Why a Student's Zip Code Should Not Decide Their Future: Building a Global Online School in 70 Countries with Penelope Barton

Adrienne Garland (00:02.254)
Hi, everybody, and welcome back to the She Leads podcast. Before I introduce you to our next guest, I'd like you to take just two minutes to give the show a five-star rating and review on Apple or Spotify. This action is so important for the show's visibility and the visibility of each and every one of our guests. The women on this show share their journeys, wisdom, and lessons so you can go further.

faster, wealthier, and with more ease. So if you're interested in seeing more successful women leaders and entrepreneurs in this world, like I am, then please take this easy step to support women everywhere. Thank you so much in advance for helping to share our incredible show with more people. Now, my next guest is coming to us from literally the other side of the world.

Her name is Penelope Barton and she's the CEO of Crimson. Her name is Penelope. my God, what's my problem? Her name is Penelope Barton and she's the CEO of Crimson Global Academy and co-founder of Crimson Academies where she leads a portfolio of innovative schools that are redefining what education will look like in a digital first world.

Penelope is a pioneer of hybrid and online education models and serves thousands of students across more than 70 countries. Her work sits at the intersection of education, technology, and AI, where AI is a practical partner to educators and supports personalized learning rather than replacing the human elements of teaching.

She's an active member in the AI and Founder ecosystem and is a global speaker on AI-enabled education, education reform, and building scalable, student-centered learning models online. From growing up in rural New Zealand to leading one of the most ambitious global ed tech portfolios in the world, Penelope is helping shape how the next generation learns, lives, and leads.

Adrienne Garland (02:13.964)
I cannot wait to welcome you to our show Penelope. So happy you're here.

Penelope Barton (02:23.642)
Thank you for having me. Wow, I feel like it's, once you read out a bio like that, it's hard to then, gosh, am I going to, am I going to live up to that? I have some poignant things to say.

Adrienne Garland (02:27.96)
Yeah.

I know that you will have some very poignant things to say. let's start at the beginning. Let's start in rural New Zealand. Take us there. Not many people have, you know, there are definitely listeners from New Zealand, but the majority of the listeners of the Sheelit podcast are Canadians and Americans. So take us around the other side of the world.

And let us know, you said you grew up in rural New Zealand and now you are in the founder world, the AI, the technology world. How did it all start?

Penelope Barton (03:11.792)
Yeah, so when we say rural New Zealand, most of the, there was a big city which had maybe 80,000 people in it and then, you know, smaller city which had around, you know, anywhere between sort of five and 10,000 and I fluctuated between the two. So quite small in the scale of things, but near a city, so that's nice. So I grew up down there and

at that point in time and you know this was this was pre pre internet internet was it was coming out when I was going through school but you were really connected into the the rest of the world that was a very foreign concept you were essentially surrounded by those that were nearest to you in your proximity where you know your friends your inspiration you know outside of that in the library and then you'd you'd hear these amazing stories and then I remember when

The internet came out and you just suddenly had these global connections. I moved to more cities. I studied, I graduated. I kept moving into these larger cities and was fortunate in the places that I worked to be able to spend time overseas and have worked in a number of different countries now. And there's always been this connection point that I've thought about is how do we create this borderless ecosystem? How do we ensure that a student anywhere in the world

Adrienne Garland (04:32.589)
Hmm.

Penelope Barton (04:35.098)
has access to this global community, has access to these incredible teachers. Again, when you're in a smaller place, are, you know, if you've got a teacher that might be really hard to recruit, it's very hard to recruit teachers. So they may be the English teacher, the math teacher, the science teacher. They may love one of them, they may not love any of them. And so that, you know, and that is your teacher. And then how do we create this world in which you can have these passionate teachers and their subjects?

Adrienne Garland (04:49.176)
Yes.

Alright.

Adrienne Garland (05:01.868)
Hmm.

Penelope Barton (05:02.276)
connected to you from anywhere in the world. How can you build these communities and friendships across borders, through countries? And so this is not something that I had growing up and then just had exposure to it. I just have this desire to look at how we can bring this back now and create this word for students. it shouldn't, someone's postcode should not dictate what their outcome looks like. And so what I'm trying to do on scale is create that, that sort of dynamic for them.

Adrienne Garland (05:22.35)
Hmm.

Penelope Barton (05:31.984)
And so we have Crimson Global Academy, which we launched six years ago, which was our first foray into the space. And prior to education, I worked majority in technology companies that were going global. So it was this global technology event. We started Crimson Global Academy, the online school six years ago, with this exact premise of how do we connect amazing teachers to students anywhere in the world. And that's going really strong now with students in over 70 countries.

Adrienne Garland (05:36.814)
Mm.

Adrienne Garland (05:53.838)
Hmm.

