Planning and running promotional events

What you should consider when planning and running events for potential applicants.

Running regular events provides an opportunity for potential applicants to:

  • meet your staff and partners
  • ask specific questions about your programme
  • get a sense of what it might be like to train and work with you

Consider co-hosting with schools in your partnership or area so you can share the work and broaden the appeal to potential candidates.

You can also sign up for Train to Teach events in your area, subscribe to the Teacher Recruitment Bulletin for updates.

Planning your event

When planning your event you should:

Decide the purpose of your event

It’s important to have clear objectives so you can measure the success of your event.

You should decide:

  • why you’re having the event - are you trying to encourage applications or improve the quality of applications
  • who would you like to attend the event – are you targeting undergraduates, recent graduates or career changers
  • what do you want to achieve – do you want to recruit a certain number of trainee teachers or recruit in a certain subject

Ask for volunteers

It’s likely that the organisation of your event will be in addition to your day job, so share tasks with other staff.

Assign an event coordinator to:

  • keep track of the event planning
  • act as the point of contact if any issues arise during the event

You may want to ask current trainees or teaching staff to attend, especially in the subjects you want to recruit to.

Agree a budget

Set a budget for your event and monitor this throughout the planning process. You may incur costs if you:

  • provide refreshments
  • produce a course brochure
  • hand out branded merchandise

When to have your event

When choosing the time and date of your event, think about:

  • your target audience
  • whether there are similar events in your area at the same time
  • the availability of your teaching staff who are supporting the event

You can check what other events have been scheduled on Get Into Teaching.

If you’re targeting:

  • career changers, events in the New Year work well as people often consider new careers at this time
  • final year undergraduates, an early autumn event is best before they concentrate on their exams

Events held outside normal working hours are usually the most successful. Consider:

  • mid-week evenings
  • Saturday mornings

Agree a venue for the event

Before choosing your venue, think about how far people will travel to attend your event.

Having it at your school would give attendees the opportunity to:

  • visit their potential new workplace
  • talk to teaching staff about life in the classroom

If you’re part of a teaching alliance, consider which school:

  • has the best local transport links
  • offers the most appropriate facilities, such as parking

Decide on the content and format of your event

Think about whether you’ll:

  • deliver a presentation
  • offer one-to-one advice
  • include a demonstration class

You may want to host smaller, bespoke events such as:

  • how to complete a good application
  • tips on your interview
  • the routes into teaching
  • the benefits of teaching

Organise a registration system

Encourage attendees to register for your event. This will give you:

  • an indication of the number of people to expect
  • the option to contact them after the event

There is free online tools that allow you to promote and manage your event, including attendee registration. Alternatively, you could ask attendees to email you if they’re planning to attend.

Think about requesting external support

You may want to invite other local providers or networks to promote their teacher training programmes. You can read a best practice case study about a successful event that brought together multiple providers in an area.

If so, prepare a briefing document for exhibitors including the details of the event, such as:

  • the contact details of the event coordinator
  • when they’ll be able to access the venue
  • the format and layout of the event
  • wifi availability

Promoting your event

Choose a promotion method that will reach your desired audience. Methods could include:

  • emailing people who have previously registered with you
  • promoting your event on your website, your teaching school alliance’s website or your local authority website
  • posting on social media
  • placing posters in your school, local churches, community centres, job centres or libraries
  • contacting local university career services
  • placing advertisements in your local press or on local radio
  • notifying parents and other school building users

Add your event to the Get into Teaching website

Adding your events to the site significantly increases the chances of aspiring teachers seeing them.

Look at the school and university events page to see what your event will look like.

Submit your events to us a few months in advance. This will make sure that as many people as possible see them. We aim to publish all events within 10 days of receiving them.

Submit your event

Complete this form to submit your event.

The form is split into 4 sections:

  • event details
  • registration process
  • venue details
  • organiser contact

Event thumbnail

The school and university events page shows a thumbnail for each event. This includes the event title, date and time of event and whether it is online or not.

Section 1: event details

Event title

This will be shown on the event thumbnail and main event page.

Include your:

  • provider or organisation name
  • theme
  • event type
  • location, think about who you want to attend and whether it would be better to reference information such as the location of the venue, nearest city, wider county, or region

Example Department for Education East Midlands School Direct open day

You should:

  • use your full organisation name to be clear who you are and avoid being overlooked
  • only use nationally recognised acronyms: such as SCITT and PGCE
  • include the location the event is intended (for example, if you are East Midlands based, include that, or the city if needing to be more specific)

Target audience

Be clear about who you would like to attend.

This could be:

  • undergraduates
  • recent graduates
  • career changes
  • candidates in a specific area

Be specific to make sure you attract the right candidates.

