School Stories Awards 2021 Winners
At Interactive Schools we promote telling your #SchoolStories in as many ways as possible, to share both accomplishments and daily life at your school with existing and prospective families. These #SchoolStories can be told in so many different ways: a school podcast, a blog, a video or even just a simple tweet. These awards celebrate this storytelling from schools, and how well they are able to promote their authenticity and school values within them, whilst also sparking an emotional connection.
We received almost 1000 entries from schools across the globe (highlighted below!) so our judging panel had their work cut out. Eventually the winners were decided on, and you can see these award-winning #SchoolStories below!
Best STEM Story
Congratulations to Covent & Stuart Hall for winning ‘Best STEM Story’. STEM subjects are often less documented, but they should be shouted about as we saw some amazing submissions from very talented schools! Irfan Latif, Principal at DLD College London, judged this category and thought that this entry was simply outstanding. The messaging was on point and the video was informative and well produced featuring two inspirational and passionate teachers - the children at this school are very lucky indeed!
Best Music Story
The 'Best Music Stories' were a delight to listen to, the talent level was exceptional. The winner of this category fought off tough competition with a sea shanty! If sea shanties are about creating a sense of community, this one deserves a standing ovation, we couldn't help but sing along! Congratulations Headington... "Workin' at Home" has never been more fun!
Best Drama Story
We saw some truly amazing entries to this category and witnessed some very talented performances. The winning entry from The Windward School showed great creativity in overcoming the limitations of lockdown and included great storytelling - we were hooked from beginning to end! The students performed with great confidence, learning new skills along the way and we love that the students who chose not to perform still had important roles to play in post-production. Congratulations to The Windward School for an amazing entry!
Best Art Story
The judge for 'Best Art Story' was an obvious choice... our very own Creative Director, Tim Weaver! We saw some stunning entries to this category but in the end one entry stood out. This entry ticked so many boxes: not only was it presented in a creative way using Facebook's 360 functionality, it captured the community of the school in one really inspiring piece. It let students have unlimited creativity with the simple inspirational line of 'just make a mark and see where it takes you!'. Congratulations Westchester Country Day School!
Best Sport Story
Our 'Best Sport Story' was judged by Kerry Williams who is the amazing Head of Marketing at Handcross Park School. It was a tough contest in this category but ultimately one entry stood out to Kerry the most and had the edge above all others. Dubai English Speaking College submitted an absolutely beautiful video showcasing the sports available to students at their school. The choice of music was exceptional and the way the video flowed to the music was really spectacular. It was impossible not to feel inspired after watching, congratulations!
Best Boarding Story
The winner of 'Best Boarding Story' is Monmouth School for Girls! Their entry really caught our attention as it showed true grit and determination from the boarding students and staff and how they came together to raise money for such an important charity despite the ongoing pandemic enforcing so many restrictions, great work!
Best School Spirit Story
Our 'Best School Spirit' category was our most highly entered category and it was amazing to see so many incredible initiatives to help keep school spirit high during such a difficult and uncertain year. However, there could only be one winner. The winning entry was absolutely magical. Rather than focussing on what the school had done during the pandemic, it put the pupils at the centre of the story. Although it's been a tough year, we all have things to be grateful for and this was a stark reminder. Congratulations Howell's School!
Best Entrepreneurship Story
It was great to see so many #SchoolStories showing how innovative students are, but one story in particular caught our attention given everything that has been happening during the past year. This story is of a student who identified a problem and used innovation to design a solution - true skills of a budding entrepreneur. This student designed a prototype to help administer COVID-19 vaccines at a more efficient rate at only 12 years old! Therefore the winner of 'Best Entrepreneurship Story' went to Monmouth School for Boys, with a special mention to Ed who we have no doubt has an incredibly successful future ahead of him!
