We recently visited Chipping Campden School, a non-selective Secondary Academy in Gloucestershire and caught up with Rhys Froggatt, Assistant Principal with responsibility for systems and operations and Laurence Iles, Senior Theatre Technician. With quite a unique set up we were keen to learn more about the impact of TrilbyTV across the school site and how it came to be used at Cidermill Theatre, set within the school grounds.
Rhys explained how it’s an interesting dynamic as they have the commercial side and a school side. Having had ambitions for the last 20 years to drive forward with performing arts and with a huge performing arts base in Chipping Campden, there was a real focus to steer the school towards this direction. As part of that they had an opportunity to raise some funds and create this state of the art building.
During the day the theatre is predominantly occupied by the school, which is a fantastic environment that truly showcases the talent within the school. This gives a great expectation for the children growing up, with what the world can look like in theatre and performing arts, with recent performances such as their Remembrance Concert. In the evening, weekends and school holidays the theatre opens to the public and they have a professional program that operates. Heading into panto season it was great to see how TrilbyTV is used within the foyer to advertise upcoming performances.
Technical Manager, Laurence explains how they use TrilbyTV to advertise upcoming shows, including using the countdown clock to build momentum for the upcoming pantomime.
“We also have the count down for some shows so it counts down as those people are in here so they can have a visual. You can see when the show’s about to start and they need to get into the theatre instead of just relying on front house calls and then also we’ve got the clock that comes up which is useful to see the time. We also have social media and whatever bar stuff we’ve got on so there’s Shakespeare distillery and Hawkstone, two big ones that they want us to screen shout about at the bar.”
Whilst TrilbyTV is a digital signage platform made for education and used extensively across Chipping Campden School, Rhys quickly saw how it could be used on the commercial side within the theatre, due to its ease of use and competitive price point.
Rhys explained how they have had digital signage at Chipping Campden School for around 15 years. Initially using another product on Raspberry Pi and Android players the interface was difficult and their legacy solution became unmanageable as things moved cloud based. Rhys told us “The autonomy was lost and then became one person’s problem and it never got updated and screens started getting turned off because they were fed up of seeing the same old thing.”
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Rhys visited the TrilbyTV stand at Bett and later on whilst visiting RGS Worcester, spotted their impactful content celebrating the student’s work. RGS shared how they give ownership to their departments and this resonated with the vision that Rhys wanted to achieve at Chipping Campden School.
Rhys shared, “That’s exactly what I want to do and then I found out the price I thought I’ve got to give this a go. So we bought a load of Firesticks and brought the licence and we’ve been the way with it ever since. It’s just so easy that we just get on with it. Taking this vision back to school and having the autonomy to research and find the right solution “that’s really affordable for schools and a really simple solution that doesn’t mean I’ve got a rewire thing, it was a no brainer.”
Effective communication
It was great to see TrilbyTV being used around the school site alongside traditional displays. Rhys talked passionately about their digital transformation and reliance on technology as an iPad school. “Technology is relied upon and this fits in that area where we need communication, we need to be able to respond quickly and not run around with a big pot of Blu Tack and A3 paper.”
Consistent messaging and branding
Chipping Campden School takes great pride in their achievements and expectations and this was evident in their digital signage content. As part of the launch of the theatre, a graphic designer was involved who came up with the logo and branding which has rippled out through to the school. Making use of the branding toolkit in Canva they embrace the consistency of the brand guidelines to deliver a professional look and feel to their whole school communication. Rhys explained,
“It’s taken us a couple of years to actually get people to know it’s not going on [the screens] unless it looks right. Whereas before it was like we’ll cobble something together and bang it out. No, we’ve got brand guidelines and it has to be followed so things look right.”
Utilising Canva
Using Canva for content creation not only helps the school deliver consistent messaging in their digital communication but also helps them to create a positive learning space. Rhys shared a favourite feature of using TrilbyTV, this being the ability to use Canva live embed. Much like Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint 365, Canva creations can be added to TrilbyTV via web content, allowing edits to be made to your content without needing to make changes on TrilbyTV. Passionate about using Canva’s eye-catching graphics to create the best impression, Rhys also takes the lead with content management of TrilbyTV. Simply asking staff to provide the embed code they can quickly and easily add colleagues’ content, meaning they don’t need to log in to TrilbyTV to make any tweaks or updates.
Celebrating students work
It’s clear that consistent branding and setting high expectations contributes to helping to create a positive mentality throughout the school. Rhys explained how they’ve built this into a set of values, how they have some incredibly talented students and the need for this to be celebrated. “It’s helped communication, it’s allowed us to showcase things.”
TrilbyTV provides the perfect platform to share and showcase those celebrations with their Principal, recently using Canva to create a work of the week celebration to be shared on TrilbyTV throughout the school.
Tailored content
Rhys went on to tell us how TrilbyTV helps them to deliver their key messages using Playlists, they can ensure that this forms part of their core messaging. Helping core information be shared with parents, staff and students, they use TrilbyTV to deliver their key messages, vision, value and motto so everyone is united in what they are trying to achieve.
Sharing audience specific content
Using Playlists they tailor content to their specific audience. “For parents obviously the main reception TV is the one that they see the most as they’re coming in and that does have a slightly different playlist to it. So that is sort of aimed at the parents but it’s great that we can target individual screens to create individual playlists.” Chipping Campden School makes full use of our Unlimited screen subscription to ensure their digital signage runs seamlessly throughout the school. Rhys shared how they use directional signage during events which has been instrumental in their digital transformation and move away from print and paper.
“Last week we held the sixth form open evening and we had the sixth form brand running through the whole school reminding people what time talks are on, where they get refreshments and where the toilets are. It all sounds quite basic stuff but we’ve been putting that on bits of paper and Blu Tack and now we don’t have to. We’ve got it there on TrilbyTV and I can remember to do it five seconds before the doors open.”
Removing the pressure from IT
As a large school of 1500 students, 150 staff and being an iPad school with nearly 2000 devices, removing any unnecessary stress and burden on the IT department is important. Rhys told us that he keeps hands-on with tech, IT doesn’t have much to do with TrilbyTV and if he can take a little back off them, then it’s a positive as he understands the stress on a busy, small department. Again, fitting with their profile of being cloud based and removing any need for servers was crucial in their decision to move to TrilbyTV.
Future plans
Having been pioneering digital signage for the last 15 years, Rhys told us how it’s been easy and low cost to grow their digital signage estate. Looking ahead they’d like to upgrade some of their existing TVs to larger displays. Also, following suit with the portrait displays in the theatre this has given the school inspiration for creating and sharing content in portrait format. As the school and theatre are set within a conservation area they are considering options for having an outdoor screen ideally positioned outside the theatre to promote the theatre as a venue space.
It was a pleasure to catch up with Rhys and Laurence and see how TrilbyTV is used across the school, within their commercial enterprise and the impact this has on their different audiences. If you’d like to find out more about how TrilbyTV could improve communication at your school or trust, you can book a free demo with one of our digital signage experts. If you’d like to try it out, you can also sign up for a free, fully functional 30 day trial.