We’re School Kit.
We work with organisations to create powerful educational experiences through learning design, programme management and design-led publishing because we believe great teaching transforms lives.
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Emma began her career as a teacher of English, Classics and Art History at Wellington College and St Paul’s Collegiate School. A pivotal conversation with a school parent drew her attention to the similarities between the skills required in the classroom and the successful management of people based projects.
She went on to manage a range of projects that stretched across youth offending, the arts, local government, public art provision, child health, community pharmacy and primary health care. Regardless of the subject matter, every project had the same problem. How could it reach children and their families consistently and at scale?
It was this recurring theme that led her to co-found School Kit in 2010.
Emma’s core strength is her ability to contribute to strategy at the macro level while conceiving of how to achieve consistent implementation at a micro one. She focuses on using data, process design and technology to help people do things better, faster and more consistently.
She loves making difficult, complex subject matter less confronting and easier to understand. Emma is passionate about New Zealand histories, art and literature.
She believes every NZ child should have at least one teacher that changes their life for the better.
Key Education Projects
Walking with an Anzac - WW100 NZ (Ministry for Culture & Heritage) - 64,000 students
Something Happened Here - Aotearoa NZ Histories (Ministry of Education) - 125,000 students
First Encounters - Tuia 250 - (Maritime & Auckland Museums, Min for Culture & Heritage) -86,000 students
Are We There Yet - Suffrage125 (Auckland Museum & Ministry for Women) - 32,000 students
Get NZ Writing - (Warehouse Group) - 96,000 students per year
Dove Self Esteem Project - (Unliever) - 80,000 students
Key People Projects
Better Sooner More Convenient Health Care EOI - Strategy Mgr (Midlands Health Network)
Space to Breathe - Preschool Asthma Management - Participant Recruitment (Pharmac)
Youth Justice Capability Review - National Implementation Mgr (Child,Youth & Family)
B4 School Health Check - Implementation Manager (MoH Tamariki Ora)
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Sam began her career in Early Childhood as a teacher and team leader, responsible for all aspects of children in her care and her team of ECE professionals. Her move to School Kit as Network Manager represented a complete career pivot, trading hands-on early childhood education for the systems and operations that connect 15,000 New Zealand teachers with educational resources at scale.
Sam ensures the seamless interoperability of School Kit's technology ecosystem - from Teacher CRM and our School Kit Squad Community platform to fulfilment systems and automated workflows.
She manages the data integrity and system integrations that allow School Kit to deliver beautifully designed kits to hundreds of schools each term while maintaining personalised support for every teacher.
Beyond systems, Sam coordinates School Kit's national school visiting programme, routing Teacher Champions through 800 schools annually and managing the logistics that bring face-to-face connection to the digital community. She oversees issue resolution across the network, ensuring teachers receive timely support whether they're troubleshooting kit components or navigating the online platform.
Sam's strength lies in her ability to design processes that work efficiently at scale without losing the human touch. Her ECE background taught her that robust systems aren't about creating barriers - they're about removing friction so educators can focus on what matters: powerful learning experiences with children.
Key Projects:
Something Happened Here - Aotearoa NZ Histories (Ministry of Education) - 125,000 students
SVA Service Award - SVA Foundation (257 Secondary Schools logging over 500 000 volunteer hours)
Tātai Angitu I Massey University Structured Literacy training for NZ classroom teachers
The Good Food Map - (Nestlé - Good with Nestlé) - 16,000 students
Sea Cleaners and Diary of a Turtle (Nestlé - Good with Nestlé) - 64,000 students.
Part of Something Bigger and Dear 13 Year Old Me (Sorted in Schools - Retirement Commission) - 32,000 students
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Mel refined her eye for design and production management in the fashion industry. She was involved in production, brand and online presence for a well known NZ brand.
Mel’s work at School Kit is focussed on managing the requirements and expectations of the client when it comes to the physical and design aspects of any kit item. Mel liaises with each client to make sure all expectations regarding brand and style guide are met.
As the chief point of contact and liaison between designers, subject matter experts and writers, Mel is a master at translating, mediating, negotiating and resolving issues and design problems as they come to hand.
She holds a reputation of being unafraid to challenge when the design solution fails to meet the brief or when she feels a proposed solution lacks clarity. She is respected by her peers in the print, manufacturing and offshore supplier spheres as practical and solutions focussed.
