The Brief
The Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) is a government department responsible for recruiting and training the school workforce in the UK.
The major challenge for the TDA was educating their primary audience, career changers, what it was like to teach in a modern school, given that most of them hadn't been inside a one for more than 20 years.
The Class of Today was developed by EURO RSCG KLP as a proactive idea and up-sell to the TDA, aiming to dispel the myths of teaching and give graduates and career changers a look inside a modern day classroom, with the aim of enrolling them into teacher training courses.
The Solution
The Class of Today was developed as a cross platform application, with video content identified as the most appropriate content format for communicating the message and interactive kiosks and DVD being the primary delivery channel to reach the audience.
The application was created as a virtual school where users can access videos of modern day teachers talking about their route into teaching, the training experience and what it's like to be a teacher. Cutaways are used throughout the videos to support the messages and show what goes on inside modern classrooms and demonstrate the interaction between teachers and students.
All scripts were developed in conjunction with the TDA to ensure key messages were touched on throughout the videos.
Additional video content and interactive features focus on modern teaching equipment (using chroma key video) and pupil vox pops help to reinforce the positive influence a teacher can have on their students.
The 'Did you know' section communicates the tangible benefits of teaching that many people are unaware of, such as the financial support offered throughout the training process and reward payments for people who teach priority subjects.
The content is distributed on interactive kiosks at TDA events and in commuter hubs and a DVD was developed with more than 500K duplicated and distributed in The Guardian Education lift-out and through TDA call centres.
An on-screen keyboard on the kiosk captures the details of people interested in joining the TDA database.
My Involvement
After developing the original idea and pitching it to the TDA, I was responsible for managing the project from start to finish.
This required a large amount of planning - visiting schools, recruiting teachers, developing scripts with the TDA and sourcing the kiosk supplier and video production company.
Once the functional specification and designs were approved, I spent six weeks managing the filming and editing process, ensuring that key messages were communicated and the final content was engaging for the target audience. I managed the technical team at KLP in parallel to develop the application shell and integrate the content for the kiosk and DVD.
An extensive testing phase was performed to ensure the application worked correctly on all platforms.
As an ongoing program I continuously reported on the user stats from the kiosk, updated content and managed the email marketing campaigns, encouraging people to attend TDA events or participate in other digital programs we managed for the TDA.
