Virtual Tours for Schools & Nurseries
Virtual tour packages for educational institutions allow you to bring your prospectus and website to life.
Insight UK is one of the leading providers of 3D virtual reality tours for educational institutions including: nurseries, schools, colleges and universities.
360 VR tours have become an essential online marketing tool to engage and enthral existing students and to inspire prospective students increasing admissions by immersing them in the digital twin of your organisation.
Insight UK’s nationwide virtual tour services allow you to embed virtual videos welcoming students to your virtual school, conduct virtual open days to recruit new students, provide online learning opportunities and even links to virtual field trips- the possibilities are endless…With in-depth knowledge of the education sector, we can meet your needs like no other and are constantly developing new technology with this sector in mind.
Insight UK’s Virtual Tour Benefits
There are so many ways in which a virtual tour will benefit your school…
Virtual tour packages are a vital part of your digital marketing strategy and the perfect vehicle to ensure you reach your marketing goals.
I97% of school searches start on Google. With virtual tours on your website and shareable on all social media platforms, they have a measurable impact on your Google ratings, click-through rates and engagement by your target audience ensuring that your overall marketing targets of building your brand and increasing admission numbers are achieved.
Your virtual open day, open everyday!
Online transition days and familiarisation for pupils :
Virtual tours allow students to explore the school, familiarising themselves with the environment. This reduces anxiety in new pupils to the school and those missing out on transition days. Norwich Opportunity Area reported “an abundance of positive feedback” following their Virtual Tour Project with Insight UK to support Early Years Transition. SEN children, in particular, benefit from using this technology. We have worked hard with educational specialists and SENCOs to incorporate features to make the tours fully inclusive. Our tours are multi-sensory including features such as: voiceovers, subtitles, dyslexic-friendly fonts, calming music and simple navigation systems.
Virtual open days:
These are essential marketing events this year, but experts predict the trend for virtual open days is here to stay. It’s a no-brainer! Your school’s market is widened and is visible to the 5 billion users of the internet 24 hours a day- with links to bookings, enquiries and admissions forms. Embed friendly welcome videos from staff demonstrating your ethos; information in the form of text; and web-links about your resources and facilities or host guided tours in real-time to prospective students and families.
Communicate and engage your target audience:
Research has demonstrated that users spend up to 10 times longer on websites with virtual tours. They are fun, exciting and viewers enjoy self-navigating around to explore your facilities. Schools that have a virtual tour on their website can increase their enquiry rates by up to 6 times. Our tours, which embed video and other media, are a powerful method to communicate your message to your viewer.
As the great educationalist John Dewey remarked over a century ago: “If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.”
Virtual learning:
Link your online learning provision to your virtual tour via media tags. Students can enter their virtual classroom and have live lessons with their teachers via video conferencing. In addition, they can access their work set by their teachers, watch online assemblies through embedded videos, read newsletters, see upcoming events and enjoy displays of their work. Virtual reality can transport students around the world without having to leave home on virtual field trips! With the “gamification” of their learning experiences making it more interactive and engaging, students enjoy and feel more connected to their learning whilst they are away from the classroom. No one knows what the future holds for education, but it is inevitable that the events of the past year will instigate change. Introducing virtual reality technologies now is a savvy way to build resilience and help to make your educational institution future-fit.
Staff training and health and safety planning tool:
For a busy school, it is useful to pre-record essential training videos for example on safeguarding and staff conduct. Early Excellence, the leading provider of early years resources, furniture and training, have embedded their informative videos to their Insight UK virtual tour to great effect. In addition, use your digital twin to plan health and safety and Covid-safety measures such as one-way systems and cleaning stations. Your 3D tour can be cloned and different information embedded for the differing audiences maximising its use within school.
First impressions count: Communicate and engage your target audience:
As we know: first impressions count! There are many stakeholders who will judge your provision by your website’s content: prospective and existing families; job candidates; Governors; the local community; boards of directors; the local authority and even OFSTED! For all of these stakeholders, it is important that your school presents well. A virtual tour demonstrates that technology is a priority and that your school is forward-thinking, innovative and creative.