Penelope Barton (06:01.24)
We had 144,000 classes last year that we ran, so it's got almost 24-7 at this point. And then we started Crimson Academies, which is our more of our venture studio for schools, essentially, is the best way to describe it because it's, you know, we either build or we buy schools that are trying to do something different in education and run that as one collaborative group. So we now have five schools.

Adrienne Garland (06:02.552)
Wow.

Adrienne Garland (06:14.837)
Mmm, amazing.

Adrienne Garland (06:28.846)
incredible.

Penelope Barton (06:30.768)
within the group from anywhere from ages five through 18, primary, online, in person. We have specialist schools for neurodivergent students, know, a full range. But what ties them all together is assembling this group of those that are looking to do something a little bit different, redesign education for today's kids and their future.

Adrienne Garland (06:57.955)
Yes.

Penelope Barton (06:59.192)
not the past, education is largely traditional, how do we build that future with those students for them and all of the schools have that.

Adrienne Garland (07:06.326)
So I just want to kind of rewind a little bit because I think that you talk about this like it's an everyday occurrence and it is for you, but it's sort of revolutionary what you're saying. So I want to give that the time that it deserves. I wonder to myself, there are so many areas around the world that

you know, technology, it's just, it's difficult to get technology into some of these areas. And we saw with, you know, mobile devices that was that sort of leapfrogged over some of the other technology that we were exposed to as as we were, you know, going through school, it went straight to mobile. How how do you get

the teachers and the technology into the hands or, you know, I don't even know what it is of these students that are in these rural areas. What does that look like?

Penelope Barton (08:12.079)
Yeah.

Penelope Barton (08:18.904)
We're fortunate now, and I'm not sponsored by Starlink, but a lot of our families use Starlink to be able to get satellite internet wherever they are. I families that are living and traveling on boats and they're still able to join school five days a week and they have this, or they have mobile as you say. And it's, when you think about it from the teacher side, it's really been this huge unlock for us because teaching traditionally is something that you

Adrienne Garland (08:24.846)
Hmm.

Adrienne Garland (08:30.542)
Sure.

Adrienne Garland (08:47.149)
Yeah.

Penelope Barton (08:47.536)
go to a physical building to do and you are there five days a week and you are sort of locked in. But being able to hire and recruit teachers really from anywhere in the world to work on hours that suit them because we are supporting a global student base has been huge. And so we've had teachers, when we talk about, know, rurally, for moving countries, we've had teachers that, you know, might live in, you know, the middle of New York.

and are now living in Spain, for instance, or we've had, you know, teachers that might be here in New Zealand and now they're living by a beach in Thailand, because as long as they can stay connected, they can do their exact same role. And so it's been quite this unlock as well for our teachers and then for our families, yes, as long as they have mobile or satellite internet, they can access. And that's been, yeah, for a lot of our families that hasn't been.

Adrienne Garland (09:25.358)
Mmm.

Penelope Barton (09:46.136)
too much of a barrier. As we move more into our most recent school is completely government funded and so it's tuition free and with that we have more students that you know may not have access and so we're looking at we've been partnering with community groups and libraries and you know how do we create spaces in which they can get to easily for them where they could still access our school.

Adrienne Garland (09:53.134)
Wow.

Adrienne Garland (10:08.408)
Mm-hmm.

Penelope Barton (10:15.685)
through to much wilder ideas that I have using technology we have today. You've got mobile, you've got drones that can provide internet. How do we make the most of that for students?

Adrienne Garland (10:16.622)
Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (10:21.71)
How and are these, I mean, the schools are a separate conversation, but some of the academy, that something that a school might bolt on to something that they're doing already? Can you just describe exactly what it is?

Penelope Barton (10:45.334)
Yes, so at this point it almost feels like a full menu offering because we have online and in person students join us either full time or part time and part time they students do this out of there they're looking to take additional subjects maybe there's a specialist subject they're interested in due to their training commitments they can't do their full study they join us for that and or

They are just looking to accelerate because we're placed based off ability, not age. those are some of the reasons people dress up part time. And then within that, students can join us in a group class, a small group class online, or they can join us fully one to one. So one student, one teacher, their entire curriculum delivery. And so that's something we launched two years ago. Again, just more option for students. And now about half of our students have that at least as

Adrienne Garland (11:24.014)
Hmm.

whoa.

Penelope Barton (11:44.016)
a learning mode for one or more subjects. And that's, you know, they really want to accelerate in maths or they may need more support, whatever that may be. They can get through it incredibly quickly and really personalise to them because it's just one to one. And then other subjects that require more discussion and debate, maybe in English literature, they may opt to do those in a group setting. So they can do a mixture of any of those. And then, yes, we have partnerships with schools where we can also do the same thing, but

Adrienne Garland (11:54.766)
Hmm.

