? Get in touch with WyEd!

Campaigners

If your organisation is campaigning for change on transport, food, health, energy, justice or fairtrade issues, where better to start than with the next generation? Not only do the children themselves engage with the issues, but through them you reach parents, families, the wider community, generate excellent PR opportunities with local and national media, and can build positive relations with key decision-makers. This can be achieved cost-effectively in comparison with more traditional communication methods. Contact us to discuss this at no obligation.

For example: -
The Environmental Transport Association (ETA) campaigns for sustainable transport and also offers a number of services such as breakdown cover for motorists who wish to lessen their environmental impact. The ETA commissioned WyEd to create a curriculum resource encouraging children to walk to school. This is a key message for ETA, but in providing the resource they also create opportunities to raise their profile. To see the result, visit www.eta-schools.co.uk

Construction

Building sites are dangerous places for children and building work often seen as extremely inconvenient to local communities. You can turn that perception around with a carefully planned schools programme. For example, visiting schools near your sites with a safety message could make children safer, reduce the danger of vandalism, and create a good reputation with local authorities as well as generating good stories in the local press which can only help your sales. For even more brownie points, you could develop school resources looking at issues around the sustainable communities agenda and how your work is contributing to this.

Rob Hattersley of WyEd has three years experience of doing just this for a major UK housebuilder. You can find out more here. Do contact us for an informal discussion with no obligation.

Fire, Police or Ambulance?

Do you need to improve the materials you use in your liaison work with local schools? Do your officers feel that that with flying visits they never really get the time to make those effective relationships with primary school children that make the job so much easier as they grow up?

A small investment in better school resources can help your officers to make the most of their limited time, and enable the school to continue your work for you after a visit. You will make a much greater impact on children with schemes that anchor key messages in the core curriculum (e.g. Literacy and Maths) rather than just relegating this to a short assembly or classroom talk.

Health Authorities

We all agree prevention is better than cure, but what percentage of your budget is spent on educating the young how to stay healthy in the first place? If you need high impact schemes to anchor healthy messages not in one off assemblies and gimmicks but in day to day teaching, WyEd are the people to ask.

Energy

Britain now faces serious energy challenges. Not only do we need to dramatically reduce CO2 emissions by changing the way we source our energy, but we also face the challenge of energy security at a time when supplies appear to be falling and demand is rising. Our society and economy is dependent on dwindling supplies of fossil fuels for transport, packaging, manufacturing, farming and food production and much more.

So if you are involved in developing, supplying or marketing renewable energy, or are involved in the issues around Peak Oil, there has never been a better time to get these issues into primary schools. By doing so you not only begin to prepare the next generation for the real challenges they will face, but you will also be communicating these messages to families and local communities. A schools programme can, in our view, be a very effective communication method for issues as important as this.

A schools resource could cover:

• Some simple mathematics around the issue of Peak Oil
• Looking at the way in which local produced energy such as solar heating works, in Science
• Investigating the work of renewable energy companies in Literacy

Do please get in touch to discuss this further at no obligation.

Environment, Heritage and Educational

WyEd can offer advice and support to heritage, environmental, educational and other organisations in their work with children. We can advise on developing links with schools, improving educational provision for children, and can develop new teaching resources and materials to your requirements.

For example: -
We worked with the Friends of Castle Green in Hereford to develop a pilot scheme promoting the park - it's history, current use and future plans - to local school children through the subjects of History and Geography. The project in 2006/7 was a success and funding is now being sought to extend it on a more permanent basis.

Food and Farming

In an era of climate change, increasing energy and fuel prices adding to food and travel costs, and concerns over obesity and general health, there has never been a better time to promote the benefits of local, organic or healthy food through a schools programme.

You may be a grower, producer, distributor or retailer, or a combination of these. You may be a network or an organisation wishing to promote local food and farming. For a small investment you can communicate your messages to children, their families and local communities, changing minds and influencing buying and eating habits for ever and supporting local markets.

Your work will be of great interest to schools who are being asked to focus more and more on issues of sustainability and health. WyEd believes that local food and farming is crucial to our future and that we need to reconnect our young people to the land, developing an appreciation of our dependence on it. We hope you do too. Get in touch to discuss how a schools initiative can help you to realise your goals in this area.

Local Authorities

Local Authorities seem to be under ever-increasing pressure to achieve targets. Whether you are trying to increase voter turnout, reduce CO2 emissions, deliver the Sustainable Schools agenda, encourage Fairtrade, increase the number of children walking to school or reduce waste, you need to effect major behavioural changes. School is the best place for you to start, but your teachers need support. To discuss any of the following areas at no obligation please contact us.

Primary Vote
Local authorities are keen to encourage people to vote. Where better to start that with the younger generation? WyEd offers a curriculum resource called Primary Vote which achieves the impossible: it enthuses children about local government and through them can engage their parents, families and the wider community too. For further details about Primary Vote and how local authorities can purchase it for their schools, visit our existing clients section and scroll for Derby Primary Vote.

Primary Climate
Local authorities are engaging with the issue of climate change and with the need to reduce emissions. But are you neglecting the short and long term benefits of engaging effectively with primary schools? This can not only influence long term behaviours in children, but the children than act as ambassadors, communicating key messages to older generations. A child can apply pressure for change far more effectively tat you can. School programmes can also generate excellent PR and media opportunities in which local authorities can communicate with local residents.

