Girls’ Day School Trust NHSFG

Girls’ Day School Trust is a collection of the country’s most prestigious schools, including Norwich High School for Girls. We partnered with the school to relaunch its brand and tell prospective parents why Norwich High School for Girls exists: to rebalance the odds in a daughter’s favour, to provide an environment where girls are supported by each other, celebrated by each other, pushed forward by each other. An environment to empower girls.

Across our society, we’ve started asking hard questions about why and where women are still systemically at a disadvantage, an imbalance that in many cases starts at school. Because whilst girls and boys are equal they’re not the same. And all too often co-educational environments place a huge pressure on girls, whose confidence and curiosity suffer as a result. All too often mixed schools are really boys’ schools, with girls in them.

Norwich High School for Girls’ marketing opportunity is dictated by its status as the only girls’ school in Norfolk. Only they can unapologetically own single-sex education and its benefits – only they can stop talking the language of their category and start talking about why girls’ schools matter. Because there has never been a more important time to talk about girls.

What better way to tell that story than through the girls themselves, which brought us to: Made by Girls.

Made By Girls is a way of celebrating the bold, curious and confident young women who make Norwich High School for Girls what it is. It positions the role of the school as a facilitator, where the successes of their students are a testament to what happens when girls have a place of their own in which to thrive.

We used as much content as we could from the girls themselves: their handwriting, imagery, stories and voices used across the campaign.

We commissioned photographer Ellie Smith to capture the spirit of the girls through candid, beautiful photography – shooting the whole campaign in two days, capturing the girls in an unstaged, documentary style as they went about their school days.

The school received an immediate uptick in open day footfall, with 86% of prospective families aware of the Made by Girls campaign. 

“The approach is working. We were named The Sunday Times East Anglian Independent Secondary School Of The Year in the 2023 Parent Power League,” says Alison Sefton, Head of Norwich High School for Girls. “I am confident that the foundations we have built, and work to reinforce, will continue to contribute positively.”