Users spend up to 10 times longer on websites with virtual tours
300% increase in click-through rates with the addition of a virtual tour to your Facebook business page
97% of searches for educational institutions start on Google
VR tours improve your ratings on Google, edging you closer to that golden first page
Virtual tours improve engagement which increases enquiries
Insight UK’s Virtual Tour Case Studies
Milford-on-Sea Church of England Primary School
Large primary school with embedded videos highlighting the dynamic, global and eco-friendly curriculum. Voiceovers on meta tags are provided by existing pupils to give a personal touch.
Milford-on-Sea Church of England Primary School is an outstanding school on the south coast. It was a pleasure to produce the virtual tour with Kate Crawford, Headteacher, and her staff who worked tirelessly to produce a wonderful tour which showcases the fantastic facilities!
“an invaluable way to experience our amazing facilities and school environment in a personal way”
T“I am so pleased that we took the decision to use Insight UK to produce our school’s virtual tour. At a time when we have been unable to invite new prospective parents and pupils into our school, it has been an invaluable way for them to experience our amazing facilities and school environment in a personal way. The meta tags and films also helped us to communicate our curriculum and ethos, which is so important to us. The team were really efficient and professional. They could not have been more helpful and made sure we got everything we wanted out of the tour. I would highly recommend their services.”.
This is paragraph two of the answer.
Early Excellence
Educational training centre in Huddersfield.
Insight UK was incredibly proud to be asked to produce a virtual tour for the leading provider of Early Years resources, furniture and training, Early Excellence. Early Excellence used the tour to showcase their inspirational learning centre demonstrating their award-winning resources and approach to education which, undoubtably, has changed the face of Early Years provision in many schools and has been proven to elevate children’s learning. In addition, they have packed their tour with stimulating CPD training videos to ensure that practitioners can still access their visionary approach and pedagogy while in-person training events are on hold. .
Norwich Opportunity Area
“We received an abundance of positive feedback from all schools involved”
Insight UK was very excited to be invited by Norwich Opportunity Areas to create a series of virtual tour packages for 18 Norwich schools in 2020 in order to support Early Years Transition providing, essentially, online virtual transition days for children. This simple to use technology provided an innovative way provided a well-lit colourful journey around each school dotted with child-friendly content to add information about the facilities and resources. The tours ensured new and prospective parents and children felt happy, safe and settled in their new schools whilst unable to visit on open days due to Covid restrictions.
The tours were enhanced by embedded welcome videos from Headteachers and staff produced by Insight UK’s talented film maker, Joe Harrington, in his fun, pacey, warm and humorous style, which appeals to children and parents alike.
Testimonial
This year, the Norwich Opportunity Area sought the help of Insight UK to create 18 virtual tours of Norwich based Primary Schools in order to support Early Years Transition. The service we received during this project, from everyone at the company, was second to none. Both Mike and Joe’s expertise were fundamental in bringing our vision to life and we received an abundance of positive feedback from all of the schools involved. I’d like to say a huge thank you to Insight UK for being so adaptable, hard-working and supportive of this work and we look forward to working with you again in the future.
Ashley Cater, Communication Champions Project Manager, Achievement & Early Years Service
Smithdon High School, Hunstanton part of the West Norfolk Academy Trust
With the current pandemic conditions, it has proved challenging for schools to introduce themselves to new students and their parents. One school that’s gone that extra distance is the Smithdon Highschool, using a combination of drone technology and the Matterport software to create a tour that places them well above the competition.
Swoop down from the clouds as you scan across the extensive school buildings, giving you the perfect perspective on the capacity and extent of the estate. Select buildings one by one and tour the classrooms and facilities, each marked with clear information points that help narrate your journey as you traverse the rooms. To ensure that the tour can operate at all levels, there’s even shortcuts to take you from building to building, rather than having to return to the wide, panoramic shots.
And thanks to this tour, analytics are showing that applications have increased in 2020 from previous levels in 2019. If that isn’t a fantastic result, then we don’t know what is…
Insight UK’s Virtual Tour Features
Insight UK has developed additional features to enhance the user experience and to communicate unique selling points
Navigation tools
It is easy for viewers to self-navigate with features such as the highlight reel to move effortlessly to places of interest around your school
Media tags
Embed information throughout the tour to highlight your USP (unique selling points) via text, audio, video and weblinks. Your tour is multi-layered and students will love the gamification.
