Story, brand and websites for international schools.

We help you tell your school’s story.

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Associate Member of the Central and Eastern European Schools Association

Schools spend a lot of time thinking from the top down. What about the bottom up?

International schools put years of work into what comes from the top: the mission, the strategic plan, the accreditation self-study. Then families read it beside other schools that say much the same.

What sets a school apart comes from everywhere else: the stories students, families and staff tell each other. That’s the bottom-up. A bottom-up approach is particularly valuable for schools embarking on a big project like a website, or entering a new season, like a new Director.

Storytelling with Bolsta Education

Become a storytelling school

Professional learning

Workshops and training that help your team find the stories your school already lives, and tell them well.
Discover your stories

Story Intensive

From €5,500 + travel

Two days at your school. We gather the stories your community tells, then shape your story and messaging with your leaders.
Tell your stories

Website, Publications, Story Strategy

From €12,000

Your story strategy, and the website, prospectus and publications built on it.
Cultivating a storytelling culture

OurNews

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One safe place where stories from across the school keep reaching your families.

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From schools we work with.

“It’s been a joy working together on this project. We’re grateful for the collaboration with Yellow Car and Bolsta, and especially proud of how our students are helping shape the campaign.”

AISB American International School of Bucharest Bucharest, Romania

“Jacob worked some magic in his respectful approach to our team and running a workshop that had us all pulling in the same direction.”

Cathy Stewart Woodcroft College Director of Marketing and Advancement

Sharon Sopher Belmont Christian College Principal

David Gray Belmont Christian College Director of Mission and Community

Celebrating a student‑led mission through AISB’s new website

The students wrote the mission, and the school was proud of it. We wanted it to do more than hang in the entrance hall. Putting ‘legs’ on a big statement like a school mission is an area we love to work in at Bolsta Education. “Top down” statements require “bottom up” expression. We use story, language and visuals to build a world for those big statements to exist in. The beauty of creating a world is that you create space for the mission to be explored, reimagined, even questioned by the people it speaks to every day.

For AISB, we built a messaging device around it. Three sentence starters: I dare, I show up and I see, each left open to invite people to finish it themselves.

Top-down: Think fearlessly

Bottom-up: I dare, finish the sentence to stay true to myself.
Student, Grade 8
Top-down: Act with kindness

Bottom-up: I show up, finish the sentence every day, not just when I’m needed.
Student, Grade 5
Top-down: Shape tomorrow

Bottom-up: I see, finish the sentence the world as a better place.
Student, Grade 10

Try it: change any line to your own.

When we showed the students the early words and visuals, they said it made them proud of their school.

The new AISB home page on a laptop: “We are Creative-Thinkers”, with the gold bolt from “I dare”. — The new AISB website, on desktop and phone.

The same home page on a phone. — The new AISB website, on desktop and phone.

Read the case study

Who you’ll work with.

Jacob Shultz

Founder and director

Jacob has spent over a decade partnering with schools locally and globally to surface their stories, design their experiences, and build creative and communication strategies that create cohesion across the entire school lifecycle. He leads strategy, facilitation, creative direction and project delivery.

Advisors

Simon Wagg

Senior Advisor, School Leadership

Former Head of Middle School and executive leader at Trinity Christian School, Canberra, with over a decade in school executive leadership.
LinkedIn
Mykyta Vasyliev

Senior Advisor, Advancement & Europe Relations

Advancement professional with 10 years in communications, marketing, social media, events and organisational management.
LinkedIn

Studio partners

Dan Robson

Robson Studio

Design, UX, Brand
Website
Candice Carlin

Carlin Studio

Design, Brand & Publications
Website
Tanya Deenick

Taninka Visuals

Design & Publications
Website
Nikita Kumar

Nikita Kumar Creative

Copywriting
Heather Venz

Heydays

Copywriting
Website

Questions we’re commonly asked.

We already have a mission. Why do we need this?

A mission is vitally important. A good mission says a lot about who you are and your reason for existing. The challenge with a mission statement comes when trying to talk about it and look for it in the day-to-day. We’ve seen story work breathe incredible life into a mission statement, like our work with the American International School of Bucharest.

You’re based in Australia. How does that work?

We use a hybrid model. Depending on the particular project, we love to spend time on site listening to you and your people. Beyond that, much of our work can be conducted virtually.

Couldn’t we just ask AI for this?

AI works from your documents, and your documents are the top-down: the mission, the values, the history. Put top-down in and you get top-down out. AI can’t sit with your Grade 9s or have coffee with your parents and hear the stories they tell. We use it for analysis. Gathering the stories is the part only people can do.

Won’t this end up on a dusty shelf?

Strategies tend to gather dust when they can’t be applied to the day-to-day chaos. In our storytelling work, we focus less on detailed strategy, and more on principles and guardrails. We find that this approach engages people more imaginatively, and invites them to participate in the approach, rather than feeling they need to adhere to it.