Melksham Oak House System Relaunch

In September 2022, Melksham Oak Community School, a mixed secondary school and sixth form in Wiltshire, decided to relaunch its school house system. Four houses previously existed in the school but there was little engagement with them from students and staff, and their profile really decreased during the pandemic. Vice Principal Will Ruscoe contacted Eduprise for their help in designing assets for four new houses that would be voted for by the students and ultimately lead to a relaunch in November 2022.

After an initial call to understand the process, Eduprise put together some initial concepts using primary colours and the school’s house crest logo, during which time students voted on the house names. Once these had been agreed by the senior leadership team, we were able to develop the design concepts further using the theme the school had selected; RAF aeroplanes Hurricane, Lancaster, Spitfire and Wellington as a tribute to the nearby RAF Melksham.

Using Canva, we were able to create a suite of striking house logos by creating outlines of the aeroplanes and then adding them to the crest in a minimalist style that really brought them to life. We also created teardrop flags for events, presentation assets that could be shared on the school’s social media, and a design-reveal presentation that Eduprise delivered via its Crowdcast webinar platform to students shortly before half term.

Once the designs had been finalised, Eduprise created a content brief to publicise the launch of the new House system. This included engaging launch communications for social media channels, Twitter and Facebook, as well as a detailed press release that was uploaded to the school website and sent to the local press. Page views shot up markedly on the day it was added. The social media posts gained a reach of nearly 2000 people and the release was picked up by local news outlet, Bath and Wiltshire Parent, and shared on their Facebook page to over 5000 followers.

Melksham Oak had a call from Ofsted during the process and in their report, which after being rated as ‘Requiring Improvement’ in 2017, and has since been rated ‘Good’, the school was praised for its “growing culture of ambition and raised aspirations at the school”. Leaders were praised for having “established expectations and routines that help pupils to behave.” The newly branded House system has no doubt contributed to this, and staff and students are already feeling the benefits.

What They Said

Vice Principal Will Ruscoe commented: “Eduprise were so helpful in making such a successful launch to the house system. They listened to our ideas and came back with two or three suggestions for our branding of each house. Following student voice, suggested tweaks to the logos were quickly made. We were delighted with the support offered by Eduprise and many of our students, staff and parents have commented on how great the house logos look.” 

If your school is consistently performing well, but you aren’t able to turn that success into the local reputation you deserve, talk to us today about how we can get the word out.