Crisis communications – Is your school ready to weather a storm?
Jody Cooksley offers her advice on the steps school leaders should take when preparing and planning their response in the event of an unforeseen crisis…
- by Jody Cooksley
- Crisis communications senior consultant Visit website
When it comes to crisis communications, it’s impossible to know the nature of the next problem that might hit your school. However, certain types of incidents are certainly on the rise.
The digital landscape has become increasingly harmful. Weather events have grown alarmingly severe. It’s likely not a question of if a crisis will occur at some point, but rather when.
Schools now also face additional media scrutiny with regards to cases of misconduct. The 24/7 news cycle means that journalists can be unforgiving at times of pressure, and quick to pounce on stressed, unprepared spokespeople working for stretched in-house teams.
I’m aware of one recent crisis at a school that attracted more than 200 phone calls over a single weekend. It’s unmanageable.
Added to that is the rapid amplification of social media misinformation. Anyone can now get involved in any story, and instantly share false information about it that gets picked up by platforms’ algorithms and disseminated virally at terrifying speed.
What’s your crisis communication plan?
Every school will regularly review its safety practices and hold frequent fire and evacuation drills. And yet, emergency manuals will rarely cover how teams should communicate with internal and external audiences while a crisis is unfolding. And that’s a mistake.
Effective communications at difficult times can strengthen your school’s reputation, regardless of what’s happened. Conversely, badly managed communications can cause years of reputational damage. This is even if the original incident was due to factors entirely outside of your control.
The good news is that the steps to prepare well are straightforward and can be applied to every school, regardless of how big your internal team is, or the extent of your in-house expertise.
Follow the steps below internally, or with the help of experts, and you can ensure that your school can weather the worst of publicity storms.
Audit your profile
Every school is unique, with its own different characteristics – so audit yours to find out what scenarios are most likely to occur. Adjust your policies to match.
How close are you to the nearest town? How old are your buildings? Do any public footpaths run through the grounds?
Take this opportunity to identify all of your stakeholders (pupils, parents, local community, alumni, etc.) and the channels you typically use to communicate with them.
Establish the chain of command
Your allocated spokesperson needs to be the headteacher. At difficult times, families and pupils will look to leaders for stability.
By their very nature, however, leadership roles in schools tend to be all-encompassing. Rushing straight in to deal with the issue won’t work in a crisis, because while your communications do need to be timely, they must also be accurate and considered.
It’s therefore important that responsibility for your crisis communications be assigned to a dedicated team of individuals who understand their roles ahead of time.
Key specialisms will include communications, IT, HR, safeguarding and potentially legal representation.
If your internal team is small or inexperienced, you’ll need to plan for adding ad-hoc specialists in the event of an incident.
Media train key staff
During this initial process, ensure that your spokesperson is media trained by a trusted advisor. Journalists are adept at gaining information from the unsuspecting. Good media training will ensure that spokespeople stick to prepared statements and remain professional.
It can be worth training other members of SLT too, for times when the headteacher is unavailable. (It’s also generally more cost-effective to train a group of people at once).
Set your communication protocols
The SLT and communications team should outline how information will be shared both internally and externally.
Internal communication protocols should take into account the methods used to notify students, parents and staff. How do you intend to provide regular updates on the situation? What resources can you offer to help?
If, for example, a non-recent allegation comes to light, it may be important to alert alumni to anonymous reporting and offer resources for supporting them.
External communications protocols should address best practice for media management, including materials, preparedness statements, managing journalists and allocating a space on-site to house them in the event of a major incident.
Social media should be used effectively. Pin posts containing instructions and continually monitor sentiment and message amplification around the incident.
Clear guidelines will help your team to prepare essential crisis communication materials more quickly. Define key elements, such as your written house style, tone of voice, policy regarding social media mentions and acceptable response times.
Trusted guidelines should strike an optimal balance of tone, emotional intelligence and content.
Begin by acknowledging the incident and its impact, then outline what steps the school is taking in response. After this, conclude with a reaffirmation of the school’s values and a commitment to moving forward together.
One effective way of achieving that is to follow the ‘5 Cs method’:
- Concern
- Commitment
- Competency
- Clarity
- Confidence
Factsheets can be useful communication tools during a crisis. They’re able to provide clear lists of what’s known about the situation in order to reassure students and counteract potential misinformation. To that end, consider creating a factsheet template.
Devise key preparedness statements
Create a list of key messages that you can quickly use and adapt in a crisis. Some messaging might seek to offer reassurance, for instance: ‘Our team is on call 24/7 during this time to ensure fast responses to any questions. Forecasts suggest the situation is likely to improve within xx hours.’
You may wish to emphasise safety: ‘Our first priority is to ensure that all our staff and students are safe. We’re working to ensure everyone is accounted for, and will then conduct a safety assessment before returning to campus.’
Or share trusted information sources: ‘We are working closely with the emergency services to understand more about the situation.’
Ensure your staff know the rules
It’s not uncommon for some news outlets to send freelance investigative reporters to lurk near campuses when a crisis strike. They’re hoping to catch unsuspecting staff for an off-the-cuff conversation.
You should therefore tell all staff that all media communications must go through the allocated person, be they a communications director, headteacher’s PA, or a member of staff liaising with a trusted crisis communications agency.
It’s a good idea to send regular internal reminders that no one bar allocated personnel should be speaking to the media.
Establish a ‘crisis communications cascade’
A ‘cascade of information’ is designed to ensure that messages are known and understood internally before being released.
A standard example for use in crisis situations might look like this:
SLT briefing → governance briefing → staff briefing with simultaneous staff email for non-attendees → student briefing and simultaneous student email for non-attendees → emailed parental communications alongside offer of Q&A forum with SLT → alumni communications → community communications
Create your crisis communications handbook
Having undertaken these steps, you can then produce your crisis communications plan. This should comprise a handbook that will prepare senior staff to act quickly via a communications cascade that can cover any unforeseen incidents.
The handbook should accompany your overall operational crisis planning. It will contain clearly outlined responsibilities for implementation so that steps can be put into action immediately.
Regularly review and update your handbook so that it’s always ready to be rolled out. A solid crisis communications plan will:
- help you get the right messages out at the right time
- promote calm
- keep your students safe
- enable you to maintain your trusted reputation
Jody Cooksley is a senior consultant with Chelgate Education. She is an expert in the sector with more than 20 years’ experience of crisis communication.