Best Alumni Story
It’s crucial to never forget about your alumni when telling your #SchoolStories, so this was a hugely important category. It was judged by Andrea Carisse, the Director of Marketing & Communications at Ridley College in Canada. Andrea commented that what made the winning entry so outstanding is its genesis. A former student who left high school under the weight of a global pandemic, seeing their plans for post-secondary education and job prospects thrown into total uncertainty, reached out to his alma mater to create a video series in which he would interview current students, fellow alumni, and staff about their experiences with the humanities at the school. The result was a series called "In Conversation" which showcases not only a great swath of diversity within the school community, but in and of itself is a beautifully crafted exercise in filming, video editing, and interviewing skills - all passions developed by the student throughout his time at the school. The winner of 'Best Alumni Story' is University of Toronto Schools, with a special mention to Jay McGregor for pioneering the project!
Best Use of Facebook
Congratulations to St Joseph’s College for winning ‘Best Use of Facebook’, this winning post put a smile on all of our faces! It is so important when posting your #SchoolStories that you ensure your school personality comes through, and personality came across in this video in abundance. It was such a joy to see the students and teaching having such fun after an extremely tough year, and is a great thing for families and prospective families to see.
Best Use of Instagram
'Best Use of Instagram' was a category judged by Vivien Mallick, Director of Admissions at Phillips Academy Andover. Out of all the entries she looked through, one stood out to her in particular. This school had the best use of stories out of all the submissions: kid-friendly, nice incorporation of TikTok videos, infographics and GIFs. Vivien also said how she wants to take inspiration from this for her own school's Instagram, and that she is going on the hunt to find some willing teachers! Congratulations Ryburn Valley High School!
Best Use of TikTok
TikTok is a platform that is becoming more and more popular for schools, especially the brave ones willing to take risks and think outside the box. The winner of 'Best Use of TikTok' is a school that has embraced TikTok in the most perfect way. From watching their videos you get a glimpse into what real day to day life is like at the school, which is so crucial for prospective families to see when deciding which school to choose. Whilst informative, they have also been able to combine the videos with humour and don't shy away from participating in viral trends which brings in the human side of the students, teachers and faculty members. Their videos are a joy to watch and we can't wait to see what they come up with next on the platform... congratulations Felsted School!
Best Use of Twitter
Twitter is one of the best platforms to showcase your #SchoolStories and the winner of this category deserves huge congratulations for using it so innovatively. Judged by Kerry Williams, Head of Marketing at Handcross Park School, she commented that in a year like no other Alice Smith School used social media beautifully to ensure that their graduates were celebrated and had a fitting tribute to the end of their education. Well done to them for creating such a beautiful celebration for their pupils.
Best Use of Video
The 'Best Use of Video' was a hugely popular category and therefore competition was very fierce. The winning entry embodied everything we look for in #SchoolStories and it was fully produced and edited in-house showing that you don’t need to spend money getting your stories professionally produced. It was emotive and showed exactly what the school stands for and represents. It tied in wonderfully to the ongoing pandemic and reinforced the message that the education landscape has changed, and therefore so have schools. Congratulations Monkton Combe School!
School Podcast Award
We listened to some amazing podcasts for our 'School Podcast Award', so it was very hard to pick a winner. Cheadle Hulme School’s entry oozed quality, From the bold and beautiful branded assets through to the topics of discussion and post-production. The music being composed by students was the icing on the cake of an already brilliant entry, amazing work!
Biggest Risk
Taking calculated risks is what can lead to great innovation and we enjoyed reading through the 'Biggest Risk' submissions as they showed great creativity. The winning entry was chosen by Irfan Latif, and he commented that Fettes College’s submission showed a sustained commitment to engage the entire community over the Christmas period with some cracking results, great work!
Funniest School Story
Our 'Funniest School Story' category was judged by Tim Weaver. Tim commented that the winning entry from Farlington School was a truly creative and authentic submission, using software to tell a fun and exciting story that paints the head in an awesome light!
Simon Noakes WOW Award
The Simon Noakes WOW Award was won by Alice Smith School! Their ‘Zoom Rhapsody’ was simply brilliant and Simon wants the world to see this video. It was authentic, topical, included and connected the school community, plus he felt everyone could relate to this around the world - in or out of school. A clear winner that should have much more views than it does on Youtube!
Thank you so much to all the incredibly #InspiringSchools who entered our #SchoolStoriesAwards. Interactive Schools was founded to inspire schools to share their story. Every single entry we received has given us renewed energy to keep flying the flag for social media storytelling in schools. We can’t wait for next year’s awards to be even bigger and better!