Adrienne Garland (12:02.094)
Sure.

Penelope Barton (12:13.804)
on mass for schools. So we have a number of partner schools that we work with. They largely it's been two reasons, one teacher shortage or two additional offering. so curriculum, we offer APs, we have the British curriculum, we have the New Zealand curriculum, and now so it's multi-curriculum choice as well. And so they can kind of join us to bolt on an additional curriculum, the students can do preparing them for whichever pathway they want to take.

Adrienne Garland (12:33.035)
Mmm.

Penelope Barton (12:42.832)
and then also teacher shortages. So we deliver some maths and sciences for a school. We deliver advanced placement courses for another school. We deliver middle school education for a traveling school. It's quite broad in terms of really anyone that's looking to bolster that education side, whatever it means, can partner with us. So yeah, we have B2B, B2C. We're operating in every market. We have...

Adrienne Garland (12:54.787)
Yeah.

Penelope Barton (13:11.888)
Yeah, physical we have online, have full-time, we have part-time group classes, one-to-one learning mode. You know, we've really tried to break down as if we looked at education, trying to break down. When you're trying to transform an existing industry, right, you have to start quite similar to what it looks like and then start to break down, okay, how can we do this? You know, students should have choice over, you know, how they study, when they study, what they study, how they study.

Adrienne Garland (13:34.913)
Hmm.

Penelope Barton (13:37.38)
And so we've taken all of those elements and gone, okay, well, what they study, they can now have multi-curriculum when they study, they can schedule it themselves over seven days and whichever time works for them. They can study in a part-time or group class, they can study one-to-one, can study in a group, all of these sort of different elements we've looked to break down so that ultimately students can build education and schooling that works for them.

Adrienne Garland (14:00.798)
I'm fascinated that you're able to offer so many different options and able to scale all of that in all of these different countries with all of these different curriculums. How were you able to build out something like this that is so flexible? I mean, this is not a software. This is human beings. This is programs.

There's so many different variables that are colliding, and yet you're in 70 countries. How is this even possible?

Penelope Barton (14:43.054)
Yeah, so I guess two parts to that. One, the technology side. Yeah, it's all human and face-to-face, be that online or in person, but the technology that we've built really supports the logistics of this because of the scale. There is a lot of complexity in terms of managing, yeah, managing all of the classes, all the different streams, all the different curriculum. There is a lot that goes into that. And so we use technology to support on that side.

But in terms of the scale, it's really, I mean, it's taken us six, six-ish years to get to this point. But we started with two years of high school, only one learning mode. You could only join us full-time. And then we've just, over the last six years, based off what students have needed and what they've been looking for, we've just kept adding on from there. And so it looks now...

Adrienne Garland (15:22.124)
Yes, right.

Penelope Barton (15:37.348)
this huge array of choice in the education system that I love and what we sort of envisage could be possible. But it really started from, start with where we know we can support students these last two years of high school in this one curriculum. And then we've built out from there pretty methodically over the last six years to get to where we are now. But that scale has been very small steps.

Adrienne Garland (15:42.766)
Hmm.

Adrienne Garland (16:04.524)
Yeah.

Penelope Barton (16:05.872)
towards something even though it looks, you know, this big behemoth now at the time, it was always just, okay, now primary school, let's do primary school, let's look at another learning mode and now you've got this full kind of ages, know, full K through 12.

Adrienne Garland (16:13.902)
Sure.

Adrienne Garland (16:20.578)
Now, are schools around the world, and do you have this available in the United States? OK. So, OK. So, I mean, I say this on the podcast a lot. if anybody listening, if I sound like a broken record, sorry, but I love doing this. I teach entrepreneurship at NYU and also at Rice University to undergrad and grad students.

Penelope Barton (16:31.328)
Yes, the...

Adrienne Garland (16:49.102)
I always say, know, gosh, I wish that as I was going through school, that we were taught things that actually help our lives. Entrepreneurship being one of them. I think everybody needs to know how to start a business and how to grow it and scale it and sell it and, you know, be self-sufficient and all that kind of stuff. And that's just not taught in school. And then the second thing is really around

finance and understanding how to build wealth so that you're not just working and paying your bills and just surviving. I don't think that we were put on this earth to work ourselves to the grave and go from hand to mouth. We definitely are much more creative as human beings. So my question, I know that the school system still has not evolved to

helping people to get into a space when they graduate that is, you know, creative, that allows them to build wealth that are training them for jobs that are existing today, still very much, you know, memorization and things that you can just look up online. How is education changing or is it not? And is that why you...

think that what you're building is so successful? And do you see the education system changing anytime soon? I know that was a loaded question.

Adrienne Garland (18:25.474)
Ha ha ha.

