Newham College is the top performing further education college in London, offering a variety of study programmes including Apprenticeships, Access to Higher Education, T Levels, Supported Learning and vocational courses spanning from travel & tourism to digital skills and fashion & tailoring. Facing an increasingly competitive student recruitment environment, the College’s marketing team called in Showrunner to help secure attention on the busy exam results days in summer 2022.
Our approach was to shine a light on the compelling stories that staff and students at the College have to tell about their time at Newham and the ways in which the College supports learners to achieve their goals. We carried out over 20 interviews with members of the College’s community, which allowed us to develop a suite of stories to suit media aligned with the College’s communications priorities – including local London press, specialist community titles and national media. In addition, we kept an eye on education policy debates being covered by the media to make sure that Newham’s approach was identified as addressing timely concerns.
Thanks to this, we secured coverage across a range of titles including the Newham Recorder, Huffpost UK and the Voice; and an extended feature on Times Radio on the day that A Level results were published.
The quality of case studies has provided an ongoing bank of engaging content for Newham college, for example one learner was nominated for and won the Greater London Authority Inspirational Adult Learner of the year award for 2022.