Become a founding school.
In September–November 2026, we’re opening access to OurNews, our school storytelling platform, to a small group of founding schools in our Pilot Program.
What founding schools receive.
Three working sessions
Three workshops on reducing reliance on social media, eSafety and policy, and building school community through storytelling.
Shape the product
Direct feedback into the features of OurNews — a real say in what gets built next.
Founders pricing
A founding-member rate for your first year, then two years at half the standard rate for your size.
Take decisive action on eSafety
Get back control of how exposed your students and staff are in the stories you share.
Work through it with the other founding schools.
Reducing reliance on social media
Strategy, communications, and managing change.
Security and policy
Consent, safety, and advice.
Storytelling and communication
Improving stories, ongoing use, and student involvement.
Explore the Pilot Program.
Sign up
After a conversation with Jacob and signing a simple agreement. We’ll make this process as easy as possible!
The pilot starts
Use the OurNews importer tool to bring old newsletters in. We’ll even help you publish your first story.
Workshops
The three workshops will help us make OurNews work for you, and give you renewed confidence about your public-facing communication.
We step back
You continue to publish via a continually improving OurNews.
OurNews goes public
OurNews carries on as your school’s newsletter.
$1,500AUD
for the pilot, and the first year subscriptionexcluding GST
- The ten-week pilot and the rest of your first year
- Then two years at half the standard rate for your size
Why run a pilot?
School communication can be a complex beast, and we want to make sure we’re making life better, not just adding to the noise.
OurNews has some new and clever solutions to support risk-reduced story sharing online — we want to make sure these solutions hold up in the real world.
More vulnerably, building products like this takes huge investments of time, money and brainpower. We want to make sure schools love it enough to justify scaling up our investment.
What OurNews offers schools.
A teacher sends a rough note and a photo, and you shape it into a story. The words are the only thing you have to think about.
Stories arrive on their own
Teachers and other contributors submit from a form or by email, photos included. You stop chasing people for content.
One place for everything
Every submission waits in your story hub, searchable, next to everything you’ve already published.
Words, not layout
A clean editor with the layout previewed beside it, so you write and watch it land. No fonts, no colours, no columns.
You publish to a newsletter page and a simple feed, built to read well on the phone your families actually use.
Templates that always work
A few layouts per story, in a set order. Nothing to design, and nothing that can break.
Drag to reorder
Move stories around, then preview the whole edition before it goes anywhere.
Built for a phone
Families read it where they are, and every story keeps its own link you can share.
eSafety recommendations are changing quickly. Stay on top of best-practice, de-risk your communication, and safeguard your students and staff, without ever needing a parent login.
You’ll get early access to these features.
Everything you need to start publishing stories and newsletters.
In the pilot build
- Import of your recent content, so you don’t start empty
- Three visibility levels for granular privacy control
- Teachers and other contributors submit via email or form
- A story hub with search, filters and a public archive
- Live story editor preview
- Pick the stories, pick a layout, drag to reorder
- Your own web address, story links and a simple feed
Coming soon
- AI help with drafting, tone and plain language
- Guided questions for the person submitting a story
- Story seeds from your social posts and school calendar
- Share a link for approval, then schedule and publish
- Your school’s colours and crest, and basic stats on what gets read
- A privacy check before you publish
- A dashboard with deeper reading stats
Keep your current newsletter running
We are not asking you to stop it, or to stop anything else you publish. Run OurNews alongside for ten weeks and see what you think.
We import your recent content
Your hub starts full, so your first edition is quick to put together.
You can go back
If it isn’t working, you stop, and you keep all your content.
You choose if and when to switch
Schools switch when they are ready. Plenty won’t during the pilot, and that is the expected case.
What we ask of you.
Use it for real
Publish real stories across the ten weeks, so what you tell us comes from actually using it.
Come to the workshops
Three sessions, and honest feedback on what is working and what isn’t.
Answer a few questions
Short questionnaires along the way.
Tell us what you thought
A testimonial at the end, and permission to show your school’s logo.
Register your interest.
Book a short conversation with Jacob Shultz — OurNews co-founder and Director of Bolsta Education — about whether your school is a good fit for the pilot program.
$1,500AUD
for the pilot, and the first year subscriptionexcluding GST
- The ten-week pilot and the rest of your first year
- Then two years at half the standard rate for your size