27/02/2009 by Tony Attwood.

We’ve commented before on some of the tricks that people play at the edges of the education marketing industry.  I wonder if there isn’t a new scam lurking around.

I was talking yesterday with a potential customer of ours, and in the meeting it was mentioned that this company had purchased a CD of school addresses, emails and the like for around £100.   Upon examination it was found that the list contained many non-school addresses, and that the list was horribly inaccurate and incomplete.

Some years ago I actually tried out the list in question, and when I got the CD it had a note telling me that my anti-virus might give a warning - but this was an error by the anti-virus, and there was nothing wrong with the CD!!!   McAfee had their home site listed as a major source of spam and attempts to take over computers remotely.  (I tend to believe my anti-virus rather than a product).

I’ve just been sent another promotion of this nature from a different company.  It says they are offering a UK telephone verified list of School, Higher and Further Education database with contacts with email, telephone, postal address and key contact name for just over £100.   And it was all verified in the last 14 days.

Now I have to say quite clearly that I have not seen this firm’s data, nor do I know anything about them.  All I have done is gone to their web site, and got this entertaining message back…

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

Which didn’t give me much confidence.  (On the other hand last week the HHM sites all went down for a few hours due to a server problem - so I can’t shout too loudly).

I think the key question however is this: is it possible to verify 30,000 names, addresses and emails in 14 days, and then sell the list for eternal use for just over £100?   Even if the idea is that there are a lot of firms who would buy this data irrespective of the fact that it looks too good to be true, the fact is that there is another company out there already selling just such a disk for an even cheaper price.

If you still think it is possible, think of this.  It would take 142 weeks for one person to do this research - so there is quite a team working on it - and all that research cost has to be reclaimed in the price of the CD.

Let me stress, this is all speculation - I have no insights into the company and maybe there is something wrong in my figures, or maybe they have a way of doing this that I can’t imagine.   But…

Disks like this are appearing all over the place, and we have to look at the implication.

Here’s my thoughts - not on this specific offer, but on such offers in general…

a) For the supplier there has to be a lot of sales to cope with this level of research - which means they have to be a fairly substantial company to do this.  Obviously it is a good idea to make sure this is true.

b) Sending emails to people who should not receive them never does your company image any good - and can be illegal if there are some home addresses there (as I saw on one database), so beware of any email list you buy.

c) If there is something nasty on the CD you buy, you might find your computer system is taken over.

d) Even if the list is fine when you get it, and the company has a way of undertaking the research for a fraction of the normal price, it will go out of date very quickly.   Once 5% of the addresses are wrong, then the loss in your postage costs outweighs the savings made on the list.

e) If by any chance the disk is made up of someone else’s copyright material, you can find yourself being sued.  We have had a couple of cases of this, where HHM data has turned up on other people’s lists, and we have taken up the issue - our argument being that it is the duty of the purchaser to ensure that the data they are getting is owned by the firm selling it to them.  It is a “buyer beware” situation - and although we try and act sympathetically, we can’t condone the use of our data bought from another firm that didn’t have the rights to it in the first place.

Of course I am biased - I work for a company that sells addresses and emails for much higher prices than those quoted for the disks, and of course everyone makes their own decisions.  In the end, all I am saying is that this is a case that seems too good to be true - and most “too good to be true” cases are usually just that.

Tony Attwood

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

20/02/2009 by Tony Attwood.

The new National Body of Youth Leadership (NBYL) has now started. Beverley Hughes Minister for Children and Young People has unveiled the seven successful organisations awarded the contract to make up the NBYL.

By 2018 the Government wants to “help more young people to unlock their leadership potential, particularly those in the most disadvantaged, under-represented groups and communities,” according to their press release. 

The following organisations have been appointed to deliver the National Body for Youth Leadership: National Youth Agency (NYA); Changemakers;

The Young Foundation; The Citizenship Foundation; British Youth Council,

The Princes Trust; and the UK Youth Parliament.

