Australian-based online educational platform, Upschool is revolutionising education through providing free, purposeful and engaging courses, resources and content to children, parents and schools, to empower learners and create positive local and global change.
Co-founders Richard Mills and world-renowned educator and author Gavin McCormack, alongside Jake Davies, are a group of Australian teachers on a mission to use the power of technology to provide impactful lessons that deliver strong, positive outcomes aligned with the national Australian curriculum that make a difference in the lives of children.
Since launching in January 2022, Upschool has delivered live online lessons to over 120 countries weekly, produced units of work on location at the North Pole, enabled children around the world to write, illustrate and publish their own picture books, and raised money to build libraries for disadvantaged communities in the developing world. Next year, they’ll be going to Antarctica to teach lessons about emperor penguins, orcas and the blue whale directly from the ice.
“Upschool is all about approaching education in a different way,” Jake Davies, Upschool’s general manager, said. “By providing quality learning experiences focussed on the interests and preferences of the learner, the learning is more engaging and the outcomes more meaningful.”
Co-founder Gavin McCormack recently travelled to Delhi, India, where one school had enrolled over 2000 children in one of Upschool’s free courses, ‘Be the Change’, which is specifically designed to allow children to take action in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The children were inspired to plant their own forest to help curb Climate Change.
“Our plan has always been to provide free educational courses to the world with the focus on purposeful learning for a better tomorrow. We believe that education should be free and focus on developing empathetic, compassionate and confident leaders of tomorrow,” McCormack said.
Upschool’s latest course, ‘It Starts With You’, was recorded in collaboration with travel company Aurora Expeditions live from the Arctic, and includes lessons on polar bears, glaciers, walruses and Climate Change. The course, which launched on 10 October, and is provided free of charge.
“To see children planting forests in India, writing books in Africa, and building libraries in Nepal, after enrolling in our platform, makes everything worthwhile,” Mills said.
“Our whole intention is to change the world and, with strong, determined students like these, the change we wish to see is just around the corner.”