Well we’ve had another amazing week here, full of great learner stories, exciting business announcements, juicy development plans, robust debate and forward-thinking parents. So without further ado, here are our shout outs for the week…
In the week that saw the US pass the dreaded 100k milestone, it was nice to have so many bright moments. We were especially pleased to learn that we’ve helped Lindokuhle Khumalo, a wonderful mum to a 3 year old little boy in South Africa. Her son is too young to be affected by school closures but Lindo is making his education a priority so that he can navigate a future that we’re all very uncertain about, and she believes that language learning plays a key role.
This was music to our ears – this is an area we love to explore and we wrote about it just this week. We are constantly amazed by how learning a language positively benefits children in so many areas. From more grey matter to better career choices or from improved literacy to more ability to empathise, learning another language helps the brain develop in ways we are still trying to understand. For us, finding out about the role that Studycat plays in helping to prepare Lindo’s son for academic and life success was a real highlight.
This week also saw our fourth forum examining the future of education. Each forum brings experts together to discuss current challenges and the opportunities to change things for the better. This week we were delighted to be joined by University College London’s Alison Clark Wilson, education researcher extraordinaire, National Geographic Learning’s Michael Cahill, a brilliant expert in education content and innovation, and Hudon Global Scholars’ Gavin McLean, whose knowledge of education systems around the world amazes us each time we hear from him.
The forum was hosted by Studycat’s Jake Whiddon, the driving force behind our Get Connected teacher training webinar series and one of the most enthusiastic, knowledgeable and indefatigable teachers we’ve ever worked with. The four discussed the impact of the pandemic and what needs to change in education in future. Some great insight came out of the forum – tune in and see for yourself! Our thanks to each of our guests for taking part, stay tuned for more discussions in future.
In more business orientated news, we’re now underway with our European expansion plans and are thrilled to announce the addition of two industry heavyweights to our team. Neal Hoskins, a media expert with amazing experience in educational publishing and apps is joining our growing EU team as a consultant and we could not be happier about this! Neal’s combination of business know-how and passion for education, content and learning is going to be a great addition to our collective skillset. So thanks Neal and we can’t wait to have you onboard.
Also joining us as a consultant is Adam Black, a man described as “fun, inspiring and a force of nature” by Macmillan Learning and is listed as one of “the very best 10 people I’ve ever worked with” by MIT’s professor David Pritchard (and he’s worked with 4 Nobel Prize winners!). Adam’s language learning know-how and data-driven approach to development will fuse perfectly with our fantastic, global team. We’re looking forward to working with you Adam, thanks for joining the team!
Thanks also go to Class-in this week. Not content with just providing the platform for our forums, Class-in have an appetite for innovation and we ran our first trial class with them this week. The class was run by teachers and powered by Studycat for Schools – to teach happy kids put a real spring in our step this week, as it always does. Stay tuned for more on this when we start talking summer school soon!
We wanted to do a shout out to EduLab too this week. We had a fantastic conversation with them and were blown away by their commitment to positive transformation. Like us, they see education as a global priority and their knowledge of cutting edge technologies places them so well to help bring about the change that we need. Thanks for your time guys and we’re looking forward to talking again soon!
Our final thanks for this week go to one of our newest schools and its team. This is an important shout out for us because we are so impressed that Rise, like so many schools, made it a point to innovate during this crisis. So our sincere thanks to Rise Korea’s Daekun Moon and his team for their work with us to ensure a smooth launch of Fun English for Schools. We enjoy working with Rise so much; their commitment to preparing young learners for a global future starts with language learning and we are privileged to play a role in helping them give their students the best possible start in life.
So that was our week – we hope you all enjoyed yours. Happy Friday everyone, and if you’re looking for some fun activities to do with your kids to boost their language skills, check these out!