My Message for 2021, from Head of Education at Penna Education – Jane Johns

As we start a new calendar year and also continue to experience the strangest and most uncertain of academic years, I wanted to say that it’s okay to not know exactly what to expect, to not know by when and for whom things will alter, and why exactly things may continue to appear different and maybe not live up to long held expectations I want to say you are not alone. I’m no fan of Michael Jackson’s music – those of you who know me well will understand ‘popular’ music from any era is just not my thing – but one thing these last ten months has reinforced to me is the impact of working together in partnership with clients and colleagues alike is truly invigorating and reassuring – a great antidote when things are just a little out of the ordinary.

You probably know this already but just in case you’ve forgotten – we’re a great team here at Penna Education – we’re not just good, we are great at all we do.

And we’re really, really great at working with our university clients in overachieving whilst overcoming any obstacle that’s thrown at us. So, whilst we continue to achieve prestigious memberships of frameworks such as ESPO – one of only two education focused agencies to do this – we also strike out, innovate and push ourselves to not just deliver but over-deliver as a matter of course.

We’re all experienced in the sector – some of us (ahem) for several decades – but whilst we differ in age, we come together with our love of what, how and more importantly who we do what we do for – our clients.

It’s our network of amazing student marketeers who’ve kept us going in 2020 at Penna Education. There’s too many to name all of you, but my shout-outs go to Kate and her team at RGU, Victoria, Pauline and Co and GCU, Geoff, Kat & Yvonne at LJMU and one of our newer partnerships – Clare & Sohayla at UA92. You’ve all worked so hard and in so many diverse but equally important ways with us throughout the last ten months so thank you for your amazing attitudes, attention to detail and laughter along the way.

We’re HE nerds here to be honest but that doesn’t stop us innovating as I said. We’re the first agency to have an inhouse programmatic desk, the first agency to use TikTok during Clearing and then there’s our own TikTok...

So, can I say hearty thank you to the sector in which we work. You have been amazing in 2020 and no doubt will continue to rise to the many challenges of life in HE in 2021.

To our clients, I say that we promise wholeheartedly to continue to support, deliver and – dare I say – continue to educate you all with new ways to engage with your ever-changing audiences. We’ll do this in the same way we always have at Penna Education – authentically and with a dash of greatness, as a matter of course.