The Journey to Hero

Founders, Paul and Aimie Sibson, a former primary school principal and secondary teacher, have a unique understanding of the education landscape and the specific requirements of the school context. 

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Every good Hero has an origin story. Ours begins with a lightbulb moment, when Paul identified a gap in the market’s offerings for a solution that would bring together all aspects of school life. It became increasingly apparent that harnessing technology would pave a better way forward for teachers, parents and students to share and track learning - online, real-time. Through their own experiences, Aimie and Paul also saw a strong need to reduce the administrative workload for teachers, and to improve the workflow and efficiencies for school administration. 

IN THE EARLY DAYS

And so, Hero's predecessor - LINC-ED - was born. The software was designed as a communication tool to share, track and analyse learning. The goal was to make students’ learning visible to all of those on the learning journey (school leadership, teachers, teaching assistants) and LINC-ED introduced the concept of online, real-time reporting to parents. This style of reporting extended beyond progress and achievement, to also capture learning stories and accelerate student agency.

THE REBOOT

After being accepted as 1 of 10 companies into the Vodafone Zone Accelerator Start Up programme, the decision was made to rebuild the platform from the ground up. The vision was to provide a modern, API driven solution - one that was scalable, interoperable with complimentary products, and able to meet evolving security and privacy requirements. This rebuild was completed in 2019 with the launch of Hero.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Hero now supports nearly 600 schools globally, as more and more schools have steadily joined us and are enjoying the benefits of the system. Thousands of families now read their children's school reports online, and schools no longer need to run a separate system for managing student information and reports.

Just as it was when we were educators, student learning remains our "why" and remains at the centre of our development of Hero. Our team is built of passionate educators and former administrators, to ensure that strong pedagogy and best practice continues to drive the use of the platform.