The Education Communication landscape

When I tell friends that my work involves helping publicise and promote Catholic schools in the Inner Western Region of the Catholic Education Office, Sydney, most give me a familiar look as though I've got the cruisiest job in the world. Sure, helping these schools achieve positive media exposure and procurring positive messages about them is fun and engaging (and thus why people may think it is cruisy) however communicating with a range of publics, both internal and external for a variety of primary and secondary schools is no walk in the park.

Similarly, within the PR scene, many Comms practitioners scoff at the work required to promote and publicise schools. Of course, you would think, 'how hard is it to pitch a feel good news story about students achieving excellent results or school events that bring the wider community together?' Ensuring that these messages are heard and acted upon is only the start.

The education landscape in Sydney is a very competitive one. There are public schools, private independent schools of various faith traditions and Catholic systemic schools competing for the attention of current and potential parents, and the community through individual campaigns, local media, and increasingly online. Ensuring that each school's key messages gets heard ensures that the communication and marketing functions of individual schools and systems are tested daily.

So what is this blog all about? It will be a place for me to reflect on my role and share PR/Communication/Marketing/Media tips that may be just mean the difference between a school with a healthy public profile and one that is in serious need of a jump-start. The blog will also be a place where best-practice from the PR/Communciations sector is shared and applied to the education sector.