The NBYL will deliver a diverse offer to young people looking to develop their leadership, confidence and self esteem. This will include day long shadowing opportunities with Ministers; week long internships with local leaders and a fellowship programme offering young people the chance to develop their leadership skills in a range of settings, enabling them to act as role models and mentors to their peers.

Children and Young People’s Minister Beverley Hughes said:

“Inspiring young people to take on a leadership role is not as simple as telling them that they should become a leader. We have to provide support and real opportunities - this is what the National Body of Youth Leadership will do.

“The consortium comprise seven experienced, organisations that can make sure that young people can expect to be taken seriously and be introduced to leadership roles where they can make a real difference.”

The leadership body’s activities have been developed with Communities and Local Government as part of its work to get more young people interested in politics, increase their understanding of the way democracy works and increase the influence young people have over policies both national and local.

For more details on the National Body for Youth Leadership please visit http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/youthmatters/

To receive regular information about marketing to schools just send an email to education-marketing-subscribe@yahoogroups.com   There’s no charge, and you can leave the daily news service at any time.

Tony

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

18/02/2009 by Tony Attwood.

The new Scottish curriculum, ”Curriculum for Excellence”, is now expected to be introduced in summer 2014.   An extra in-service day is to be added to the five days that currently exist in Scotland, in order to help with the implementation of the new curriculum.

The Education Secretary in the Scottish Assembly, Ms Hyslop, said,

“Curriculum for Excellence is about far more than just the content of the curriculum and extends well beyond schools. The impact of this change will be far-reaching. It is not a centralised or top-down initiative. To achieve these ambitious goals effectively, teachers need support and challenge from all concerned, including parents, employers, further and higher education, local authorities, HMIE and the Scottish Government.

“Curriculum for Excellence must be implemented properly and with confidence to achieve a quality reform so that all children are given the best foundations in school for learning.”

Curriculum for Excellence aims to provide seamless education from age three to 18 and is taking a fresh look at what is taught in schools and how. School pupils are already seeing changes in their classrooms through the groundwork that has been ongoing since 2004. The draft outcomes provide further tools for teachers. The plans are being firmed up in this school year and in 2009-2010 all schools across Scotland will be working on delivery.

The aims of the new curriculum and qualifications are to:

Return professional autonomy and engender greater responsibility of teachers for the learning and teaching which takes place in their classroom.

    * Encourage breadth of experience throughout education
* Reduce over-assessment providing more time for quality teaching and learning.
* Teaching and learning to draw out the strengths of each pupil with more personalised learning
* Greater coherence and progression of education supported by the qualifications system
* Literacy and numeracy embedded at all stages and for the first time under devolution the requirement for all teachers of all subjects in all stages to be responsible for literacy and numeracy
* A progressive educational experience with a greater focus on skills for learning, skills for life and skills for work

The consultation focused on four areas:

    * Introduction of new awards in literacy and numeracy.
* Introduction of a new general qualification to replace Standard Grade (General and Credit) and Intermediate 1 and 2. Standard Grade Foundation would be removed.
* Retention of Access, Highers and Advanced Highers with a review of the content of all National Qualifications to ensure consistency with Curriculum for Excellence.
* Provide a range of opportunities to meet the needs of all young people

The consultation on the new qualifications closed in October when the Cabinet Secretary announced there would be a shift in the start of the revised qualification system by one year to ensure that teachers would have more opportunity to develop quality preparation for its delivery.

There is now a curriculum for excellene web site at …

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/curriculumforexcellence/

To receive regular updates on education marketing news just send an email to education-marketing-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings plc reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB.  Phone 01536 399 000.

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

16/02/2009 by Tony Attwood.

Some of the schools that have been called failing and which have been told they might be closed have now been told that they will get very little money to help them recover. 

£400m was set up for the 631 schools that didn’t get 30% of pupils through five GCSE’s with A star to C including English and maths, and some have received none so far.  Some will only get a few thousand pounds.  

Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats through a parliamentary question reveal that under the programme one school, Robert Napier in Medway, got £5,000. Another 21 got £8,000 and 75 less than £25,000 - about enough for one extra classroom teacher. The average extra is £87,000, the highest being £352,000 for the King Harold School in Essex.