Branding/vision
Your branding and logos are incorporated into the tour to ensure your professional image is maintained and design elements, including colour and fonts, are altered to match your brand guidelines.
Photography
Our talented photographers produce powerful imagery which can be incorporated into your tour or used on your website.
Drone
Use stunning aerial footage to show off your site and create a dramatic start to your virtual tour. Zoom into different areas by clicking on icons.
Video
Our award-winning videographers produce original films to convey your school’s message and ethos and to build trust with your audience.
Analytics
Check the impact that your virtual tour is having on your online presence and marketing goals with access to the tour’s analytics.
Embed your tour in Google Streetview
Create a map of your trust’s schools and, with a click, enter the tours.
Website & social media
Shareable on diverse online platforms including Facebook and Instagram
Accessibility
Fully compatible with smart phones and tablets as well as computers.
Update, edit and maintain content
Your tour will always be up to date with content management systems either self- managed or through an ongoing support package.
VR headset
At recruitment events, these create a buzz and make you stand out from the crowd.
FAQ
How much will it cost?
Far less than you imagine! As a business with a social conscience, one of Insight UK’s aims is to contribute back to society and to ensure that everyone, young people in particular, are able to benefit from this innovative technology. As such, we have developed a range of specially discounted virtual tour packages for schools. In addition, many of our educational institutions have been able to access funding to pay for their virtual tour. The price of your tour depends on the size of the school and the additional features you would like to include. Many schools have remarked that they have had higher quotes for basic marketing videos. Call our friendly advisors today for a free quote.
I have found a company that make 360 virtual tours for half the price- why are you so much more expensive?
Please be aware of cheap imitations! The internet is full of companies purporting to produce: virtual tours for schools. 90% of the time, these are simply 360 degree photographs. These will not allow the viewer to walk around the buildings and they produce poor standard, uninspiring tours which age rapidly being produced by out of date technology. We use the latest 3D cameras on the market to produce the highest quality tours which will ensure that your tour still looks cutting-edge for years to come. In addition, we are constantly improving the technology to provide you with advanced features to enthral your viewers.
How do you ensure that both the production of the virtual tour and the tour itself meet safeguarding requirements?
All of our VR operators are DBS-checked and our designated safeguarding lead will ensure that your tour meets safeguarding requirements. There is also the option of removing or blurring parts of the tour. We try to complete the scanning while schools are closed to pupils eg on evenings, weekend and holidays.
This is the question
All of our VR operators are DBS-checked and our designated safeguarding lead will ensure that your tour meets safeguarding requirements. There is also the option of removing or blurring parts of the tour. We try to complete the scanning while schools are closed to pupils eg on evenings, weekend and holidays.
We have an idea for our tour that isn’t featured on your website…
Well, run it past us! We can make most ideas happen! The possibilities for your virtual tours are endless and we are always keen to hear new ideas and to discover a way to make it work.
We already have a great marketing film, do we have to use one made by Insight UK?
Again, no. We can embed any of your existing resources like films.
What type of educational institutions do you produce virtual tours for?
All of them! We produce virtual tours for: nurseries; infant, junior and primary schools; state schools, academies and trusts; private/independent schools; pre-prep and prep schools; boarding schools; grammar schools; colleges and universities!
What does the process involve and does it take a long time to organise?
We are acutely aware of the time-constraints that you are under and so we have developed a system that very simple and straightforward. Once you have discussed your requirements with our experienced advisors, we will devise a virtual tour package to suit your needs and budget. We will set a date for the virtual tour scan and filming. Most tours are scanned in one day- all you need to do is to ensure that your school is looking camera-ready! We will provide you with plenty of support and ideas to ensure that your school is showcased in its best light. When the scan has been completed, it takes around a week to process and add in the additional features via meta tags.
If we want to change the films or text in the future, do we have to get a whole new tour?
No- not at all! The beauty of our virtual tours is that you can update, edit or change the content of the meta tags at any point in the future so your tour remains up to date and relevant to your audience for years to come.