Summary of your event

This section does not currently appear on the website, but we are planning to include it in the future. Please fill in relevant information for future use.

Your summary has a 100-character limit and should not repeat what’s in your title.

To make your event stand out you should include:

  • the main points of interest
  • what sets your event apart from others

Example A fantastic opportunity to find out about life as a teacher in an outstanding school. You will have a tour of the school and the opportunity to meet and speak to current and previous course members.

Information about your event

This section has a 1,500-character limit.

Use it to:

  • welcome your potential attendees
  • introduce your organisation, course and vision
  • outline details of your event, this could include a schedule or what topics you will cover
  • highlight if refreshments will be available

If applicable, highlight your prestigious course or award winning school. Include statistics and figures on course completion and employment success rates.

Make it clear why your course should be considered.

To make it straightforward and easy to read:

  • break information up into paragraphs or sections
  • use bullet points, for example to detail a schedule or list of topics

Event time and date

This will be shown on the event thumbnail and main event page.

Consider adding 15 minutes at the start of the event. This will make sure that attendees arrive before the event begins.

The end date must be the same as the start date. Submit each day separately if your event runs over multiple days.

Event website

This should be the website for the actual event. It could be an information or registration page.

If you do not have a specific website for your event, use your provider home page.

Section 2: registration process

You can choose whether you would like registrations:

  • by email
  • via a website that helps you to manage attendee registration

Your selection here will determine the final line of the main text body where we add the link and email address for the attendee to follow and register.

If attendees do not need to register you should include this in Section 4: organiser contact details.

Section 3: venue details

If your event is being run virtually, please input ‘Online’ as the venue name. Do still include the full address as this is used to being up events when candidates search for events through their postcode.

Venue name

This will only appear on the main event page.

Use the name of the place where the event is being held. You can add specifics as a line in the address. For example, Education Building Room 1.

Address

Provide the full address of your venue, including:

  • a first and second line
  • the region
  • the postcode

Include details of the building or specific floor or room. Use a line of the address to do this.

Example Venue name: Department for Education

Address: Education Building, Room 1, Education Street, London, ED1 1FE

Town or city

Think about who you want to attend and whether it would be better to reference the:

  • location of the venue
  • nearest city
  • wider county

Contact email

Use an email address you are happy to have potential queries sent to.

Venue website

Use the website for the venue where the event is being hosted. If there is not one, use your provider homepage.

Section 4: organiser contact details

‘School or university name’ is the only information from this section that will appear on the main event page. The rest is for Department for Education (DfE) use only, should they need to contact you regarding the event.

You should use your name, the organisation that has submitted the event.

Setting up your event

You should allocate at least 2 hours to set up your event.

Create a registration desk

You should:

  • print an up-to-date attendee list – free online tools can do this for you
  • have copies of registration forms - to collect the contact details of attendees who did not register in advance

Prepare the presentation room

If you are going to deliver a presentation, make sure your:

  • IT equipment is working
  • presentation is loaded on your laptop

Prepare your space

Set up tables and chairs in the one-to-one advice area and exhibition area for other providers (if applicable).

Signage

Print posters directing attendees to the registration desk, advice area, presentation room, toilets and refreshments (if applicable).

Staffing

Make sure that:

  • each area of your event is adequately staffed
  • you encourage teaching staff to greet arrivals and speak to attendees about your teacher training programme

After your event

You should try to spend some time after events gathering feedback and evaluating what went well to help inform future events.

Feedback

You may want to consider contacting attendees shortly after the event.

Asking attendees for feedback allows you to:

  • quickly establish further contact – you can follow this up in future weeks and months
  • evaluate how potential candidates view your school and training offer
  • assess how successful your event was

Free online survey tools may be helpful in gathering feedback.

Evaluation

It’s a good idea to evaluate your event in the weeks that follow.

You may want to consider:

  • what went well and what didn’t go so well
  • the kinds of questions put to staff – this may give you ideas for content to include on your website or in social media posts
  • whether your event met its original objectives
  • how these learnings can help you to improve future events

Leaflets and merchandise for your events

Branded leaflets and merchandise

Leaflets and branded merchandise are a:

  • great way to promote your teacher training programme
  • handy reference for attendees after the event

Make sure you order plenty of copies in advance of your event to allow for delivery time.

Get Into Teaching brochure and funding leaflet

Use our Get Into Teaching brochure (4.1MB, PDF) and Get into Teaching funding flyer (765KB, PDF) at your event to provide information on:

  • postgraduate teacher training funding
  • getting school experience
  • subject knowledge and enhancement courses
  • finding the right teacher training course

Request copies of our leaflets using our online form.