While the government says each school is evaluated by its needs, heads are saying that a school threatened with closure cannot be turned around for smallish sums of money.   Worse many schools say that since they have been named by the government they have lost pupils – and thus lost more money.  But since schools spend 75% of their income on salaries outgoings remain the same.

Liam Nolan, headteacher of Perry Beeches in Birmingham, the fastest improving school in the past year, told the Guardian: “I’ve not received a penny even though National Challenge was announced a year ago. We’ve been named and expected to change things with no support. That’s not acceptable. We live with the title of National Challenge without the support mechanisms to change that position.”

A DCSF spokesperson said: “A high proportion [of named schools] are already making good progress and do not require as much funding and support as others in more challenging circumstances.

“But the support goes much further than simply giving additional funding. In each case we have built a ‘team around the school’ to get behind schools’ efforts. Schools that we and the local authority have identified with the greatest needs are receiving more intensive support.”

A list of the schools selected by amount of the award is avialble from Hamilton House.  Please call 01536 399 000

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

11/02/2009 by Tony Attwood.

Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls today announced that 75 sports colleges will share over £21 million to improve their facilities. This funding will ensure sports pitches can be used in the evening and through the winter with flood lights, artificial turf and new tented style sports halls.

Speaking at the 2009 Sports Colleges Conference in Telford, Ed Balls said: “2008 will always be remembered as a fantastic year for sport. We all enjoyed the remarkable achievements by Team GB at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing. But it was also a remarkable year for sports colleges, PE and school sport. “Once again sports colleges were the fastest improving specialist school network in terms of GCSE passes. Sports colleges are also leading the way, helping to increase the number of children and young people getting 2 hours of PE and sport every week – 250,000 more 5-16 year olds than this time last year.“There is still a long way to go if we are going to achieve our ambition of 5 hours of PE and sport per week. But our ambition is to turn best practice into common practice. I know that sports colleges will help us get there and I hope that together we can inspire others with National Sport Week this Summer.“I am delighted to announce that our massive investment in school sport continues today with a further £21 million to be shared between 75 sports colleges. I know that this investment will make a real difference across the country.”
1 The 2009 Sports Colleges Conference has been organised by the Youth Sport Trust.

2 National Sport Week will be w/c 29 June 2009.3 Here is a list of the 75 projects (please note Artificial Turf Pitch is abbreviated to ATP) [click here for table]

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

07/02/2009 by Tony Attwood.

It is a central part of the research from the psychology of perception that the placement of images on an advertising page needs to be handled with great care.  While text is generally perceived by the left hemisphere of the brain, the image is generally seen on the right, and given the limited amount of interaction that there is between the two halves of the brain, putting text and pictures next to each other can put off all but the most committed reader.

Now there is new evidence that the unwillingness to give time to adverts where images and text knock up against each other is related to age.

Let me add another caveat first, however.  We are talking here about the readership of advertising material by people who are not immediately drawn to the subject matter.  Consider the advert you receive which maybe relates to you in general - but is not of instant specific interest.  (For example, a music teacher receives an advert about GCSE music books.  That’s fine - although if he is not thinking of buying any more books, feeling his GCSE resources are ok, it is not of direct interest to him.)

It seems that people of more mature years (for example your average heads of department) find the close juxtaposition of image and text even more off putting than those of younger years - and they find it hard enough to focus with ads of this type.

Older buyers prefer single-image advertisements over ads with multi-image collages by a margin of 66% to 34%,  according to a recent image-preference survey by Creating Results (http://www.creatingresults.com/) .

Their Photo Finish study set out to look at which type of photography is most effective when advertising to those aged 40 plus.  What they discovered was not just the expected difference in preference of photographs, but in the responsiveness to pictures overall - a finding that fits totally with the earlier findings from the psychology perception.  

Interestingly while the separation of picture from text always improves response rates among less committed readers this effect is enhanced even further with older readers.

This article comes from a series of pieces on the way in which we perceive advertisements affects our response to them.  The full series is available on www.theory.bz

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »