Twinkl creates industry buzz with new EdTech accelerator TwinklHive
Twinkl Educational Publishing is launching a new start-up accelerator which will bring together and provide support to emerging education technology companies. The accelerator, named TwinklHive, will support EdTech startups with a customisable investment opportunity, including options for mentorship and a cash injection. Located near to the company’s head office in Sheffield, TwinklHive has been created to catalyse an EdTech revolution and support companies that are set to transform areas of education and make a difference to the lives of teachers and pupils. Companies joining TwinklHive will be able to choose from a portfolio of services including resource production, marketing, application development and partnership consultancy. There is also an option for residency at TwinklHive, which has space for up to 80 team members. Jonathan Seaton, Co-Founder and CEO of Twinkl, said: “Entrepreneurs everywhere are having innovative technological ideas that could help millions of teachers. At Twinkl, we want to make sure that we are getting the right technology into classrooms so that we can empower educators and expand their teaching capabilities. “The team at Twinkl has specialised knowledge in augmented reality, international expansion, partnerships and a whole host of other areas, which we are eager to share. We are also excited to learn from the start-ups, as we believe that this shared experience will be invaluable.” Twinkl was founded in 2010 by husband and wife Jonathan and Susie Seaton. The idea for the company came when Susie was working as an Early years teacher and was frustrated with the resources available to educators at the time. When they first started Twinkl the couple worked evenings and weekends to make resources from scratch and published them online from a spare bedroom after work. The business has grown exponentially since then and now has over 500 employees, with over 625,000 teaching and learning resources available on the Twinkl site. Jonathan, Susie and the team at Twinkl are delighted to now be in a position to support new businesses that share the same values and mission. TwinklHive will be officially launched in October. For more information please email hive@twinkl.co.uk
How Twinkl Parents has progressed in the last 10 months
In August 2018, Twinkl Parents was launched, a service designed to meet the needs of an increasing number of parents accessing and subscribing to the Twinkl website. The service provides resources ranging from flash-cards and activity sheets to online educational games and apps. Jay Wynn, who manages the Parents service at Twinkl, said: “We wanted to create a service to address the universal challenges parents and guardians face raising children. The team’s mantra is “made by teachers, perfect for parents” and we began by focusing on specific curriculum-based teaching resources.” As with all Twinkl resources, the materials created for parents are made in-house and approved by the current and former teachers that make up the majority of the team at Twinkl. They include resources designed to aid learning done at school and can be used at home and on the go. The amount of parents using Twinkl has grown increasingly over the past 10 months and the number of subscribers has increased by over 40% since the service was launched. As a result, the Twinkl Parents team has also grown from 3 team members based in Sheffield to over twenty located nationally, all with specific knowledge and expertise. “The team has now also started concentrating on building supportive and inclusive parenting communities,” explained Jay. “These are primarily on social media, on platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. In the next few months, Twinkl Parents will be focusing on growing their two Youtube Channels, one Youtube channel which caters for parents and another Children’s Youtube which includes videos like how to create edible Marshmallow Slime and how to make a Lava Lamp! “Whether it be through forums, Twitter chats, or an advisor on the end of the phone, we want to support parents with more than just their educational queries and also speak to them about Health and Wellbeing, behaviour management and much more.” The materials available reflect this, with resources such as mindfulness colouring, meal ideas and wellbeing lists, to name just a few. With a full-time illustrator working within the team, there is also a selection of resources with anecdotal cartoons, which depict the highs and lows of parenthood. These show compassion towards the challenges parents face but also provide comic relief, a great example being this representation of ‘Date Night’. Twinkl Parents is always looking for new opportunities to help parents and communities. The team recently supported Sheffield’s Hospital Charity by donating over 700 Twinkl Original books and creating mindfulness colouring sheets for participants of the Jessop Super Heroes Appeal family walk, which raised money to make improvements to the Jessop Wing maternity hospital. Twinkl Parents is part of the core package from Twinkl, which is available at £4.49 a month and includes access to over half a million resources and Twinkl Originals digital storybooks. There is also an option to create a free account and a large variety of free resources to download.