News Corp Australia has launched Schools Hub, a data-rich comparison tool to allow parents to learn more about every school in the nation.
Supported by an editorial and marketing campaign across every metro, major regional and local News Corp publication, Schools Hub will offer parents unprecedented insights about schools from around the corner, around the state and around the nation.
Schools Hub will form part of a new education vertical to include curriculum advice, expert tips for parents, University and TAFE news as well as the latest school and education news.
Schools Hub will be released in chapters over three months ahead of it becoming an annual fixture on the nation’s education calendar.
The first chapter, released this week, will explore student-teacher ratios in classrooms, enrolments and school capacity.
Chapter two, to be revealed in October, will deep dive into attendance while chapter three, published in November-December, will put school funding, income and fees under the spotlight.
Executive editor Kathy Lipari (picrtured) said Schools Hub would unlock a range of insights, from highly specialised hyper-local comparisons between local schools through to state-wide and national perspectives.
“Through our Schools Hub campaign we will be publishing journalism that combines our news instincts with the science of data,” Lipari said.
In a first for News Corp Australia, all metropolitan, major regional and local mastheads will provide access to the data exclusively for subscribers, with every school from the bush to the suburbs and from public to private schools able to be analysed.
“Schools Hub’s sheer scale reflects the fact you won’t find a community anywhere in Australia where our kids’ education isn’t a priority and this makes it particularly relevant for all of our audiences simultaneously,” Lipari added.
“This really represents the data that every parent, grandparent, teacher and student wants to get their hands on, making this a one-stop data shop for our schools.”
She said the Schools Hub campaign reflected News Corp Australia’s increasing focus on innovative and ambitious data solutions to benefit both its audiences and commercial clients by matching journalism’s core fundamentals with pioneering projects.
“Embedding data and analytics into our everyday decision-making including in our journalism makes us even more accountable to our audiences and customers. The value we deliver is measurable.
“The fact is we reach some 16 million people across Australia every month, with our digital assets alone reaching some 10 million Australians.
“While any one of our publications enjoys varying strength in their individual markets, combining all of them takes the depth and extent of our audience reach to an entirely new level.
“Not only will we publish the top-50 lists as part of School Hub but every single school’s data will be available like never before.”
In addition, a new national web page, education.news.com.au will direct audiences to News Corp Australia mastheads to access a wealth of education news.
The campaign is supported by a multi-platform, integrated marketing strategy across News Corp Australia’s digital brands, including Kidspot and Kids News, as well as print, radio, out-of-home advertising and social media.