Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet
Producing printed and digital comms for The Sunday Times State Secondary School of the Year.
THE CLIENT
Queen Elizabeth's (QE) is a state-funded grammar school, with 450 years' experience of producing confident, able and responsible young men. They provide a totally meritocratic environment, in which our boys reach their very considerable potential both in their academic and extra-curricular pursuits. In 2025 and 2026 they won the prestigious title of State Secondary School of the Year in The Sunday Times Parent Power Awards.
THE CHALLENGE
L&F Creative have worked with the core leadership team at QE for in excess of 10 years, offering creative support, output and strategy. During this time we have played a significant part in evolving the brand, collaborating with external marketing agencies, copywriters, videographers and website agencies.
Collectively the challenge is to ensure comms, both in print and online, are produced to the highest possible standards to reflect the quality of this prestigious school. Like the school, the brand can’t be allowed to stagnant. We are constantly thinking at the best way to visually portray the school and its community to parents, prospective parents and the wider academic world. Being able to react whilst being strategic is very much a challenge in the world of academia and this is one we relish.
THE SOLUTION
On a monthly, or even weekly basis, we produce communications for this inspirational school. We have a close relationship with Edge Media, who offer strategic guidance and content creation. We are then set the challenge to work our creative magic.
Key printed items include the annual prospectus, which often sets the tone and visual theme for subsequent marketing campaigns for the year.
The School’s vision plan, every 5 years, is another key communication that often requires a more strategic approach, one where we are need to evolve the brand. Over the years we have worked to take the delivery of this more into a digital sphere, working with our videographers and digital partners.
Finally, emailers are a key deliverable for the school. We produce these for a variety of reasons, to a wide range of communities connected to the school. These can include: alumni events, career development & workshops, events & dinners, school open days, sharing of important documents and print online via ISSUU, sports updates, Founder’s Day, as well as general news & updates from the Headmaster. We design, deliver and manage the mailing lists for the school.
WHAT WE DELIVERED
Over the years we have just about covered everything for this wonderful client. The covid pandemic very much pushed communications more into a digital sphere for a period of time and challenged us to think differently. In 2023 we helped celebrate 450 years of the school with many commemorative items and events. And in 2025 the school became the first state school to have affiliated schools overseas, pushing the brand to new audiences.
As a broad summary, taking a typical year, we have produced:
Our relationship with Andy and his wider team at L&F Creative is invaluable. He regularly pushes us and Queen Elizabeth School, Barnet to be the best version of ourselves. When often under time constraints it would be very easily to take a templated approach to communications and go through the motions, but that just isn’t the L&F way. They constantly push and evolve the QE brand, thinking of new ways to get the message across, whilst remaining true to the ethos of the school and its community.
Paul Herbert
Edge-Media, Educational Marketing
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