Episode Seventy Seven - Learning STEM skills through play with Bayley from Brain Play

There’s many things I love about our topic today, and today’s guest. Bayley Hughes started Brain Play because she could see that there was a gap between what teachers felt confident teaching, when it came to STEM related topics such as robotics, and programming for young learners, and what children wanted to learn. 

So she started to run afterschool programmes in several schools, with tutors who were university students, and closer in age to the children coming, to make them more relatable. Brain Play has now grown to a web of schools across Auckland and now offers holiday programmes, in school programmes and support to staff wanting someone to help simplify the STEM skills our children need exposure to ready themselves for a world different to the one I grew up in

Now in her late twenties, Bayley is starting to reshape and explore how her business might evolve as she’s grown and evolved. 

It’s a real reminder that our business offerings, goals and message doesn’t need to stay stagnant, and that our business is can evolve as we do, fitting in with our life as it changes, rather than us trying to squeeze a business that no longer quite fits us, into a life we’ve in.

This podcast is about the business Bayley grew, and the marketing she did to get it there, with a hat tip to the business Bayley might want to grow in the future, and how to work that all out. 

In this episode we cover:

• How Brain Play started
• Why it’s an important business in NZ
• How Bayley finds new customers
• What Bayley’s learned through marketing through schools
• The advantages and disadvantages of having a young team
•  What’s shaping Brain Play’s future right now