The first point of contact for your school/college is your website, so highlighting EPAS on there should be one of your first jobs. Initially this might just be a simple page explaining what EPAS is, why the school is working towards it and a link back to this website so other people can find out more. As you do more work on EPAS, you can start to flesh it out with more interesting information.
Setting up your initial page: a step-by-step guide
- Write your initial text – see below for a sample.
- Get together any images or video you want to include – you can download EPAS logos and images below.
- Decide where on your school site you think the page should sit – which menu heading would it best fit under?
- Check the text, images and videos with your Senior Ambassador (teacher responsible for EPAS).
- Go to see the person responsible for updating your school/college website and email them the text, images and links.
- Check you’re happy with how it looks on your phone and computer.
- Log in to your epas.org.uk dashboard and add the link as part of your EPAS evidence.
Keeping it fresh
As you are working on EPAS you should have all kinds of new information to add, rather than putting it all on the initial page, you can add items top your school/college’s news pages.
- Set up a schedule to add something new to the EPAS pages on your school/college’s site: Once a week? Once a fortnight? Once per half-term?
- Give a Junior Ambassador responsibility for ensuring this schedule is adhered to – they don’t need to write everything, but they need to chase up others to make sure there is regular new content.
- Work with your website administrator to create a tag or category for EPAS news.
- Create your first news post and place it in the ‘EPAS’ category (or give it an ‘EPAS’ tag, whichever system your school/college uses).
- Ask the website administrator to add a link to this category or tag to your main EPAS page.
- Check the rest of the main EPAS page to make sure the information is up to date.
- Tweet us a link to your new content, so we can share it more widely!
Including social media
Another way to keep your EPAS page fresh and up to date is to embed your EPAS social media feeds on it. Discuss with your website administrator if this is possible. If it is they will be able to set it up with you.
What to include in your news articles (and social media feeds)
- Adverts for activities that you are going to be running as part of EPAS.
- Photos, videos and write-ups of EPAS activities that you have run.
- Information that you have updated or added to on your InfoPoint.
- Opportunities that are available for individuals in your school/college to:
- Learn more about the EU and European Parliament
- Get involved in social action projects
- Travel in Europe
- Links you have made with other EPAS schools and colleges
- (@EPASorguk is a good source for lots of these kinds of things)
Sample text for your initial page
It’s never easy to start with a blank page, so copy and paste the text below and adapt it to your needs. As you go through the EPAS process you’ll almost definitely want to change it further to suit the way your school/college is approaching EPAS, but it’ll do for now!
We are delighted to announce that [our school/college] is becoming a European Parliament Ambassador School. We are now part of a growing network of over 1,600 schools across the EU and the UK that are learning, teaching and sharing the EU’s values.
Interested students will become Junior Ambassadors, who will promote discussion and learning about the EU, its members and institutions, its impact on our day-to-day lives and how they can influence it. They will do this by organising cultural events, debates, and linking with other EPAS schools and colleges across the UK and EU. Not only will this develop our students’ political knowledge, it will give these Junior Ambassadors great work experience – and skills for life – as researchers, project managers, event organisers, campaigners and promoters.
Our initial Junior Ambassadors and Senior Ambassador[s], [Insert name of supporting staff]
[Insert photo of Junior and Senior Ambassadors]You can keep up to date with everything our EPAS team is doing on our InfoPoint, which is [insert location] and online:
[Insert links to your social media channels – or embed them]
[Insert link to the ‘EPAS’ tagged news articles, or the ‘EPAS’ category, on your website]Find out more about European Parliament Ambassador Schools in the UK and the EU on the EPAS (UK) website: epas.org.uk
EPAS logos and images
Junior Ambassador promo images
EPAS logos
Stock images
If you want any stock images for your EPAS website, webpages or social media, the European Parliament’s Multimedia Centre can be a very useful resource: https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/search
Together.eu has a range of stock images and promo material you can use: https://together.eu/download-centre