The team at CC reflects on some personal seasonal highlights from 2020…

Winter

Sophie Baillie, PR & Marketing Director:

“Reflecting back to January, before COVID-19 took over our lives, the type of activities we were delivering for our clients was quite different to some of the work that we produce today. Bett Show 2020 was the last major face to face conference and exhibition that I attended to support our client, the International Baccalaureate, and what a show it was! I always love kickstarting the year with Bett Show; it gives me the opportunity to see my wonderful clients, who are based in The Hague, and meet educators from all over the world. I was extremely proud to see all our hard work come to fruition; from designing the exhibition stand to arranging media interviews and organising on-stand filming, it was a jam-packed three days! As we approach 2021, I am sad that we won’t have the January Bett Show “buzz” but know that we will make 2022 the best yet.”

Spring

Alison Taylor, Managing Director:

“In the middle of our first UK lockdown, we were thrilled to start working with our good friend Jon Halligan – previously with the International Baccalaureate – the visionary founder and Director of Schools at the innovative international education group VIE Education, with its new Montreux International School and Neuchatel International School. VIE has a vision for industry-related education, with a unique blended learning approach including hands-on industry experience, that is future ready. It’s always a proud moment when a previous client comes back for more of our team’s brilliance!”

Al Beeson, Senior Designer:

“For the design team, spring started with a full design programme for Impington Village College and its sixth form, Impington International College, which included designing and building two DfE compliant websites, a full suite of marketing collateral (including prospectuses) and stationery and print and digital advertising artwork. In order to differentiate the sixth form from the main college and give it a more grown up feel, we completed a brand refresh that introduced a new colour way and heroes its international focus.”

Joanna Colley, Senior PR and Marketing Manager:

“Quality education is something that all members of the CC team are passionate about and we were absolutely delighted to start our programme with ACS International Schools earlier this year. With three UK campuses, as well as one in Doha, there is always plenty of incredible work and exciting stories for us to shout about. I’ve personally enjoyed getting to know the different personalities across the schools – from students and alumni, to marketing and events staff, to the truly impressive teachers and school leaders.”

Summer

Blessing Raimi, Junior Content Designer:

“It felt as though I had come full circle this summer, as the first project that I completed upon starting at Conscious Communications was the Cottenham Village College prospectus. This summer, I worked on updating the prospectus again as well as a range of other prospectuses and brochures for various schools and colleges, including Impington Village College, Impington International College, Witchford Village College and Montreux International School. It gave me much more insight into working on large scale documents, preparing them for print, applying the branding and assets across print and digital material and also choosing the best layouts and imagery to best represent these organisations. This also went hand in hand with other branding peripherals I worked on which aligned with the prospectus designs.”

George Pickford, PR & Marketing Executive:

With summer came my first experience of working alongside the British Nutrition Foundation on its annual Healthy Eating Week project; in which schools and workplaces participated in a range of activities and challenges all based around educating and encouraging healthy eating habits. A large focus of our work was directed at promoting and correctly informing the media and public on what Healthy Eating Week is, and what is involved for schools and workplaces taking part.

I thoroughly enjoyed working on this project and it allowed me to see the fantastic and inspiring results that can be achieved when working hard on a campaign with such a positive message. In particular, I am fond of the closely knit, internal teamwork that went into this, and, as a bonus, I learnt a host of new information on health and nutrition myself!”

Autumn

Zoë Scorer, Director:

“In November we were thrilled to be announced as the winner of The Social Responsibility Award (up to 249 employees) in the Investors in People Awards 2020. Each and every member of our team has worked very hard to deliver on our promise – to do good while doing well. We invest all of our profit into our people and into the community, while also giving 1/3 of our time to charitable causes and working in the community with disadvantaged people. Our team truly deserves this recognition for their commitment and determination to helping make the world a better place and has given us the motivation to push even harder in the coming year to deliver life changing positive impact.”

Ali White, PR and Marketing Director:

“Autumn is always an incredibly busy time for our education clients as new terms start, and this year was no exception as many schools returned to face-to-face teaching for the first time since lockdown started in March. We kicked off the season working with a new client, Eastern Learning Alliance (ELA), a new multi-academy trust with schools across East Anglia. ELA came to be following the merger of two existing successful trusts, combining to create a new purposeful family of schools. To get started we supported with the strategy and brand development for the Trust, kicking off a successful public launch at the start of October, and have since developed a strong programme of public relations, advertising, and digital marketing to support the Trust’s schools and to gain recognition for the Trust as a whole. It’s an exciting time to be working with such a dynamic new MAT, as its planned expansion for the year ahead starts to take shape, we’re looking forward to supporting the team on the journey.”

Debra Fisher, PR and Marketing Manager:

“In November we hosted a successful webinar event with our client, ACS International School Cobham. In a time when event formats have changed significantly it was wonderful to be involved with an event that was engaging and open for audience questions. Our speakers, Sian Sutherland, co-founder of A Plastic Planet, ACS Cobham alumna Sissel Tønnesen Engblom and ACS Forest School Trainer Chris Hupp, shared some fascinating insights on what it meant to them to be adventurers and why it’s important to make changes now to benefit the future.”