NZ Business Podcast - Paul Spain
00:58:32 · Jamie Beaton
[00:58:32] S0: Now that was that was in the back of my mind. And then fast forward, we had many kids doing these subjects through tutoring online, etcetera. Yep. And then when I went to The US, I saw the online high schools there. For example, there was an online high school that, you Elon Musk sends his kids to, and they were achieving incredible academic results. And I thought, wow. Like, this really syncs to what I'm seeing at Crimson across all these learnings. Yeah. You know, what could we do with this? So then that got me thinking and then triggered me to really create, you know, Crimson Global Academy, our online high school. So this is a fully registered high school, registered in New Zealand and in America. We teach the British a levels as well as the AP, the advanced placement, the American curriculum. So we've got students from Keri Keri to, you know, Remuera to, you know, Christchurch that basically are hopping online part time or full time. So part time, you go to your physical school, then take extra subjects outside of school, after school, or on the weekends, and you're part of our global community, these great teachers, the supercharged learning environment, or you go full time. And this is your full school experience, with all of the extracurriculars and, you know, other aspects included. And that's really what we're building at the moment. So we launched that school earlier this year, about six months ago or so, and that's really gone gangbusters. So past a lot of our growth expectations, we've now got kids from more than 20 countries. As I said, it's headed by John Morris and also Mark Phillips, who came from Maclean's. Maclean's the school we helped guide the ducks to get into Harvard five years in a row. Incredible student community, very ambitious, and we knew he was a bit of a rock star, so we brought him on board. And then many other top teachers that have come out of these great schools. And the wonderful thing about an online high school is you're no longer constrained to meeting kids that just live near you or teachers that happen to live near the school. Our teaching pool is from the world stage, and our students are sitting in class with kids from Russia, from China, you know, from Auckland and learning together, and also at this faster accelerated pace.
01:00:13 · Jamie Beaton, Paul Spain
So about 45% of our kids are learning at an accelerated pace, and my goal is to make sure that any Kiwi anywhere in the country can tap into an education that will legitimately make them competitive enough to succeed, you know, anywhere in the world stage, because there is a bit of an achievement gap between, you know, various education systems around the world. If you compare, for example, many of our Kiwi schools to schools in Singapore or Korea, there's big gaps. And so I wanna make sure that, know, you can move to New Zealand and really be com... Comfortable with the environment you're in. And so CGA is, you know, really the next evolution of Crimson. I mean, really, really hope it will kind of broaden the access to our really, you know, quite powerful education system to more families. [01:00:48] S1: And I guess it gives you a pipeline as well of, you know, of students to help them, you know, get into Harvard and the and the like.
01:00:48 · Paul Spain, Jamie Beaton
[01:00:48] S1: And I guess it gives you a pipeline as well of, you know, of students to help them, you know, get into Harvard and the and the like. [01:00:55] S0: Totally. Yeah. I mean, we've got we've got students who are, you know, age 11 jumping into Crimson Global Academy who have the academic ability to take subjects normally you do when you're 14. They come to Crimson that that really unlocks that potential. In February, we're rolling out the pre IGCSE, which basically means, you know, even before you're ready for one of those qualifications, you can start learning, getting ready for that as well. So the goal is really to make sure that, you know, when, you know, families have that ambition, when the the child is excited, we have, you know, the school option for them, you know, anywhere. So this really throws at the idea of school zones. You know, anywhere is a, you know, Crimson Global Academy zone, and so you don't really have to worry about, okay. I'm gonna be in Waiheke Island or I'm, you know, moving to a farm an hour from Auckland or, you know, I'm in Kauai. You know, what are the schools near there? You have access to this anywhere, which is really exciting. So that's kinda how we're thinking about the Global Academy.
01:01:41 · Paul Spain, Jamie Beaton
[01:01:41] S1: Yeah. Look. I I think it's fascinating and, you know, I've always liked to see how people are applying technology to make things, you know, better and and do things in a smarter way than, you know, have been in the past. But, yeah, I look back to my own childhood. There was a a window of time where my family decided, hey. We... We're gonna travel. We're gonna spend a bit of time, you know, in our case, going back to The UK Yeah. Where my parents and and my brothers were born, and visit some other places along the way. And they weren't so keen on it being a short school holiday time trip. This was something we were gonna be doing over over a period of of months. And so, yep, at that stage, a correspondence school was something you could you could tap into. [01:02:21] S0: Yep.
01:02:21 · Paul Spain
[01:02:21] S1: You know, I personally really enjoyed the experience, but there was an aspect of of accelerated learning even with us being sort of sent these booklets and bits and pieces where once you stripped away the other 20 odd people within the classroom and it was actually, you know, just you, you know, working on the things and a parent there to provide input and so on, but, you know, really, really good resources. You know, I think we got through our school day kind of in the morning. Right? So by lunchtime, you had the rest of the day That's lot of sense. Available. And, yeah, no. Look. I'm, you know, I'm I'm at a... Yeah. Probably more middle of the road, not someone that was, you know, expecting to head off to Oxford or anything. But, you know, if that applied to me in that context, yeah, I can certainly understand the value of of what you were doing. In fact, you know, I remember a a discussion with... In one of the TV radio newsrooms in New Zealand when it was disclosed that, you know, the prior government was looking at a change to the education system that would allow people to do online Yeah. Learning. I was chatting to someone that was sort of throwing their hands in the air and saying how ridiculous it was and, you know, thinking, well, there are technological resources that actually, you know, can be very helpful and Totally. Get that mix right even better. So I think it's a, you know, it's a great concept. I'm sure that there are lots of challenges to take that from, you know, where you got two markets where where it kind of operates on the... Maybe a a similar level to attending a a local high school. Is that kind of where you're at at the moment with New Zealand and the and The US? You you have to go through a certification process. What does that actually look like to be able to tick that box and and for the state to say, hey. Yeah. You can go to that school and not turn up to a a normal local high school.
01:04:09 · Jamie Beaton, Paul Spain
[01:04:09] S0: So because we're accredited in both New Zealand and The US and we have an international license, we can actually take kids in any geography, which is why today in our classes, we've got kids from more than 20 countries. So today, we've got learners from Costa Rica, from Russia, from, you know, Japan, from China, from New Zealand in the classes. So now we're fully accredited. That was a, you know, massive ordeal. But, you know, we got through that, and, you know, now now it's really exciting. [01:04:32] S1: So you don't you don't need to do other markets? Like, somebody in Singapore [01:04:35] S0: We've Singapore [01:04:36] S1: kids. Wants to Yeah. [01:04:37] S0: We've got 10 can [01:04:38] S1: they do it full time, or does it have to sit alongside a lot