We recently visited Harris Academy Orpington, part of the Harris Federation who have over 50 schools and over five and a half thousand members of staff across the country. We caught up with Jodie Austin, PA to the Headteacher at Harris Academy Orpington, who also has the role of keeping the digital signage screens up to date with TrilbyTV.
We found out why digital signage is beneficial to their school and how TrilbyTV was first introduced,
“We have had multiple screens around the school for a couple of years now, the screens get information out there, so you can communicate to parents, students and staff. It’s a point of interest and it’s a way to give out real time information. Before having TrilbyTV it took a lot of work to upload something, having TrilbyTV has made everything much smoother and so much more efficient.”
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Being able to share information out across your school as and when you need to is a key part of utilising your digital signage, Jodie told us,
“I do love the announcements feature, it’s made things a lot easier. I can go and quickly put an announcement out and it’s done instantaneously. Also, if we’ve got an event that’s happening but it’s only for one day you can schedule it in a way that it doesn’t impact a huge chunk of time. With a few clicks of a button I can go in, add a slide, change the time settings and I don’t have to worry about it, because it’ll go up when it’s supposed to and it’ll come down when it’s meant to and then everything reverts back.”
“Showing content is also great for parents’ evenings, open evenings and when we’ve got the new starters coming in. When visitors come into reception the first thing they see is how great our school is, showcased along with all the information they need’. It also has all the key points of interest that staff and students need for that week, that term or here’s the trips that are happening.”
Utilising TrilbyTV’s features
We also discussed how several features on TrilbyTV can be useful to enable different forms of communication,
“We have our social media sites, our website and a lot of information goes out on that. For some parents that’s probably not the first place they’d look so a lot of the content is in-house. If there’s events going on, or if we’ve got art exhibitions happening for example we’ve got a great way of telling everyone what’s on, come and join us.”
“When TrilbyTV’s Customer Success Manager, Tom was teaching me how all of this runs, he showed me this great feature where you can actually share content live to the parents and they’ll see what’s on the screen, it looked fantastic. It’ll be a wonderful tool to use in order to reach parents that perhaps don’t come here on a regular basis, but they can still see what’s happening.”
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“Using the screens to interact and engage is a good way to send out important information. Newsletters are wonderful, they have their place but in today’s digital age I found using content on the screens is more beneficial because it’s easily consumed. You can create a 30 second slideshow that’s going to give you more information than reading a ten page booklet. Changing things in real time was also a huge thing for me, previously when I used to have to wait weeks to get a timetable changed on screen, it was a real surreal moment, when I thought ‘wow this is incredible, how have we not done this before’?”
Setting up & onboarding
“When I did the onboarding with Tom it was so much more straightforward than I ever imagined it would have been. During the session Tom was showing me examples and saying ‘try this, just add this bit and if you don’t like it you can take it off and here’s how you can do an announcement’. Tom gave me the reassurance and confidence I didn’t realise I needed until I’d done it.”
“Onboarding is definitely beneficial, it was probably one of the best half hours I’ve ever spent because Tom was great, very professional but really approachable and friendly. Tom explained that the session is there to make my life easier, I was sent an email after the session with all of the links and any training info I might need, along with some examples and how I could use it. I was really glad I did, it was 100% worth it. If I ever had any issues I’d have no problem just emailing and asking Tom ‘do you think you could help me with this?’ because I know 100% that he would. The platform is easy to use without it but if you have the onboarding sessions, things will infinitely be better for you.”
Inform, engage & inspire
Jodie then told us about the key things that make digital signage so important,
“Digital signage should be there to inform, engage and to inspire. I thought about it long and hard, it has to be informative and it needs to be inspiring because we’re creating little leaders. They have to know what we’re about and who we are as a school and this is who we’re encouraging them to be. For them to grow and pursue what they want out of life, their dreams, hopes and their aspirations. They need to see it from us as role models.”
“Engagement is key across the board. If you’ve got a good community base across staff, the students and their families, if we are a whole Academy community then the parents know that we’re going to work our hardest to make sure that these little leaders of the future are going to be the best well-rounded individuals. We want them to feel like they are going to come out of school knowing that they’ve achieved their absolute greatest. No matter what it is that they want to do, they’re going to set their mind to it and go on to do great things.”
“It might just seem like a really small drop in the ocean, to put an inspirational quote on the TV. But when they walk past that quote it could be something that changes their whole day or their whole perspective. I think it humanises the school and it shows that we care and we want the best for them.”
“Putting something as small as a quote on a screen, a picture of us having fun at an award ceremony, or on a school trip. Bringing us all together and celebrating our school, it feeds in perfectly to our whole motto ‘Together we can’. I think it makes all the kids feel like actually we’re involved in something special, this isn’t just a moment, it’s a movement, it’s an ongoing thing and we can all change, adapt, grow, improve and overcome.”
Ease of use
Finally Jodie told told us about how using digital signage around the school has made communication across the school more straightforward,
“It’s made things a lot easier. The running of the school is smoother, because everything fits and it flows. It’s made communication better across the board, part of the instant gratification of this is what we’re supposed to be doing. I would 100% recommend TrilbyTV, for customer service, the conversations that we have and the open communication. The whole platform is making my job a million times easier than it ever was before.”
“It’s been a great experience, the onboarding by Tom with the demonstration of capabilities was hugely beneficial and opened up further avenues of engagement and opportunity for parents and staff. It was a fairly new venture and it’s going to open up a whole World of possibilities within departments in different areas and it’ll be fantastic. Once we can roll it out across all the heads of departments I think it’s going to be wonderful. I would 100% recommend TrilbyTV, over and over again it’s the easiest decision ever.”
It was great chatting with Jodie, hearing about the amazing work they have achieved and to see the impact TrilbyTV has had at Harris Academy Orpington. If you’re interested in seeing how digital signage can make a difference to your school, sign up for a free demo or try TrilbyTV out with a 30 day trial.