The well-known advertising slogan, 'Just Do It' doesn't really work when it comes to organising a school event.

A simple communications plan will help ensure you not only generate awareness of Education Week activities in your school, but that you have a thought-through process to bring this year's theme to life by engaging students, creating conversations with teachers and parents/carers, and connecting with the wider community.

We have brought together some resources and tips for planning your communications and event strategy.

Five steps to a planning a successful Education Week event

Ask who, what, when, where and why

• What kind of event are you holding? (debate, morning tea, display).
• Where are you holding the event? (school, park, online).
• When is the event?
• Who will be involved?
• Why are we holding this event and what do we hope to achieve?

Plan

• Plan and allocate resources.
• Organise a timetable, both for the event organisers and for the day.
• Sometimes, things can go wrong! Do you have ‘Plan B’? (e.g. what if rains and the event is held outside, or a speaker cancels at the last minute?).

Communication and promotion

• Let your regional media officer know what you are doing (if it warrants media attention) and send through some photos and a report of your event afterwards.
• Promote your event on social media (be sure to use the hashtags #EdWeek20 and #Learningtogether). Check out our Social media toolkit for more advice.
• Pitch your event to your local media outlets (see our Tips to attract local media for advice, as well as a media release template).

How did it go?

• Evaluate the event afterwards and look for possible ways to promote its success.
• We’re also really interested in hearing about how your event went, so do please send us a summary and pictures to educationweek@det.nsw.gov.au.

Resources

• You may like to use this strategic communications template series to plan your own Education Week activities.