Sustainable Schools
The government-led Sustainable Schools initiative includes climate change and encompasses every aspect of the school curriculum, as well as the way in which it is managed. It offers excellent opportunities for schools and local authorities to work together. WyEd can help you to support your schools, promote the work of your authority, and help you meet your objectives. Contact us to discuss your needs and to talk about how we can help.

Fairtrade
Many local authorities have actively supported local initiatives to promote Fairtrade businesses in their areas. A programme to promote Fairtrade through the school curriculum would be a good way to support the continued growth in Fairtrade. Otherwise it can become an activity for only one fortnight in March, rather than permanently changing shopping habits.

School Travel
Are you making fast enough progress getting more children to walk or cycle to school? Are your schools sometimes less than enthusiastic? Do schools seem to think Walk to School is a one-week event, after which everyone can go back to normal? Perhaps you need to encourage schools to make sustainable travel part of their year-round strategy. You could start by providing resources and teaching plans to anchor this in the core Literacy and Maths curriculum instead of only providing posters, leaflets and other schemes once a year which are soon forgotten.

Traffic and Highways/ Strategic Planning
Could you get your Traffic/ Highways Department involved? Even a small decrease in the school run can work wonders in reducing urban congestion. A small investment in a schools programme might be money very well spent.

Waste reduction and recycling
Wanting to achieve and exceed your waste reduction targets? Engage the younger generation in the battle and you should be half way there. A primary school scheme anchoring sustainable waste management in the heart of the curriculum instead of it being an optional add on might be a crucial investment for your authority.

Retailers

If you are engaged in any aspect of ethical, healthy, 'green' or fairtrade retail than you could be using that commitment to promote your business through a high quality schools initiative.

With consumers becoming more skeptical of advertising, it may be the time to invest in educational resources which utilise the good that you do as a relevant topic through which teachers can deliver National Curriculum objectives. It isn't a one-off: your business is used as a topic over an extended period of time, making it more relevant to the children. You get to promote your business and your messages effectively to children, their parents, families and the local community, generating excellent PR opportunities along the way. For example: -

▪ A clothing retailer might provide a teaching pack looking at the positive effect Fairtrade is having on it's suppliers (e.g. Literacy/Geography)
▪ An ethical cosmetics company might look at the issues around animal testing or packaging (e.g. Literacy/Science/Geography)
▪ Long-established retailers might like to focus on their history and the ethos around the way in which they carry out their work (e.g. History/PSHE)
▪ Retailers with a commitment to eco-friendly products might look at production processes and food miles (e.g. Literacy/Geography)
▪ Local retailers may simply wish to promote their local trading area, it's history and it's future (e.g. Geography)

A well planned and relevant schools programme can really get your message home without any exploitative marketing. Contact WyEd to talk further at no obligation.

Suppliers and manufacturers

If you are engaged in manufacturing or supplying any ethical, healthy, 'green' or fairtrade products than you could be using that commitment to promote your business through a high quality schools initiative.

Educational resources can utilise the good that you do as a relevant topic through which teachers can deliver National Curriculum objectives. It isn't a one-off: your business is used as a topic over an extended period of time, making it more relevant to the children. You get to promote your firm and your messages effectively to children, their parents, families and local communities, generating excellent PR opportunities along the way which can help to grow your business . Let us know what you do and we can give you some ideas, but for example, if you supply: -

• Ethical cosmetics: a teaching pack could look at the issues around animal testing and packaging
• Cleaning materials: looking at the impact of different cleaning materials during manufacture and use
• Fairtrade: researching the impact of your products on communities in developing countries
• Local food: study of food miles, packaging, health issues or the value to the local economy of local production

A schools programme can be very cost-effective when compared to more traditional communication methods. Why not get in touch with WyEd now?

Tourism

How much do you spend on promoting tourism in your area each year or advertising your tourism business? Now imagine spending probably a fraction of that money on teaching resources that by using your area or business as a curriculum topic can effectively promote this to children, parents and families across the UK.

"Holiday in the UK" is a good message in an era of climate change and fuel price rises. Get in on the act now with a schools programme to promote your area or your business. Contact us to discuss this further with no obligation.

Travel and Transport

Do you want to promote your Train Operating Company to younger audiences and families? Could you do with increasing the media profile of your bus and coach services? Are you an organisation that wants to change attitudes to public transport, cycling, walking or street design more generally?

A schools initiative could do this for you - reaching the younger generation, their families and communities, and generating some good media opportunities too. Rather than a glance a a leaflet or an advert, children would be engaging with what you do as a curriculum project over a longer time frame, and would then act as ambassadors to far wider audiences.

There are numerous opportunities to communicate your key messages on sustainable transport through the primary school curriculum, especially in Literacy, Maths, Geography and ICT.

For example

We are now working with Virgin Trains to promote rail travel to families. See our Clients Section for more details.

Contact us to discuss the possibilities for your organisation.

Visitor Attractions

You can attract more visitors and increase the value of a visit by investing in quality educational resources.

Perhaps you want to open up your attraction for school visits and need to develop relevant learning activities and resources for this.

Or perhaps you want to promote your attraction in a more sophisticated way than simply advertising. You could send an educational pack out to schools who in using it will promote visits by families.

Maybe you simply recognise that you need to improve what you offer in the way of children's activities for ordinary visitors, to make a visit something more interesting and enjoyable for all the family.

Whatever your marketing or resource needs, why not contact WyEd for a preliminary discussion at no obligation.