Message from our founder

Belinda Hooke, Founder

I believe every child has ideas worth listening to.

Not just the ones who score highly, or the ones who fit a neat box, but every child — wherever they come from, however they learn, whoever they are. Childhood is not binary, and neither are the futures our children will grow into.

The pace of change today is extraordinary. Technology, climate, culture — everything is shifting faster than we can begin to imagine. We cannot prepare children by filling them with every fact. Computers already do that faster, and AI will only accelerate it. What matters is giving children the tools to do what machines cannot: to create, to imagine, to connect with each other, and to be fully human.

Yet in a busy world, that isn’t easy. Parents are stretched, schools are under pressure, and more of our children’s learning now happens behind screens. Too often we’re shown their progress only as a score out of ten, instead of seeing their messy, wonderful process of thinking. Once, we stuck their drawings and test papers on the fridge. We could see their ideas, their mistakes, their pride. Now so much of that is hidden.

Acorn Studio Press is my response to this. It’s not about rejecting technology — it’s about rebalancing it. Creating tools that make children’s ideas visible again. Tools that give families something to share, that invite teachers and communities to join in, and that remind children their curiosity and creativity matter.

I don’t claim to have the answers. What I offer is an invitation: to slow down, to notice the spark in a child’s idea, to choose connection over competition, and to prepare children not just for exams, but for a future only they can imagine.