What we did

This fascinating, eight-month exercise spanned:

  • advising on the best name for the facility: we recommended ‘The Energy Education Centre’, which the client adopted
  • developing a plan to get the first young people in, focusing on working with London schools
  • building links with head teachers across the Capital and arranging the first pupil visits
  • creating age-appropriate materials including a website and educational booklets
  • arrangement & facilitating the school visits, incorporating expert talks from National Grid engineers
  • auditing the effectiveness of the project & making recommendations for improvement

Results

Our project proved a great success in piloting how the Energy Education Centre would work and demonstrating its effectiveness.

Against the objective of enthusing young people about energy issues, 99% said they ‘enjoyed their visit’ – 80% ‘a great deal’ – while 99% felt they learnt something and 76% learnt ‘a great deal’. Interest in science careers rose significantly.

One 13-year-old girl told us: “This has been brilliant – the most interesting trip we’ve ever been on.”

The Head of Science from one school said: “This visit’s been amazing. Our pupils stayed engaged throughout and learnt a lot. They’re bored by visiting the Science Museum now and groan when we say we’re going. You’ve provided something fresh and different.”

Awards

Our project won two industry awards:

  • Best Corporate & Business Communications
  • Best Community Project

The client’s view

“TK Associates ran an eight-month communications programme to help National Grid get one of our high-profile CSR projects off the ground and proved themselves tenacious, focused and professional.

Tariq provided sound advice on how to deliver the project effectively and developed a structured programme to deliver results, including measurement of the effectiveness of our project. They worked hard as part of a close team with our staff and delivered on time and to a high standard.

They’ve delivered a project that’s helped us to quantify the value of a considerable CSR investment, ensuring National Grid continues to improve our performance in this area.

I highly recommend TK Associates as a thoughtful, hard-working, focused agency.”

Donald Johnson, Head of Corporate Brand, National Grid plc