Hi Reader,

Last night we ran our very first Hive Assembly!!

A massive thank you to everyone who came along and gave up a chunk of their Wednesday evening. And thank you to everyone for putting up with our slightly croaky voices that are still recovering after two weeks of being sick haha.

If you couldn't make it, this is your recap. And if you'd rather watch it all back, the recording is here ➜ Watch recording​

But before we get into it, there was one theme running through the whole night: You don't sign up to The Hive and get a static platform that never changes.​
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The Hive is constantly being built, and it's built around what YOU ask us for. Almost everything we shared last night exists because a teacher sent us a message saying "could you make this?"

Keep that in mind as you read this (longer than usual!!) email, because at the end, we're going to ask what you'd love us to build next.

The year so far

We started with a quick highlights reel, because we're constantly adding new things and honestly, a lot of it never even gets announced.

Just some of what's landed this year:

• the new slides editor and Teach Mode/dashboard
• student trackers (with colour coding and conditional formatting)
• the Staffroom
• new digital tools + additions to existing tools (e.g. the handwriting repeater tool that so many of you LOVE!)
• digital games, including the soccer game your students are apparently obsessed with
• new generators: handwriting worksheets, Roll and Read/Roll and Write
• text to voice in ALL the decodable apps (you can even set the accent)
• new soundscape calming tracks and video backgrounds
• thousands of new resources

And the thread that ties all of it together? You asked for them, so we built them.

Honestly, that's one of our favourite parts of running The Hive... someone sends us an idea, and we get to build it for them!!

What’s up next?

Here's just some of what we shared... that led to reactions like this!! YAY! :-)

1. School subscriptions are (very nearly) here

Behind the scenes, we've been ticking off all the boring-but-important boxes schools need. If you're in NSW, The Hive is already on the DOE approved software panel (your admin can subscribe through the normal billing portal), and our Safer Technology 4 Schools certification is underway. But all of the admin/governance/security updates will be music to ALL school admin ears!!

We believe teachers shouldn't have to pay out of their own pocket for the things that help them teach. We're so grateful you choose The Hive and we truly believe that the time we can save you is worth the cost of a couple of coffees per month. BUT we'd much rather your school was paying for it.

So very soon, you'll be able to take a document we've prepared for you straight to your school, and it will do the explaining for you. Our goal? To have as many schools as possible paying for YOUR Hive subscriptions!

2. Slides are getting a second pass

We'll be honest with you here, because we were honest on the call.

When we released the new slides editor, we built it to do more... more features, more flexibility, more like PowerPoint. Because that’s what so many of you were asking for! But when we look at the data, most of you (six to one!) use slides for less: one daily routine deck that you tweak week to week.

So, we want to get the balance right. The ability to do MORE, whilst still keeping the simplicity of the old editor.

Coming soon to slides:

• a fast daily reset - one click clears yesterday's annotations, tallies and picker results, ready for a new day (and yes, it's undoable)
• a cleaner, simpler-to-use side panel, with your most-used tools right there
• settings that appear next to the thing you've selected, not way off to the side
• hiding the bottom tools when in presentation mode, so the slide is the clear focus - reducing cognitive load and distractions for your students
• templates that become proper building blocks - grab a morning circle set or a phonics warm-up set, and save your own to reuse forever
• PowerPoint import (a tricky one, so no promises on timing, but it's happening)
• click-to-reveal animations and other similar PowerPoint animation settings
• and all those little "paper cut" fixes... text boxes behaving, font sizing, list quirks

One reminder while we're here: you can ALREADY embed (not just link out to) your existing PowerPoints, Google Slides and Canva slides into The Hive. So many people don't realise this! Step-by-step instructions are here ➜ Read here​

3. Apps, generators + a little homework

With school subscriptions nearly wrapped up, Jez is about to be freed up to do what he does best: build.

Our goal is simple. We want a digital learning tool for every area of the curriculum, starting with literacy and maths.

So here's your homework. As you're teaching, notice the moments where you think "it would be SO good if there was an app for this." Then tell us. Hit the help button in The Hive, choose app request, and send it through.

Same goes for anything you're repeatedly making for your class that you wish was just done for you... that's what generators are for.

Our goal: templates & generators that automate the recurring tasks and take them off your plate. There is no idea too small or too silly - we want to hear them all!

4. AI, and a promise

We know AI is on everyone's minds, and we know teachers sit everywhere on the spectrum with it. So we want to be really clear about our stance.

We could have slapped AI features into The Hive ages ago. We haven't, on purpose. Anything we build has to be sustainable, ethical and responsible, and it has to be genuinely useful... not a tokenistic feature that wastes your time while you fix its mistakes. That is just annoying and time-consuming for you, and a wasteful use of AI.

We know that some people would rather NOT use AI in their classrooms. And we totally respect that. So our promise is this: nothing we build in The Hive will ever require you to use AI in order to get value from The Hive. If it's not for you, that's completely fine.

For those who are keen, some of what's been requested and considered so far: AI-assisted planning, finding resources based on what you're teaching, exit tickets/check-ins generated from lessons already in your slide decks, slide deck generation, decodable text generation, DIY apps and/or the ability to build your own widgets, and report comment drafting. None of these are promises, but they’re definitely conversations we're having. So, stay tuned!!

5. The resource & video library keeps growing too

A few quick ones:

• we're continuing to build out the Years 3-6 resource library (maths and literacy first)
• explicit teaching scripts for literacy and numeracy are coming
• history and geography units are on the way
• more teaching videos & calming tracks
• curriculum codes added to ALL resources, apps & videos
• more teacher PL, including short audio trainings you can pop in your ears while on the go
• and one you heard here first... sets of maths reviews that will cover the ENTIRE year, so you can review every morning and know the whole curriculum is ticked off by December

6. More how-to guides & quick tips

And finally, one of the pieces of feedback we constantly hear is that there is SO much in The Hive, and people just don't know where to start! This was even one of the comments in the call last night:

We totally hear you. In addition to creating more building block templates for you, we'll continue to roll out more quick how-to videos and 'did you know you could do this?!' updates, so that you can truly be getting the most out of your Hive experience!!
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​Teaching truly is the best job in the world, and so we want to build things that make your job as enjoyable as possible... whilst also freeing you up to enjoy more of your life outside of teaching too! That's our whole mission!

Over to you 💛

The whole last section of the assembly was your ideas, and our inbox has been humming ever since. If you didn't get a chance to share, the Google form is still open ➜ Answer questions​

Things like… Where did you get stuck in your first month? What makes you sigh in the slides editor? What app and/or generator tool do you wish existed? How do you use AI in your classroom? What AI features would you love to see added into The Hive?
​We genuinely want to know all of it.
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So - thank you for being part of our Hive community. Hearing how The Hive is helping in your classroom is what tells us what to build next, and it means the absolute world!

Love, Tam and Jez
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P.S. Thanks for sticking around to the end of this email!! We hope it was worth it to get the creative ideas juices flowing, and that you’re feeling excited for ALL that’s to come!

P.P.S. Shout out to one of our newest members, Emma! Thanks for attending all the way from Ireland last night!!