Penelope Barton (18:26.972)
I would love to see more of the education system change. And I see pockets of change. mean, where any change runs into hurdles is that ultimately education is people and people need to be brought into that. And you can't just tell, you know, a thousand teachers or 30,000 teachers in a district, you now need to teach this, right? So, you know, see pockets of it, but know that it's really hard to actually deliver that at scale and get people brought in and make real change.

I completely agree though with the premise and so what we look to do in our schools is how do we prepare kids for their future and also being humble enough to know that we don't know 100 % what that's going to look like and so we have options within our curriculum that are much more traditional and for some of our students that are looking to go off to academia and

Adrienne Garland (19:08.386)
No. Yeah.

Penelope Barton (19:20.846)
you know, that gives them such a strong foundation for that. And so in those curriculums, we look at, okay, how do we wrap these extracurriculars around you? One of our most popular extracurriculars is our stock investing club. And so, yeah, we give students, you know, a portfolio, they build that, they run kind of competitions through the end of the year to look at who's had the largest growth. And so we wrap that around in our extracurriculars and electives for them. And then we have...

Adrienne Garland (19:30.9)
yeah.

Penelope Barton (19:48.592)
other programs that lean a lot more into that and for students that want more of those tangible skills, we have courses from intro to small business, entrepreneurship, Bitcoin, finance, absolutely everyone should know how to do a budget, social media marketing. We run entrepreneurship programs and clubs where students are building companies, pitching them back, getting that.

Adrienne Garland (20:00.257)
Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (20:05.943)
Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (20:13.718)
Love it.

Penelope Barton (20:17.232)
getting in that comfort zone of knowing that like that may not be the best product or even the final product, but just getting in that comfort of I've got an idea, how do I test my assumptions and how do I build something that serves that need and present it. And so we run those entrepreneurship clubs as well. And then we've been looking in sort of a pilot here in New Zealand. So all of these programs are global, including the US, which is one of our fastest growing.

Adrienne Garland (20:31.877)
I love that.

Adrienne Garland (20:44.108)
Penelope Barton (20:46.48)
countries, which is amazing. And so we'll continue to grow there. But what we've been testing as a pilot in New Zealand before we look to launch a similar one in the US is going even a step further into primary school and what the future skills look like and our future schools curriculum there. So we have kids as young as seven, seven years old that are building their own apps at the moment. And we'll be presenting those back.

Adrienne Garland (21:00.461)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (21:11.278)
What?

Penelope Barton (21:14.736)
that we've looked at, okay, so these kids have these amazing ideas. How do we help them bring it to life? How do we bring product thinking and bring these master classes to them? How do we pair them with a public speaking coach? And so they're getting, we've got public speaking courses that run a couple of times a week, so they can build that because it's great to have an idea and these younger kids have these incredible ideas, being able to articulate the idea.

Adrienne Garland (21:28.65)
Hmmmm

Adrienne Garland (21:40.142)
Mm.

Penelope Barton (21:43.822)
is what's gonna stand in the way for them. so, I mean, imagine as young as seven, if they're getting this kind of like idea of failing, of building things, of presenting, of having that kind of wraparound support, what they're going to able to go on and do. And then we've also looked at that sort of multidisciplinary nature. And so for all of our students, we look at how can we just expose them to as many things as possible? Because as you move into the future, it's gonna be that adaptability, it's gonna be that cross section between subjects. It's going to be...

Adrienne Garland (22:03.992)
Yeah.

Penelope Barton (22:12.836)
the fact that the student is really fascinated by space and then, they've done this really interesting thing over here on like ethics. And then they were just doing this piece on robotics and just bringing it all together. And so in all of our schools, we're looking at what does that breadth look like? And how do we support them in gaining that to set them up? And then at the same time, that critical thinking, the ethics, the risk taking, the entrepreneurship, the core skills.

Adrienne Garland (22:20.152)
Sure.

Adrienne Garland (22:27.075)
Mm.

Adrienne Garland (22:41.698)
what they do, right?

Penelope Barton (22:41.828)
that they will need regardless of subject specialty or role. We set them up for that and their resilience and social emotional wellbeing and those pieces that we focus on as well.

Adrienne Garland (22:49.966)
Amazing. What have been some of the hurdles that you've had to overcome as you're scaling?

Adrienne Garland (23:02.304)
Yeah.

Penelope Barton (23:03.48)
Oof, that's a long list. I mean, probably one and just thinking about, you know, for those listening, founding their own companies, growing their own thing. One of the things that I struggle with daily is probably overcoming my own impatience. This feeling of there's this amazing opportunity and all these people around the world are also doing amazing things. And look at what that competitor just did. And I need to do all of these things today to try and get ahead of that.

Adrienne Garland (23:17.934)
Mmm.

