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.
Almost three years after the first iteration of ‘OurNewsletter’ went live, we’re very excited to be launching the official pilot program for OurNews — the storytelling hub for schools.
A working product from day one
Not a prototype - OurNews is ready to use from the start 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.
Founders pricing
First year subscription included, and half price off the following two years.
No lock-in contract
No lock-in contract - leave any time and take your content with you.
Work through it with the other 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.
Sign up
After a conversation with Jacob and signing a simple agreement. We’ll make this process as easy as possible!
The pilot starts
We’ll help you get started, migrate old content, and publish your first stories.
Workshops
The three workshops will help us make OurNews work for you, and give you renewed confidence about your public-facing communication. You’ll connect with other founding schools and hear from experts about the changing world of external school communications.
Continue using OurNews
Either as an internal test, or publicly with your community.
OurNews goes public
Founding schools enjoy their first three years of discounted subscription if they choose to continue using OurNews.
$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.
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.
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.
Trial OurNews across the pilot
Use OurNews throughout the program — internal use is recommended to begin with.
Attend the three workshops
Come to all three, and share honest feedback on what is working and what isn’t.
A few questionnaires, plus a testimonial
Answer a few short questionnaires along the way, and give a short testimonial at the end — with permission to show your school’s logo.
We’re not asking you to stop your current newsletter or social media, or to decide about switching systems during the pilot.
Public communication, done with wisdom? That’s what we’re building.
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