It’s been a killer start to 2024 here at Elevate.
Kids in the UK, South Africa, and the US have been back in school for some time now with students in Australia starting to head back over the past couple of weeks, and just over 99,000 of them have been in an Elevate workshop during that time.
So, buckle in for another Around the Grounds update – let's take a look at what each of our global teams have been up to!
Team Australia
Now we know the Aus team have a bit of a disadvantage this month, as their first sems only took place in the final week of January. But in true Elevate style, they've hit the ground running and have bagged some awesome feedback.
As for coaches, they’ve been working hard throughout the entirety of the month as both parents and students prepare for those first few weeks back in the classroom.
And of course, our friends down under have also been busy welcoming new Elemates to the team – if that’s you, and this is your first time reading Notes from HQ, welcome!
Aus Presenter of the Month
And our first Notes from HQ Around the Grounds Australian Presenter of the Month for January 2024 (okay it’s not a catchy title) is...
Kab!
An incredible start to the year for Kab – he's rounded out the first month with some eye-wateringly beautiful figures: 99.58% stats and a teacher feedback score of 8.67.
We asked Kab if he had any 2024 presenting resolutions, and it turns out, yes, he does...
‘I want to really focus on and emphasize relatability. I want to help kids recognize that regardless of future pathway, these skills will have so much use and value in helping them navigate the rollercoaster of life.’
Standout Presenter Feedback
Bhakti
‘Bhakti was amazing. The girls really appreciated her sense of humour and depth of knowledge. Her ability to tell a story to get the information across was fabulous. The girls were really engaged.’
Aus Coach of the Month
Tom
And don’t forget the 60 fantastic coaches – new and old – who will be helping kids achieve their best this year.
Leading the charge for the coaching team in Aus this month was Tom; he crushed it last year and was one of the top 5 coaches in Australia in 2023, even conducting a bunch of online programs from Paris when he lived there during term 3.
Tom has kept up the awesome work in 2024, getting some phenomenal feedback like:
‘Tom was great, understood Felix, and was encouraging. He built great rapport and friendship. I was really excited for Felix to have a mentor and he even articulated that he would love to be an Elevate Coach in future which shows how much Tom impacted him. Felix was really engaged in it, it was a great matching, even running the program on Sunday afternoons. Felix understood the importance of it and what the program was offering and how he could take it on moving forward. That's been a real help.'
Fancy reeling in some feedback like that in Feb? We asked Tom what his advice is for starting the year out on the right foot, and this is what he said:
‘I've been a coach for just under a year now and in that time, I have had to learn to adapt to students who learn in different ways, at different speeds, and who have different goals, and honestly, it's probably one of the best things about my job. What I have found most helpful is to rely on communication; I've learned to adapt to each need and concern as it arises, to know when to leave something to a student and when to intervene, and I've found (surprise, surprise) that taking these strategies away and practicing them myself has made them much easier to articulate and implement alongside students. I don't think any one routine or structure is perfect in every situation, and for me, recognising that these frameworks will only take you so far, and to take on any and all feedback, has been the most important part of building trust, rapport, and helping students smash it out of the park.’
Well done to both Tom and Kab for their stellar performance in January – you guys are setting the bar high for the rest of the year.
Don’t forget, if there’s someone you think deserves some recognition for their work last month, you can submit a shoutout here and it could be featured in next month’s update.
Slack Channel Highlights
The classrooms may have been quieter this month, but the Aus Slack channels were filled to the brim with some fantastic posts.
There’s been everything from induction dinners to camping trips – check out more below!
Team VIC
Jas kicked things off with a snap of herself and Oscar enjoying a post-induction-drink – featuring some tasteful word art. And it was Velentina who shared the first post of the year on the Random channel – and it’s a good’un.
Team NSW
Team NSW offered up a trifecta of induction dinner pics shared by Victoria, Elyse, and Sophia. A huge welcome to all of our NWS newbies!
Team QLD
No January blues for Team QLD – seems like they’ve been having a riot of a time this month. Thanks to Jed for sharing some photos of their Elevate camping trip which both past and present Elevaters attended. We’ve got two FIRST EVER SEM snaps from Abigail and Yujin, and a photo of the first training session of the year shared by Ethan as Aditya, Abigail, and Isaac join the team- huge welcome onboard!
