The Discovery Academy is based in Stoke on Trent and are part of the Alpha Academies Trust. Upon entering we were greeted by Digital Systems and Marketing Manager, Alex Lynch and Web Developer & Social Media Officer, Sven Lyus. The reception entrance had an eye-catching portrait screen showcasing the board of governors, along with posters promoting upcoming events.
Making an impact with key messaging
“The vertical screens in every entrance of each school is to push the trust’s message out centrally.” Alex told us, looking back at the screen. He continued, “each individual school has their own board of governors, we found that replacing a board when a governor left was quite costly and digital signage was a far more cost effective way of keeping things up to date.”
The schools within the trust had originally used an alternative software solution as Alex explained,
“When I first came to the trust the system in place was very dated and the players were very slow, it was very hard to use. Looking around, a lot of the systems seemed very complex, especially for a school but then we came across TrilbyTV and liked that it was specifically made for education. After a free demo we found it really engaging, simple to set up and easy to manage.”
Book a TrilbyTV Demo
Book free DemoSven added, “The management aspect was such a vital aspect for us, being in IT we have so much going on, we can’t spend a lot of time on it. So we needed a system that was quick and easy to upload content and not spend lots of time managing it. The price was also fantastic, with the Multisite Licence, being able to add more schools onto this is very cost effective.”
Creating engaging content
The Discovery Academy uses a wide range of content, from posters created on Canva to menus made on Google Slides, they are really using content that will engage and impact. Walking around the school we could see resources from TrilbyTV’s premade Content Catalogue showing on screens, including; WWF, Childnet, FuseSchool and Mr Bee. All that you have to do is click a couple of times and the content’s playing on the screens! One big hit has been book recommendations for the Library,
“We asked the children, what content would you like to see? We also worked with TrilbyTV’s Customer Success Manager, Tom who really helped us get up to speed”, Alex told us. “We have content that is specific for subjects in certain areas, we also target high traffic areas. We love the Notice’s to keep pupils up to date with events, also the Announce App is fantastic, we have a warning system called “Code Z”, if there’s a danger to the site we can put an announcement on all of the screens.”
Alex summed up The Discovery Academy’s experience with TrilbyTV by saying, “It’s so simple to view from an IT management point of view – the fact that you can upload and tag to a category is fantastic. Having a system that can turn on and off using the timer plugs is very handy too, we love it! The system runs a lot more smoothly than all of the other systems we tried and it was better quality for sure. Compared to other digital signage systems, TrilbyTV was the most versatile for us to use. We utilised some hardware that we already had and made it work, TrilbyTV saved us a lot of money and was easy to get it up and running from the outset.”
It was great to catch up with Alex and Sven and hear about their TrilbyTV journey so far. If you are interested in finding out more about our digital signage platform made for education then book a free demo session with us. You can even try out TrilbyTV by signing up for a 30-day free trial complete with support and enough time to see how it works for yourself.