Penelope Barton (23:33.296)
And then you ultimately just end up in this kind of negative space. It's really hard to keep up with that. So that would be one of the pieces is just trying to, and not even delegate, because people always say, you know, can delegate to other people. But a lot of the time it's really just around figuring out what is that like one point that's gonna have the biggest difference. It's like, where is that leverage? Where can I put my time on?

Adrienne Garland (23:37.39)
Mm.

Adrienne Garland (23:53.271)
Mm.

Penelope Barton (23:59.994)
because you may not always have the ability to delegate to other people. And so, where is that one piece? What can I prioritize right now that is gonna have the biggest impact? And that would be one of the big pieces for scale outside of scaling a global team and legislation and the regulatory nature that is schools. And I mean, there are so many other pieces, but I think if you're a founder, that's something that, yeah, it's just kind of a constant.

Adrienne Garland (24:15.148)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Penelope Barton (24:26.277)
this, you know, you're on this hamster wheel and you want to go really quickly and you see all of this stuff happening and to work, where can you prioritize?

Adrienne Garland (24:32.174)
How do you handle that? So is that something that you're really good at just sort of self coaching yourself? Do you have someone that you can, that's like an advisor or a trusted person?

Penelope Barton (24:50.55)
Yeah I have sort of a group of advisors all with different strengths and you know use them to kind of bounce ideas around with but it's definitely not a skill that I have. I'm just on my other screen right now I can see my to-do list and I'm like I have not really practiced that this week. So it's kind of on this ongoing evolution really. So yes I have advisors

Adrienne Garland (25:07.0)
Ha

Yeah.

Penelope Barton (25:15.054)
I try and every day be like, what's the one thing I can do today that's going to shift things and focus there? But then some weeks you just get drowning in admin and then a couple of weeks later you look up and you're like, wait, what was I doing again? I need to focus again. And so you kind of go through these loops and then get back.

Adrienne Garland (25:26.552)
Hahaha.

Adrienne Garland (25:31.854)
Now, do you see that these type of educational opportunities are also something that can be implemented in higher education? Why are you laughing? Because you're like, oh, what do you see? Am I my crystal ball? Yeah.

Penelope Barton (25:50.984)
Yeah, definitely. mean, it can be applied to really, I mean, it can be applied to most industries. There are a lot of other industries, I think, that are already there, that are more, know, rightly or wrongly, very consumer focused and obsessed and, you know, that's what they, you know, that's what they're really trying to work on.

Adrienne Garland (25:56.94)
Mm-hmm.

Penelope Barton (26:12.848)
Then you sort of look at education and you go, nope, is we run things this way We will keep running it this way and you can join us if that suits you and and they haven't really taken the approach of actually how do we make this, you know student-centered consumer focused What is it? How is this level of personalization? And so yet the same things we see in K12 absolutely exist in higher ed and some see that potential in the future, but in terms of

Adrienne Garland (26:15.383)
Yeah.

Penelope Barton (26:42.064)
at least for the next five plus years, I think staying in K-12 because it has such a compounding impact for students and giving them more students access to this because then they can, I mean, I think even if people have a stronger high school and know themselves and have these skills, if they decide to go over to higher ed, they're likely to pick one that fits them better. And already that's a great step forward. so,

Adrienne Garland (26:46.69)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (27:02.572)
Yes.

Penelope Barton (27:09.872)
or have a better idea of what it is they might want to do at the end or just things they're interested in and it not just be, okay, you've done this grade level and so now you're off to higher ed and you just want to go to this one because that's where other people you know have gone to, so I'm going to do the same thing, just giving them that exposure of what else is possible. We also think when we look at our students and we, from a college counseling point of view,

Adrienne Garland (27:26.286)
Mm.

Penelope Barton (27:35.034)
We're always looking at students to consider, have they considered going, if they're going to apply internationally, how about they try two or more countries? Yeah, so if you're in Australia and you're looking to go to the US, great. Have you also considered Europe and Canada? Let's look at those universities as well. Or can you go to Norway? I mean, we're just looking at different options again, just give them that exposure and they may end up picking and.

Adrienne Garland (27:40.843)
interesting.

Adrienne Garland (27:50.062)
Mmm.

Penelope Barton (28:03.214)
being accepted into an amazing US university, which was their dream school, perfect. We have a lot of students at NYU, for instance, and that's great. They can go through that journey, but the main thing is they feel really comfortable that they made that choice and are the lines to where they want to go. So again, a long looping answer to be like higher ed, absolutely, huge possibility, and would love to at some stage, but.

Adrienne Garland (28:09.59)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (28:17.997)
Mmm.

Penelope Barton (28:29.038)
The biggest impact right now I see is the earlier years and so the focus is on, that's just, yeah.

