Although the MagiKats maths and English tuition programmes have been operating for over a decade, we have always relied on so-called ‘stock’ images to promote our service.

However, with the launch of two new websites in January 2018, the team at MagiKats HQ decided that the time had come to get some REAL photographs of REAL MagiKats students – and the call to action went out!

(In case you didn’t know, ‘stock’ images are ones taken by professional photographers, using paid models. These photographers then sell the rights to people to use their images – which means any number of different companies could be using the same pictures.)

As MagiKats HQ is based in Farnham, MagiKats students from the Farnham, Guildford and Cobham centres were invited to take part and the lucky few were then selected to take part. On a dull Saturday in April, kids aged from 4 to 16 descended on Farnham for their moment of fame!

Matthew Burch, the photographer for the day, commented: “I love these character-based photo shoots. I can encourage kids to really let their personalities shine – and some of the MagiKats kids had massive personalities!”

The kids were photographed in both their own clothes and MagiKats T-shirts, posing with and without props – all whilst being encouraged to show their fun sides! Where siblings were taking part, they were also photographed together.

In return for their time, parents were offered a lasting memento of the day – in the form of a photo of their child. Anita, parent to Nia, commented: “Nia had great fun and she especially loved having her hair messed up – I normally make her keep it really tidy if she is having her photo taken!”

But why choose MagiKats students instead of models? Surely models with experience would be easier to work with? Well – yes – but much less fun! There was a serious side to the exercise though. As a family business, we at MagiKats love the fact we have such a great relationship with all the families studying our programmes. It was great to be able to show that by using our own students when promoting the programme.

So – what happened next? Well, there were over 500 photos that we were left with to choose from! Over the next few months, you will start to see these photos appearing on our website and social media platforms, as well as in flyers and adverts. We hope that we will be able to repeat the exercise in time and our eventual goal is to have every image used to promote MagiKats to be one of a REAL MagiKats student!