Last night, we ran our very first Hive Assembly! It's our new twice-a-year town hall where we share everything we're building inside The Hive and, more importantly, hear what teachers want us to build next.
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The whole night came down to one idea: The Hive isn't something you sign up to and get whatever's there forever. It's constantly being built, and it's built around what teachers ask us for. Almost everything we shared exists because someone sent us a message saying "could you make this?"
A few of the bits I'm most excited about:
school subscriptions are very nearly here and it'll make it SO much easier for schools to pay for teachers. Because while we know that the time we can save teachers IS worth the cost of a couple of coffees per month, we truly believe teachers shouldn't have to pay out of their own pocket for the things that help them teach β
Accelerating the number of digital tools + generators. We asked our members to constantly have the mindset of: "it would be SO good if there was an app for this" as they teach... then tell us! Same goes for anything you're repeatedly making for your class that you wish was just done for you. Our goal is a digital learning tool for every area of the curriculum.β β
We also discussed AI. We could have slapped AI features into The Hive ages ago, but we haven't, on purpose. Anything we build has to be ethical, sustainable and genuinely useful, not a tokenistic feature that wastes your time while you fix its mistakes. And we made a promise: nothing we build in The Hive will ever require you to use AI in order to get value from it. If AI is not for you, that's completely fine.
We shared soooo much more than this... and people were super excited!
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So whether you're a Hive member or just curious about what we're building over here, you can catch up by watching the full recording (top tip - watch us at 1.5 speed... ;-) β Watch recordingβ
E = Education Tip π‘
Did you know that kids arrive at school with working memories about the size of an espresso cup?? β And yet, we regularly try to pour in a whole latte.
Take an ordinary Year 1 task: "write three sentences about your weekend." Capital letters, full stops, finger spaces, sounding out the words, keeping them on the line, adding a describing word, remembering what actually happened on Saturday... that's around 9 things at once, in a brain that can hold about four. β So before you add anything new to a lesson this week, ask: what's already filling the cup? β If the content is new, keep the structure familiar. If the structure is new, keep the content familiar. One new thing at a time. β Your students don't need new. They need clear!!
R = Resource Spotlight π¦
Book Week is nearly here in Australia! This week, we added another freebie to get you started: a record cover design activity where students design a record cover for their favourite book. β Grab the record cover design here.β
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And if youβre still building out your Book Week plans, all our Book Week resources (with LOTS more freebies) live in one spot β Browse them all here.β
Have a wonderful rest of the week, and happy Book Week prepping!
Love,
Tam
P.S. If all that Assembly talk made you curious about The Hive, the best way to see what the fuss is about is to have a play yourself. You can start a 14-day free trial here and explore everything we shared!
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