At School Kit Mel is responsible for all kits coming in on time and on budget, a goal she achieves consistently. She has experience working with MME and EME materials. Her eye for design is what puts our School Kit a cut above the rest.
Key Design Projects
The Good Food Map - (Nestlé - Good with Nestlé) - 16,000 students
Dear 13 Year Old Me - (Sorted in Schools, Te Ara Ahunga Ora Retirement Commision) 16,000 students
Part of Something Bigger - (Sorted in Schools, Inland Revenue Department) 16,000 students
Aotearoa NZ Histories - Aotearoa NZ Histories (Ministry of Education) 125,000 students
Challenging Racism - (Ministry of Education) 32,000 students
Dove Self Esteem Project - (Unliever) - 80,000 students
Our Services
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Programme Design
We design learning programmes that work. Not just content that informs, but experiences that shift understanding and change behaviour.
Through careful design, we turn your expertise into something people can genuinely learn from, structured to stick, built to last.
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Programme Management
We run programmes on your behalf. School relationships, delivery coordination, issue resolution - all the operational work that keeps a programme alive in the real world.
We represent you in schools and handle everything that sits between your vision and its execution, so you can focus on what you do best.
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Publishing
We take ideas that live in your head and turn them into things people can hold, share, distribute and sell. Through our network of trusted makers and designers, we bring concepts to life, craft them with care, produce them to last and package them to impress.
You bring the expertise, we bring the craft.
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Difficult Conversations
We design online learning that prepares educators for the conversations that matter most. We've built courses on topics that require educators to respond with practiced confidence, clear frameworks, and careful language.
If there's a difficult topic your educators need to navigate well, we can design learning that develops genuine capability, with verified microcredentials that recognise readiness for complex work.
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The School Kit Squad
The School Kit Squad is our community of 15,000 New Zealand teachers. We deliver beautiful, free educational kits - designed for up to 32 students - directly to classrooms nationwide. Each kit comes with access to dedicated online spaces where teachers connect, share experiences, and receive support from Teacher Champions.
It's professional community without personal pressure, built on reciprocal support and the belief in the power of teaching.
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The everyday Collective
The Everyday Collective connects curious teachers ready to grow. A fresh take on PLD that focusses on the how not the what of teaching. Access ten live sessions with leading experts, receive Issue 5 of our design-led journal, and join a community of educators who refuse to settle for ordinary.
Perfect for rural and remote teachers, new (and old) team leaders, beginning teachers and their mentor teachers and the constantly curious. Always seeking the 10%.
Where did we come from?
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Emma Bettle and Kylie Power stood in the cheapest office they could rent in Hamilton, frustrated by people constantly running down teachers and tired of seeing educational resources that were just "stickers, pantomimes and colouring sheets." They believed teachers were multi-skilled professionals creating magic out of thin air every single day, but teaching was becoming an increasingly lonely business.
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So they created School Kit—designing high integrity, student-centred learning opportunities that teachers actually love. What started as a tiny business helping teachers get better, cooler resources has grown into a secret club of 38,000 New Zealand teachers.
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Over the years, they learned that visiting teachers face-to-face felt like meeting old friends you'd never met. They learned to never be afraid of making kits unconventional, innovative, or challenging—keeping their 15-year promise that there would never be worksheets, colouring sheets, or "Design a [insert word here]" competitions. They created powerful experiences like Get NZ Writing (mobilising thousands in poetry exploration), Walking with An Anzac (sending 62,000 students on archive journeys), and the ahead-of-its-time Tuia 250 multi-perspective history kit.
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COVID taught them they needed more than Facebook and a simple website. Teachers needed—and deserved—something robust, professional, and genuinely supportive. We built our private online teacher-only community. Teachers needed a private space to share their learnings, ask questions and keep the teacher support materials for the kits they taught.
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The business has grown encompassing learning design, managing educational programmes, publishing kit items and leading difficult conversations. Today, School Kit remains driven by the same belief: education has transformational power, teachers are curious beings passionate about their craft, and everyone deserves a space to feel supported, share experiences, and teach together even while teaching apart.
Contact us.
hello@schoolkit.co.nz
021 290 0662
Panama House,
Level 2, East Lobby,
14 Garden Place,
Hamilton, Waikato 3204