Team WA & SA
Zephyr from Team WA shared this great pic of their induction dinner, welcoming Sanjay, Nandita, and Jaime to the team – we're very excited to have you all on board! And Kab got the ball rolling on Team SA’s Random channel with this great pic of him and the team. Thanks for sharing!
Team South Africa
It’s been an exciting start to the year for our South African team – we have new presenters, new office members, and plenty of sems and coaching programmes lined up for the year ahead.
Besides announcing our Presenter and Coach of the Month, we’ve got some great photos to share from induction dinners, team meets and seminars, so keep scrolling to get a look at those!
South Africa Presenter of the Month
Candice
You might recognise Candice from our SA and Aus National Awards segment last month, where she was awarded TL of the Year for South Africa – a huge achievement.
Well, Candice has stayed true to form in January, earning 99.75% stats across 22 seminars. Awesome work there, Candice, and congrats on your equally great feedback:
‘Candice is extremely professional and has the students engaged from the moment they walk into the classroom. She was a pleasure to work with. Thank you!’
‘Every aspect was excellent. We look forward to the presentations in May and hope to have Candice as the presenter.’
Standout Presenter Feedback
Logan, Nolwazi, and Candice
‘Logan used the girls' names which they really appreciated. All three presenters were enthusiastic, and the girls related easily to them.’
Elizabeth, Ntebogeng, Nkosana, and Samkelo
‘The presenters were timeous, professional, friendly, and appeared to engage well with our learners (from what I could see walking past the classes). It's always a pleasure having Elevate at our school!’
South African Coach of the Month
Divan
Divan has had an outstanding start to the year so far, delivering some top-quality coaching programmes and getting a 100% close rate on diagnostics run in January – absolutely amazing stuff.
To give you an idea of the kind of impact Divan has had this month, here’s some great feedback he's received from parents:
'Divan was absolutely wonderful, my son thoroughly enjoyed chatting to him and found the conversation so valuable on many levels. Divan got our son spot on in terms of his study habits and we cannot wait to start the program with him.'
'Zack LOVED it! He literally came down buzzing and even tested us to show us what he’d learnt! He was pumped! The newfound confidence was evident after 1 session! Gavin and I were blown away! Thank you for checking in! And all your effort!'
Another great reminder of what an amazing team we have here at Elevate.
But we know that there are so many other awesome examples of awesome work that we don’t get to hear about on the day-to-day. If you can think of any standout moments from your team members last month, don’t forget to submit a shoutout for them here for next month’s update.
Team Photos
Some great photos here of the induction dinners and drinks that took place last month. A huge welcome to all those coaches and presenters joining us for 2024 - we hope we’ll be celebrating your work in Around the Grounds very soon!
Team UK
After what was hopefully a refreshing break for our UK presenters and coaches over the festive period, they were back helping students hone their study skills in the first week of January.
It’s been a big start to the year, with 1031 seminars delivered by the team and 45,364 kids being helped in the process.
Let’s take a look at a snippet of what else they achieved over the past month.
UK Presenter of the Month
Juanita
Our UK Presenter of the Month for January is Juanita! She’s certainly crammed in a lot across the past three weeks, delivering 21 sessions with stats of 98.36 and a 9.31 teacher score – proof that you can indeed have both quantity and quality.
Here’s what Juanita is looking forward to this year:
'I look forward to continuing to build strong rapport with the students I present to, really tailoring advice to meet their study and exam concerns and, of course, always having fun!'
Standout Presenter Feedback
Jagoda and Talib
'Great presenters. Jagoda and Talib in particular were very engaging with the students.'
Charlotte
'Charlotte was lovely and is a real credit to Elevate, lovely to have someone young and still going through the process.'
Tabitha
‘I am always in awe of Tabs - she completely rules that room.’
Jules
‘An outstanding trainer. The girls were fully engaged throughout the session - which at 8.15am is impressive and a credit to Jules as a trainer. Jules managed to clearly outline all of the strategies and built up an excellent rapport with the girls in a short amount of time. I am certain that the girls (Year 9) will be trying out the techniques with confidence following their training from Jules.’
Ebun
‘The students found the workshops incredibly valuable, they really enjoyed the fast paced interesting content and each took away ideas to help them as they prep for GCSEs. Ebun was excellent!!’
