Deyes High School newsletter evaluation

The front page of the Deyes high newsletter is laid out with the schools badge and name across the top and the title of the newsletter "deyes of our life" and the date below. Below that in smaller text is a list of notable school events in the coming week, followed by a message from the head. The newsletter utilises a colour pallet of red and a range of blues (coinciding with the school badge) and yellow text. Underneath is a message from the head teacher, which indicates the newsletters target audience is the parents of the students, as apposed to students themselves because the message is only informative to parents.

What follows however is a page showing the forms with the best attendance in each year group, as well as maths tips, this information seems more directed towards students than parents, therefore content, along with the cartoon image on the same page, suggests that the newsletter is for students somewhat contrasting with the previous page which indicated that the newsletter was aimed at parents through its content.

Further into the newsletter is a page featuring ideas and advice concerning healthy packed lunches which at face value is something that could be targeted to both students and parents. However the way it is written is more to the parents than the students, as it even directly addresses them as parents. This also creates a confliction about who the target of this newsletter is, as something like ideas for packed lunches could easily be presented to both audiences, but by addressing only one of those audiences directly it singles out the other. It is also worth mentioning that while pages like this one do have pictures, others (such as more from the head) do not and entire pages are just reams of text, which unbalances the newsletter and could potentially bore both students and parents.

The final page of the newsletter also seems to have been created with parents in mind. Again, there are no images present and the page consists of only a long ream of text making the page look more mature and suited for parent (though as previously mentioned, even parents may be disinterested by this layout). The subject of the page is also exclusively directed at parents as it talks about changes in the education system and how parents can prepare their children for it. However whereas previous pages referred to the parents directly, this page makes an even worse mistake of referring to the students in the third person, further alienating them from this pages content, and possible making them feel patronised. Overall, while the majority of the pages are clearly aimed at parent’s there is some oddly placed content that seems to cater more to students. This has made me consider that when creating my own newsletter and magazine I must consider my target audience and cater to them specifically and thoroughly to avoid alienating them or losing their interest.