The Pilot Program is underway.
From September to November 2026, a small group of founding schools across Australia is running OurNews with us, publishing real stories and shaping what launches in early 2027.
What founding schools receive.
Almost three years after the first iteration of ‘OurNewsletter’ went live, the official Pilot Program is running. Here is what the founding schools get.
A working product from day one
Not a prototype - founding schools are using OurNews from the first week of the pilot.
Your old newsletters, archived
We upload your old newsletters into OurNews as archives, so your hub starts full.
Three workshops with industry experts
Reducing reliance on social media, keeping your school cyber-safe, and creating a storytelling culture - with the other founding schools.
Direct email support
Direct email support access to the OurNews team, all the way through the pilot.
A say in the roadmap
Founding schools' feedback shapes what ships at the public launch in early 2027.
No lock-in contract
Leave any time and take your content with you.
Three workshops, run with the founding schools.
Reducing reliance on social media
In your comms strategy and enrolment journey.
Keeping your school cyber-safe
With Trent Ray from the Cyber Safety Project.
Creating a storytelling culture
Improving stories, ongoing use, and student involvement.
Explore the Pilot Program.
Founding schools signed up
After a conversation with Jacob and a simple agreement.
The pilot started
We helped each school get started, migrated old content and published their first stories.
Workshops
The three workshops help us make OurNews work for each school, and give renewed confidence about public-facing communication. Founding schools connect with each other and hear from experts about the changing world of external school communications.
Schools keep publishing
Either as an internal test, or publicly with their community.
OurNews opens to every school
Join the waiting list and we will email you before launch.
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.
But this isn’t just about us — we want the pilot to be a worthwhile investment for schools. So there’s a few goodies inside the pilot, too, to help support marketing and comms teams develop communication strategy fit for 2026 and beyond.
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.
Who can find it
Who can read it
Anyone can find it. To read it, people enter an email address, which is recorded in your access log.
What a stranger sees
People who leave an emailKitchen garden
First harvest from the kitchen garden
Leave your email in our visitors’ book to read this story.
Magic Link
Your school’s Magic Link is the way in for your community. Share it in your newsletter, portal or group chat. A story set to Only with Magic Link shows only to people who came in through it. The link changes every 90 days by default, and you can reset it whenever you like.
The visitors’ book
To read a story that asks for an email, a reader signs the visitors’ book: an email address and a one-time code, once per device for 90 days. Every entry goes in your access log. The reader’s email is stamped faintly on every photo they see, unless a story anyone can read shows that photo too.
No parent login
OurNews has no parent accounts or logins. Signing the visitors’ book is a record and a deterrent, not proof of identity. Grandparents, alumni and prospective parents can read and connect with your stories too.
What the founding schools are testing.
Everything a school needs to start publishing stories and newsletters, with more arriving through the pilot.
Schools keep their current newsletter running
Nobody is asked to stop anything they publish. OurNews runs alongside for ten weeks.
We import your recent content
Your hub starts full, so your first edition is quick to put together.
Schools can step back
If it isn’t working, a school stops, and keeps all its content.
Schools choose if and when to switch
Plenty won’t during the pilot, and that is the expected case.
What founding schools are doing.
Trial OurNews across the pilot
Using OurNews throughout the program - internal use is recommended to begin with.
Attend the three workshops
Attending all three workshops and sharing honest feedback on what is working and what isn’t.
A few questionnaires, plus a testimonial
Answering a few short questionnaires along the way, and giving a short testimonial at the end - with permission to show your school’s logo.
No school is being asked to stop its current newsletter or social media, or to decide about switching during the pilot.
Launching early 2027.
Join the waiting list.
OurNews is running its Pilot Program with schools across Australia right now. Join the waiting list and we will email you before OurNews opens to every school in early 2027.