UK Coach of the Month
Anushka
Anushka is our very well-deserving Coach of the Month for the UK team.
It’s the awesome feedback she’s received from parents and students this month that has made her stand out. You can read some of these comments below:
‘Anushka was absolutely brilliant and we're very keen to continue on the programme with her as she is going to be so helpful.’
‘Such a helpful coach, and she gave me really personalised advice.’
When we asked Anushka what it was that brought her to coaching, this is what she had to say:
‘After working as a Presenter for Elevate for 2 years, I realised I really enjoyed working at the company and I loved feeling like I was helping students. Coaching became an amazing opportunity for me to continue to do both in a one-to-one context and see the day-to-day impact of the information I was teaching!’
Standout Coach Feedback
Alfian
‘I have really enjoyed these sessions, and I do feel like they have helped me a lot with my study skills, and I think the skills I have learned from these sessions will help me improve my grades overall. Throughout the sessions I think the most important things I learned were note taking and memory, because those skills will help me retain the information that I am taught in class and use it in my exam. Setting the new record for fastest memory time for info set 2 was a pretty big achievement, I surprised both myself and my coach.’
Slack Channel Highlights & Team Photos
The UK team must have been fully focused on presenting this month, as there wasn’t much going down on their Slack channel in January.
We do, however, have a great post from Deon, whose Monday got off to a great start when he left a sem with a hand-made pizza made by one of the student's parents. I’m sure Deon will be volunteering to present at that school again next time the opportunity comes around. Miah also shared a fab photo of him presenting in Jersey and Guernsey at the end of the month which you can see below.
The marketing department would also like to send a huge thanks to Flora and Riazul for coming into the UK office last week to help film some content for campaigns that will be going out over the next couple of months. Take a look at Riazul in action:
What have been the Elevate highlights of your month so far? Let us know and submit it for our Helping the Kids segment here.
Team US
With a full four weeks of sems under their belts, the US team has been stacking up some serious numbers in January, running 737 seminars and helping 33,000 kids across the month.
Our COO John Varvarigos, also made a visit stateside to meet with GM, Rob Edwards, and together they made some very exciting progress in the US expansion project...continue reading to learn more and see the pair in action.
But first, let’s celebrate our US Presenter of the Month for January
US Presenter of the Month
Munsura
Huge congratulations to Munsura, our US Presenter of the Month for January!
Munsura delivered a huge 27 sems last month, while still keeping those stats high at 97.89 with a teacher feedback score of 10!
Thank you for charging hard Munsura, and for picking up extra sessions where you can – we know it’s been a huge help to the US team.
Here’s what Munsura is planning on focusing on in 2024 when it comes to presenting:
'This year I want to work on building more small interactions to create more connections with the individuals. I also want to really show why it’s important to focus on self-development and limit an overload of distractions. This could be using more real-life situations, anecdotes, and results or consequences of these actions.'
Some great stats there for Munsura, but we know that they can only tell us so much.
We want to make sure we’re celebrating every awesome moment you guys encounter while presenting where we can. So if there’s a highlight from your sems this month, let us know about it here - or shoutout a team member whose been doing some great work.
Standout Presenter Feedback
Winy 'Shoutout to Winy! She was GREAT! She showed so much enthusiasm and the kids and staff were very engaged. Today, I met with a student who was in her group. Without prompting, he began talking about the Elevate session on Monday---- he remembered her name and spoke about some of the things he learned. This is huge!'
Team Photos
Check out this great snap of presenter Brittany, and our wonderful CSM, Emilie. The two caught up for a coffee while Britanny was visiting Seattle, where Emilie is based. Thanks for sharing, Em!
And as promised, here’s a photo of US GM Rob, COO John, and Bob Longo, who will be aiding in the expansion of the business in the coming months. Bob offers a wealth of experience as ex-Head of Education for Apple and Next, Head of PowerSchool, and Founder and Chairman of Carnegie Learning. Very exciting things to come, so watch this space!
And that’s it for Around the Grounds this month – thanks for joining us.
While you’re here, don’t forget to check out our Meet the Team on Aus GM Charlie Rush or our introduction to our new segment Helping the Kids, built entirely on content from you!
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