A School Video is Worth a Thousand Pictures
“A picture is worth a thousand words……..and a video is worth a thousand pictures!”
― Ankala V Subbarao
One of our previous blogs looked at the power of photography on a school website. After all, a picture paints a thousand words. But now we want to look at the difference a school video can make to your website.
There are two main ways video can be incorporated into your website, which we will cover with examples, but what is included in your video is totally up to you.
A full screen background video can be an eye catching first impression for website visitors. Often incorporating drone footage, it can show your building, grounds, and place in the local community. Typically these videos are without sound.
Talking heads videos can also introduce the school but in addition provide the views of any members of your school community – senior leaders, teachers, students, parents and/or governors.
Footage of lessons and sporting/music events can show the wide range of opportunities your curriculum offers. You can also show off your facilities – whether that’s tennis courts and a swimming pool, or simply a snug and comfy library.
Below we take a look at some examples of Greenhouse websites which feature video footage.
Sandroyd
The Sandroyd School website opens with video footage auto-played full screen as the background. Boarding schools incorporate so much more than daytime lessons that a video such as this gives a real sense of what life is like for day and boarding students at the school, of all ages. As well as impressive buildings shown in the drone footage, we see lots of simple school transactions which are part of every standard day in any school – lesson time (some impressive and exciting science but also a simple writing task), dining together (also showing the standard of the meal alongside dinner table talk), playtimes, a stroll with the little ones, and then some not-so-ordinary activities on offer such as mountain biking and horse riding. Not every school will have the same facilities or opportunities on offer, but every school can use the same video techniques to show off their best features and show the relationships across the school alongside learning taking place.
Cottesmore School
https://www.cottesmoreschool.com/
Cottesmore School is also a boarding school and has incredibly impressive grounds which only this drone footage can really capture fully to appreciate the scale of what is on offer. We see in this video a real focus on sports which take place across a range of courts, fields, and even a lake! Whilst the scenery is breathtaking it is the overlaid tag line of “A country boarding school for pupils aged 4 to 13” which brings us back to what we are looking at – a school which makes the most of the situation and facilities it has and wants to convey a specialism. Your school may not boast similar grounds but every school has a unique perspective to put across and a video can do that for your school, no matter what your buildings are like, as it is the pupils and their activities which matter alongside the school ethos.
Shirehampton Primary School
http://www.shirehamptonprimary.org/
Shirehampton Primary have chosen to have an embedded video on their homepage, rather than have the video as a background to the site. This works well for this video as it contains text and music alongside snippets of talking. No drone footage here, and the lake is noticeably absent!, but we see a vibrant school community taking part in a range of lessons which are engaging every child. The overlay of the Ofsted report quotes help to put this in context and show us that what we see is not a one-off. These are pupils who enjoy their school – and it looks like the teachers love working there too so this video is not just a “sell” to parents but also to prospective staff you wish to attract.
Five Acres Primary School
Last, but absolutely not least, is another embedded video on the homepage. This time it has been created in-house by the school itself – and specifically by the pupils. This video is not of a “professional standard” as per the others but is another great way to show your school at its best. The pupil view is so vital in this video – they talk about all the aspects us adults sometimes forget to explain but which are so important to them – the yearly events such as Harvest and Easter, disco times and the all-important breakfast club. We see that students are happy at school, have a range of opportunities in lessons and after-school clubs, attend Forest School lessons, and have vital classes such as cycling proficiency. Students are also able to explain their work and editing their writing and other elements of schooling which are so important to them.
Whether you want to embed your own videos produced in school or by us, or want us to create a stunning background video for your school with drone footage alongside high quality videography, please just get in touch to find out more about the difference video could make to your school website.
