The U School
The U School: Strengthening a High School’s brand strategy while supporting their seniors with their final projects
The U School is a
competency-based school designed to change the outcomes of Philadelphia youth in college and career outcomes. They do so by challenging young people to create high quality projects while also giving them ownership over their learning.
The opportunity
The U School needed support in a couple of ways.
1) Their senior students were working on a number of entrepreneurial projects and needed guidance on their branding, messaging and presenting.
2) The school was also looking to revisit their strategy so they can position themselves more strongly to future parents looking to enroll their students.
the service
I created and facilitated a few interactive workshops to lay the foundation for their projects. These workshops helped them understand what branding is and how to begin branding themselves through their work.
From there, I consulted with students individually on their projects. I gave them guidance on how to tell compelling stories around their work, methods to strengthen their projects and how to present their work.
To strengthen The U School’s positioning, I started with an in depth strategy session with the principal, Neil Geyette. From everything I gathered about their history, identity, goals and rivals, I created their unique positioning, messaging framework and overall brand strategy.
This included how to differentiate themselves from other competency-based schools, appeal to the parents and guardians of potential students, highlight the students and their work, and use their unique strengths in their brand presence and website. Everything was delivered in a ready to implement format.