Ashfield Academy

Open day brand film and admissions campaign

Ashfield Academy is a 1,200-pupil secondary in a busy admissions area, competing with four other schools whose open evenings all fall in the same half-term week. They needed more than a tour of corridors and classrooms. They wanted a film a Year 6 parent would actually finish watching, and remember on the drive home. We built the whole open day campaign around that one film, from the first social teaser to the stills on the banners at the gate.

Services

Brand film
Creative concept
Photography
Social cutdowns

One school day, told the way a Year 6 parent sees it.

Rather than a staff-led voiceover tour, we followed one pupil from the school gates to the final bell: lessons, lunch, a music rehearsal and the walk home. Nobody read a script to camera and nothing was staged for a stock-photo smile. We planned the shoot around the timetable over two days, so no lesson was disrupted, and cut the film to work on a phone with the sound off, because that is how most parents first see it.

The school buildings and fenced sports court early in the morning, before the first pupils arrive.

From one film to a full open day campaign.

The main film anchored everything else. We cut six vertical versions for Instagram and TikTok, shot a stills set for the prospectus and the banners at the gate, and made a short internal edit to brief the student guides before the evening. Every piece used the same footage and the same voice, so a parent who saw a Reel on Monday recognised the school when they walked in on Thursday. Everything was delivered inside three weeks.

A pupil in a red school jumper playing electric guitar in the music room.

Close-up of a pupil's hands on the piano keys as her teacher turns the page.

A teacher smiling as she guides a pupil through a piece of music.

Open day applications were up 18% on the year before, and three families told us they had chosen us because of the film. The team understood exactly what a nervous Year 6 parent needed to see.

Sarah Whitfield Head of Marketing & Admissions, Ashfield Academy