Adrienne Garland (28:29.646)
K through 12. I'm just curious, the business model, because I would think that perhaps the one-on-one education might be funded in a different way than maybe some of the larger programs. And I know that school budgets are tight. And so I'm sort of wondering, where is the funding for your company coming from?

Penelope Barton (28:39.492)
Penelope Barton (29:01.272)
Yeah, so we have a mixture of funding streams. So for largely students coming in, the school operates as a private school, so that's parent fee paying for that school. We also have some government funding streams, so if we can, we look to access any scholarship accounts, any grants, any of those programs to support students there to help offset the cost.

Adrienne Garland (29:22.254)
Gosh.

Penelope Barton (29:30.902)
or we have the B2B side, and in which case the school, you know, the school that's partnering with us would pick that up. So a few different income streams and sort of mechanisms there, but largely it's private pay. And what we've seen is being able to run that model and get results then gives us the ability to work with governments. Because government's not going to give you this funding for this great idea just because you think it's a great idea. You need to have several years of

Adrienne Garland (29:53.133)
No.

Adrienne Garland (29:56.878)
Yes.

Penelope Barton (29:59.372)
student progress to show them. And so that's where, yeah, been able to work with more governments now on the scholarship assistant programs and grants and how do we give our students access to those. And then more recently, over on this side of the world, in New Zealand, having used what we've been able to achieve over the last five years to work with them. And then we've just launched a school directly with the government, which is fully tuition free. And the government funds that. And it's been about three years in the works of working with them.

Adrienne Garland (30:21.134)
Mmm.

Penelope Barton (30:28.688)
to do that and that's what we're looking to do in more regions globally. Again, you run this private model, see and you measure this progress and you see the student results and then you get the ability to work with governments and look at how you can bring those costs down for families.

Adrienne Garland (30:43.694)
I'm thinking, I'm just sort of thinking through everything and thinking to myself, the private pay parents, we'll call them, that are maybe in some of these much more rural type of areas. I'm just wondering, are you able to access some of these harder to reach communities?

Penelope Barton (31:03.63)
Mm.

Adrienne Garland (31:12.428)
because of the nature of your business model? Is the government concerned in any of these countries with reaching these people? Because that's, I mean, ultimately, that's who you want to get to, right? Because there's such diversity of thought there and so many other problems to solve that people that have access to

education even now, like yes, it enhances their education and it's amazing. But some of these people that just don't even have access, like you want to get there to them.

Penelope Barton (31:51.696)
Yeah, and I mean every government we work with and you know any any state or any country has similar pieces in terms of how do we engage these students? How do we make sure everyone has access to a great education? And you know I never hear anything in opposition of that. It's always the mechanics and the logistics of that. So great, how do you set that up? What is the funding model going to look like? And then things sort of dry up.

Adrienne Garland (32:01.346)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (32:09.698)
Yeah.

Penelope Barton (32:18.288)
So we've been fortunate to gather a lot of these families both in large metropolitan areas and rural. Rural is quite interesting because otherwise usually these families would be online because their other alternative they're looking at is boarding school but maybe they don't want to send their 12 year old off to boarding school. They want them to be at home and so naturally have found a lot of families that way who would otherwise be probably searching for boarding schools as the alternative for them.

Adrienne Garland (32:41.61)
Hmm. Yeah.

Penelope Barton (32:46.426)
But yeah, mean, every government has the strive to do it. It's always, particularly it's an interesting one when you move into the US and being New Zealand and having success from all of these countries is great and very interesting, but it's always gonna come back to great, what have you done in our state? And what are the results in our state? And so...

Adrienne Garland (33:03.126)
Yeah.

Penelope Barton (33:09.742)
Yeah, looking and that's how we've been growing so quickly in the US, one from demand, but two also that longer term, you know, how do we make this more accessible to more students means we need to prove ourselves in every state and go on that journey. It's a work in progress.

Adrienne Garland (33:18.284)
Yeah, oof.

Adrienne Garland (33:23.294)
my goodness. So with the outcomes, I can imagine that there's some challenges there too, because even when I teach online, the classes are, they're long, they're two and a half hours long. And I just wonder to myself, how are you, students, like, how do you stay engaged? I'd be bored listening to me for that long. online learning,

Penelope Barton (33:33.509)
Haha.

Adrienne Garland (33:52.014)
is not for everyone. Classroom learning is not for everyone either. are there overall, I know that there's positive outcomes overall, but are there some challenges within that? Like you want to get this learning to maybe these more remote areas, the only way to do it is via technology, but that might not be how a student would learn.

how do you sort of bridge that?

Penelope Barton (34:26.8)
Yeah, there's a number of things I think exactly when you're thinking about that online space. There's a lot of delivery that can be done more lecture style or it's a very large classes or there's a lot of asynchronous learning that goes on. All of our classes are synchronous. Class size on average is 11 students and most classes, I think how long this class is probably 90 minutes.

