The Problem
Monteagle School in Dagenham are a client that we have now worked with for over 5 years. We were initially introduced to a failing and unpopular school with a reputation for failing to deliver a good education to children and an Ofsted rating of “Requires Improvement”.
The school had a new headteacher put in place by the local authority with a remit to turn it around. As one of the first stages of this process Epilog were commissioned to redesign the image of the school to mark a clear departure from the old, failing system and represent the new ambitions that were put in place for both pupils and teachers.
We are delighted to say that the new headteacher was an incredible success and for the first time in it's history the school now possesses the second highest rating that can be achieved for a school in the UK.
While we cannot claim credit for an uplift in educational standards - we do like to think that great design inspires children to achieve all of their potential!
The Approach
As part of the brief we did not have to create just one logo for Monteagle school, but instead we had to create three and, in what was a first for us (and still is to this day) we did not make the final choice in conjunction with the client but instead we put our design skills out to be judged by primary school children and their parents.
The idea of the vote was a concept developed by the new headteacher who wanted to bring a community together. The pupils and the teachers had been at odds for so long in the school that they no longer felt like they were on the same team and allowing them to vote on the logo that they felt best represented them was one of the first steps in bringing them back together.
Fortunately, the best logo won!
The logo that was successful in winning the public vote was the strongest logo of the three. It referenced the eagle that had been the traditional logo since the school’s inception but removed the aggression associated with the previous image.
The different colours give the deliberate impression of a phoenix rising from the flames and symbolising the school’s rebirth while the abstract nature made it much more contemporary and easy to fit on school uniforms.
Rebranding
Once the logo was finished Epilog also undertook a rebranding of the school prospectus to give the school an aspirational look and to make it feel like the sort of place that parents would be proud to send their children. The type of school where expectations were high and each child could achieve their full potential.
This new culture of achievement permeated through the school with a wide range of aspirational posters being developed including the "50 Things To Do Before 11 3/4" poster to show the kids all of the many things that they could do even at a very young age.
Further Design and Website Development
As time moved on we were developed further designs in order to chart the achievements that had been made within the school - from it's early days as a failing institution to it's current status as the most popular school in the area.
These graphics gave a visual representation of the progress made to parents, prospective parents and education professionals.
At the same time as the logo was commenced Epilog were also working on the development for a new website for the school. As with the logo rebrand this was done in order to establish a clear break with the failing past and to mark a pathway to a higher-achieving future.
When developing the website we worked hard to deliver a product that outperformed the websites of all of the other schools in the area. Where they had been developed merely to act as brochureware and to ensure compliance with government regulations we viewed the website as a window into the school and an opportunity for parents to use it to see how it was changing. In front of their eyes.
The Results
The website worked as a “news portal” to enable teachers to easily update what was happening within the classrooms on a daily basis from their tablets and mobile phones. This allowed parents to see a real-time look into what was happening with their children and it was a huge success.
Once the new site was implemented it saw visitor rates increase by over 1000% over the first year and during the last four years there have been more than 1.5 million page views on the site and 76,000 visitors.