EdTech Trailblazers: Phoenix Take Flight With 1000 Learners

Today, National Basketball League (NBL) team South East Melbourne Phoenix take their first steps into the world of educational technology (EdTech) with the release of the Take Flight suite of e-learning courses. These courses are designed to uplift the performance and wellbeing of students in Year 8 & 9 through a blended model of in class learning powered by SEMP’s online learning platform – The Flight Path.

“We’re proud to be the first NBL club to take this progressive step of harnessing EdTech to engage with our members, fans and wider community,” SEM Phoenix Community Manager Brooke Steindl said.

“Perhaps what makes us prouder, is the impact our players and club can have to support the development of young people across Victoria. Aligning our content to the Victorian Curriculum also ensures we save teachers precious planning time whilst assisting them in delivering great outcomes through engaging teaching and learning resources.”

With a focus on delivering learning content through a mix of athlete storytelling, contemporary e-learning tools and teacher support resources, the courses take an individual (Year 8) and team based (Year 9) focus. Athletes share their stories related to areas including leadership, growth mindset, resilience, teamwork and emotional management across the two courses.

“We wanted to provide learners with relatable and engaging stories from our athletes,” SEM Phoenix Head of Operations Rohan Short said.

(Phoenix stars Kendall Stephens and Kyle Adnam play a key role in the course)

“Athletes are often looked upon as role models in the community and have also faced the exact same situations many young people confront in their daily lives. We wanted to strike a balance of highlighting the focus and effort it takes to get to the top, but also show students that these athletes have the same vulnerabilities and have overcome the same challenges they might be facing right now in their lives.”

Partnering with leading EdTech organisation, Leaders of Evolution, the Flight Path and Take Flight courses have been close to a year in the making.

Leaders of Evolution co-founder Damian Hecker has been heavily involved in the planning and development of the Take Flight courses. “We love what Take Flight represents and the development opportunities for students who engage with the courses. It’s also highly motivating to be working with such a progressive professional sporting organisation, who see the benefit of fusing their organisation IP with an EdTech strategy to reach a wider audience and grow their brand through education.”

The first roll out of courses will be focused on schools in the Latrobe Valley as part of a Victorian State Government grant. With an initial goal of engaging with 200 students in 2021, the course has already surpassed 1,000+ pre-enrolments as word spreads about this unique educational offering for Victorian students.

For more information on the Take Flight courses please contact South East Melbourne Phoenix at community@semphoenix.com.au.

About Leaders of Evolution   

Leaders of Evolution (LoE) is everything a school needs to amplify the life skills of students.   

Motivated to disrupt traditional education, former classroom teacher Damian Hecker and retired athlete Jon Shepherd Co-founded LoE in 2015 to inspire fun, engaging and authentic cloud-based learning opportunities for young people all over the world.  

LoE’s suite of researched-backed, contemporary online courses equip students aged 10 to 18 years with the knowledge, practical skills and confidence to thrive as global citizens.   

We save teachers’ time strengthening student leadership, creativity, growth mindset, autonomy & grit, communication, teamwork, problem solving and other critical life skills for entire year levels.  

To provide guidance and clarity to learners, LoE has created the 4 C’s of Learning Framework – whereby learners walk away with their Competence, Confidence, Character and Connectedness enhanced.  

LoE currently connects with 400+ schools and 10,000+ students from all over the world.  

As education technology trailblazers, we pave the way as an active member of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) EdStart – a select entry global accelerator program designed to help leading EdTech companies build solutions that are secure, scalable, and cost effective.  

Under the E-learning Hub Partnership banner of the company, LoE partners with schools, national and professional sports and not-for-profits to design and deploy a fully customised Learning Management System (LMS), and revenue generating online courses at scale.  

We have expertly designed and deployed online learning for Essendon Football Club, Gold Coast SUNS, South East Melbourne Phoenix, Special Olympics Australia, Snow Australia and Palm Beach Currumbin State High School.   

LoE is on mission to connect with 100,000 4 C’s Certified Leaders by 2025. 

For media enquiries, images or interviews please contact:

Jon Shepherd, cofounder, and Director of Business Development
p + 61 430 341 176 e jon@leadersofevolution.com w www.playbksports.com

(17/05/2021)