Adrienne Garland (34:38.702)
Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (34:45.859)
Mm-hmm.

Penelope Barton (34:54.844)
most of our classes are about 60 minutes. you know, shorter classes, very, you know, small in the scheme of things classes, which means that you can lean a lot more into the discussion interactivity. We look at, I mean, the technology we've built to make, you know, to allow teachers to easily spin up more interactive activities for the class. You know, everyone has their individual workbooks, teachers can live monitor what they're doing.

to have that mixture of group discussion, but it's not just a passive, I'm gonna sit here and be talked to and then wait to get called on. It's everyone working through these different activities. And so it's much more interactive and trying to bridge that, yeah, bridge that physical and digital realm and get students really engaged in what they're doing. And so that, know, actively whilst the class might be happening here, you know, they've got screen open here and they're working through all these different activities. They're all working through it. There's discussion.

Adrienne Garland (35:47.662)
Mm.

Penelope Barton (35:50.126)
We're really looking into how we make that more interactive. At the same time, we have our AI learning assistant, which is available and sits down in the corner for students should they need it. And we find that what's been interesting with that one is I thought students would use it probably more for revision after class, but I find that students use it a lot in class.

Adrienne Garland (36:10.039)
Mmm.

Penelope Barton (36:12.688)
just more on like comprehension, quick questions, things they're not going to interrupt the class to ask or may not feel comfortable doing so and so they can go and ask that there and so yeah much more like on you are in the class you are doing the thing as than just you know being able to sit back and let it wash over you.

Adrienne Garland (36:29.55)
It's so fascinating. can also see this really having application for adult learning. mean, even now I talk to a lot of my friends and we're like, we wish that we could go back to school now. Now that we know what we know about life, like I wanna go back and learn some more things and

Penelope Barton (36:48.208)
Hmm.

Adrienne Garland (36:56.942)
Yeah, you can take these online courses and I don't know, I've signed up for so many of them and I get halfway through and then I just don't complete them. So I see this really being a new mode, but it has to be in a different way than some of these classes are given right now because they're boring. It's boring to sit and watch someone

lecture, even say, okay, go do the exercise combat. It's awful. I know that there's opportunity everywhere and you just said before, how do even choose what the right opportunity is? So with that, as sort of the backdrop, where do you see your company going and growing in the future?

Penelope Barton (37:31.364)
Yeah.

Penelope Barton (37:54.402)
Yeah, I mean all of our growth, probably to preface it, is when we look at growth there is great what growth that we we driving and so I see in terms of us being you know the largest global online school and this you know dominant force particularly in the US market which where education is particularly fragmented and supporting students to get wherever you know they wish they wish to go and we will be that that school to support them but

we always keep this element of our strategy open for actually what students request and what students want and where they push back. And I mean, even I've had students this week who've been bouncing back and forth on technology ideas. And so some of the technology, they're like, could we do it this way? And I'm like, great, we can build it that way. And so I have this vision because I know what education can be and what we've been able to do. And I think just having more students being able to access that and then...

Adrienne Garland (38:37.567)
wow.

Penelope Barton (38:51.552)
much more around the global community component because it's so important in terms of just that different perspectives and then students being in a classroom with from students around the world. like US students are in a classroom with students from Europe, from Japan, from Australia, Canada, depends on the time zone. And, you know, think of the richness of discussions they're having, which usually you only get kind of when you move into higher ed. But we have that at high school. But, you know, this global

Adrienne Garland (39:02.606)
Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (39:10.093)
Yeah.

love that.

Penelope Barton (39:17.668)
global school, this global community and continuing to grow in that space and connecting students around the world, regardless of where they're based and improving out more of these outcomes on a larger scale. But yet there's always gonna be this element of our students come forward and because there's a kind of constant feedback loop and go, actually, we think you should do, you know.

Adrienne Garland (39:22.358)
Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (39:27.159)
Hmm.

Penelope Barton (39:44.059)
classes that are fully AI led. I don't think they would do that. I'd say kids are probably more skeptical of AI than adults are. yeah, like they're a bit more anti it than you'd probably expect. But if they said that, then great, like we'd launch into that or we'd look at more physical hubs or they want more community meetups. They want more opportunities to connect in person with their peers. Great, we'll create smaller hubs. there is this.

Adrienne Garland (39:44.396)
Yeah.

I agree with you. Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (39:53.27)
Yeah. Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (40:06.51)
Mmm.

Penelope Barton (40:11.662)
what we can be, but then always having this little element of what do our students need because ultimately, and what I really try and keep us always focused on on the team and our culture is like we are here for our students and their future. So us having too many preconceived notions of what they need, it's kind of like we can strongly have this opinion loosely held because then we need to be able to adapt to the students and the world that they're growing up in is incredibly different and they may want, you know.

