National communications strategy

Following a consultation period with Aimhigher Area Leads and practitioners who expressed an interest in reviewing the strategy, the communications strategy for 2008-11 has now be finalised and sent to area partnerships. It can also be downloaded below.

The strategy builds on learnings from the past four years and is designed to effectively support the delivery of a more streamlined and targeted Aimhigher programme during the 2008-11 funding phase. In particular, the strategy addresses five key areas:

• the continuing need to raise the national profile of Aimhigher, including via the national / education media
• further support for Aimhigher areas to deliver their communications objectives, by building communications capacity within partnerships
• ensuring that Aimhigher practitioners and the target cohort are the recipients of coherent and consistent messages about Aimhigher
• supporting Aimhigher partnerships in generating positive conversations about higher education with the target cohort as part of their core programme activity
• an integrated Aimhigher web strategy

The strategy takes an audience led approach, considering the target audiences for communications on a case-by-case basis and recommending core messages, communications channels and desired outcomes for each. It also addresses the withdrawal of a separate regional funding stream for Aimhigher from 2008.

The executive summary below provides an overview of the strategy.

Archived information

The Central Office of Information (COI) was commissioned to develop a national communications strategy for the integrated Aimhigher programme in autumn 2004 – click on the link below to download a copy of the strategy.

If you have any questions about the national communications strategy, please contact a member of the National Communications Resource Team on 0117 929 7096 or aimhigher@grayling.com.