Eversfield Holidays Limited – Your Number One Choice For Summer Fun

At this time of year, teachers throughout the country, except those at Eversfield, of course, are prone to complain that their pupils have forgotten all about work and are already in holiday mode. Well, this week, Mrs Leonard-Cross has found a novel way to channel the holiday dreams of the children in 4SS towards some extremely productive and exciting work. They are designing their own class travel brochure.

No doubt we have all at some time leafed through the glossy pages of brochures which, for all they might like us to think they are providing accurate information, are in reality just super-sized adverts. Studying them provides a valuable learning opportunity in school because, not only do the children have the opportunity to develop their expertise in computing and research, but they also get a first hand look at how persuasive language is used. These are the initial steps in learning about marketing, a highly transferable skill which may well be of benefit in later life. Marketing is tremendously important for any product, of course. Prior to teaching, your blogger spent her time answering the complaints for a large package holiday company, and many of the problems could be traced back to unwise marketing strategies, those which tended to lead customers to believe they were getting something more than they were actually paying for.

Eversfield Holidays, of course, is a highly reputable company, and the aim of its brochure is to ensure that customers know exactly what they are buying. The children began the lesson by looking in groups at a range of holiday brochures to get a feel of what they are like and how they are structured. For some, this was a new experience. Hermione was delighted, remarking, “I’ve never seen a brochure like this for holidays – I thought you used the internet. It’s really interesting!”

Having done this, Mrs Leonard-Cross called the groups back together to create a list of the key features of travel brochures. These features will be important for everyone to keep in mind when working on their own section of the brochure. Based on what they had seen, the class agreed on a rough format for what a page should look like. The children then had a go at making a mock up page for their part of the brochure. Amielia’s page is to be about Florida and, as she has never been there before, she is looking forward to researching all the wonderful places there are to visit there.

Next it was time to make the all important choice of destination. The children agreed that it made no difference whether or not you had personally visited the place concerned, although of course it didn’t matter if you had. Far more important was to believe passionately in your destination as the top holiday choice anywhere in the world. Seve opted for Madeira as he considers it to be a pretty part of Portugal that is still not sufficiently well known for his liking. Joseph chose South Africa because he’s desperate to go on a safari, whilst Chloe went for Paignton in Devon because it is familiar to her from annual holidays with her father, and holds lots of happy memories. Seth thought New York would be a wise choice because it is so full of famous landmarks but, for Rupert, there is quite frankly nowhere else on this planet worth visiting more than Dubai, and he wants everyone to know the reasons why.

Using the desktop computers, the children opened Google Earth and zoomed in on their chosen destination. Some took screen shots from the web page to use in the brochure, or searched online for enticing images to persuade potential customers to make a booking. Other children began to research airlines which fly to their destination, realising that the ability to fly direct from your own regional airport is a major selling point for a holiday.

Putting together the persuasive text for the brochure pages will be the focus for next week’s lesson, when we can no doubt look forward to reading about glorious golden sands, delicious cuisine to suit all tastes and short twenty minute walks to the beach. I must admit I had been beginning to wonder whether the holiday brochure was a thing of the past, but Mrs Leonard-Cross and 4SS seem to have given it a new lease of life, and I for one can’t wait to make my summer plans.