Adrienne Garland (40:21.122)
Yeah.

Penelope Barton (40:40.118)
different subjects, they may want to do education differently. I mean we've picked some bits that don't work and been able to pull it apart and that's got our current model but our students will help inform you know the next model and they're constantly giving feedback on that.

Adrienne Garland (40:41.602)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (40:52.142)
It's like, well, a couple of things. First of all, it's very much an entrepreneurial approach to education, which you're doing is like the antithesis of the way that the education system, at least what I'm familiar with in the United States, is set up where it's like, we set all of the rules and you students, follow. You're giving the power.

to the students, which are very much like customers, right? So as you're building a company might have a very, as you said, loosely held idea of what the solution is. But if you get too far away from speaking to customers, you're gonna go awry. And I love that you're talking about how you were just talking to students yesterday. you're the...

You're you're the visionary, you're setting the stage for all of this, and you're talking to students.

Not many business owners are continuing to talk to students or customers, and that's really where they go wrong.

Penelope Barton (42:09.412)
Yeah, you've got to every day there would be a different customer per se, be that a parent, be it a student, be it a partnership. Like you've really got to stay, mean, earlier this week was having sessions with number of different industry partners and that was just more discovery sessions. And we're quite large now in terms of that, you're never too big to be running discovery sessions. Like what are your pain points in education? Where are your kids struggling?

Adrienne Garland (42:29.315)
Yeah.

Penelope Barton (42:38.736)
could this look like for them? We have what we offer, great, but if you don't sit and listen to them, then you're just gonna keep building what you think is right. So, yeah, always make a time for that loop and try and keep a pretty open door with students and teachers and parents and everyone to just come in and give me ideas, which is why I end up in this overwhelming to-do list, probably.

Adrienne Garland (42:45.934)
Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (43:00.268)
Yeah, I know. And it's funny too, because I'm thinking even, imagine that you also do want to be talking about the industries that are up and coming, all of the organizations that are starting, because that's where you want to also be able to make that connection point. You want to understand what are these employers of the future going to need when it comes to employees.

that you have such a humongous group of stakeholders that you have to constantly be speaking to. So I can't even imagine how busy you are. And if people want to get in touch with you, talk to you, learn more about not only what you're doing and how you're building this incredible or revolutionizing education, honestly,

which it needs to be revolutionized. How can they get in touch with you even just to talk about what it's like to grow and scale a global company with all of these different intricate pieces? How can they get in touch with you?

Penelope Barton (44:19.062)
Yes, and I just, as we were talking and I just had this thought that just popped into my head, I realized that one thing I didn't talk about, we just launched this program, small tangent, and then I'll share where to contact me. We just launched this program and we partnered with a venture capital firm, which is very exciting, they are funding essentially five students for their last year of high school and partnering them with mentors to launch their first business by the time they graduate.

Adrienne Garland (44:21.314)
Yeah

Adrienne Garland (44:27.491)
Sure.

Adrienne Garland (44:43.587)
Wow.

Penelope Barton (44:46.0)
So we just launched that last week, which is when we talking about entrepreneurship and it popped back into my head. So again, one of those, you know, just working and understanding what, you know, where people want to go. In terms of getting in contact with me, LinkedIn is probably the best place. I attempt to stay active on there, but you know, usually the inbox there will send me a message and always happy to catch up with people.

Adrienne Garland (45:06.894)
Amazing, amazing. And is there any other type of companies or organizations that you would like to share that you would like to get in touch with or build relationships with? This is a platform. It's not the biggest platform in the world, but just sort of putting that out there for you.

Penelope Barton (45:30.732)
Yeah, I'd love to work with, yeah, I'm always looking to work with more governments and then schools where we might be able to partner and be that solution for them if they're looking for that extension or filling a teacher shortage gap. that, and then finally for anyone, because usually there's a teacher in the family, if you have a teacher in your family who maybe is looking for something different, then send them my way because I am always looking for amazing teachers.

Adrienne Garland (45:54.446)
Amazing. Amazing. Penelope, I just took a look at the time and we're 46 minutes in and I cannot believe it. So much more to talk about. I really truly deeply love what it is that you're doing. I talk about it all the time, how the education system needs to change. So I really, really loved this conversation and thank you so much for spending your early morning with me.

Penelope Barton (46:04.112)
Ha

Penelope Barton (46:26.016)
Thank you so much for having me. That was great. mean time flew by so yes you even got me pre-coffee so looking forward to going and having a coffee now.

Adrienne Garland (46:31.182)
Amazing. Thank you so much.

Penelope Barton (46:37.264)
Thank you so much.