Five questions with co-founder of Orange's Clever Cookie Academy, Peita Mages

What she didn't anticipate was seeing her business with two students, end up taking over the entire first floor of the building.

Now known as CCA HQ, launching Clever Cookie Academy started as a venture that continues to bring excitement and humility to the former-head of English teacher today.

The hub has now grown to have a little over 400 students or "cookies" on the books, with a team of 12 "rockstar educators" guiding each of them to bake their own success stories.

In our next "Five questions with ... " feature piece with the Central Western Daily, we talk with Peita to find out more; and as a disclaimer, we've used a ton of cookie-related word play for this next one.

This is absolutely true! I took a year of leave from my position and decided to take on some English students in our farm shed, or studio as I preferred to call it.

By the end of the first term, enrolments had ballooned to over 80 students and we decided it was time to bring on Rob [Mages, CCA co-founder] to add Maths to our offering.

From there, we realised that primary students needed support as well, so we began recruiting the best operators in the area to join Team Cookie.

We've since taken over the floor which is so exciting and humbling.

Our growth is directly attributed to our rockstar teachers and the vibe we have created for kids to feel safe, achieve their personal best and meet like-minded learning legends along the way.

Gaining a space at CCA can be tricky, so our process is designed to reward our 'ride or die' cookies, while still trying to allow entry into the cookie jar. Usually around Week 5 of term we begin the process of enrolment for the next term.

We finalise our timetable and then provide the coveted 'sneaky link' to our current cookies; this link is only accessible to them, but we still encourage fast enrolment as sibling cookies often want in the jar too.

From there, it's time for our patient wait-listers to jump in the jar and then we go live with any remaining places to the public.

Once a term has started, enrolment for existing places is easy with bookings via our website.

Our jar is full with uber successful cookies, though we teach students at all ability levels - from the dux aspirants to kids who absolutely hate school - [because] to be successful in our eyes, you only have to try your very best at whatever you set your heart on.

We encourage and expect kids to apply themselves as best as they can and the increased confidence cookies gain from attending, always leads to their results exceeding their expectations.

We ask students what their goals are and then we do absolutely everything within our power to help them achieve them; and we also understand that grades and ATAR's are not the be-all and end-all.

So, success can be topping your cohort and achieving a 99 ATAR and success can be attending school enthusiastically and completing assessment tasks, instead of procrastinating or opting out.

Though once kids taste success, they want to keep it rolling.

We have very consciously gone about creating the anti-school [environment] and not because we're not fans of schools or teachers (because we are), but because we think systemically there are issues with our current education system.

Cookies tell us they like coming because they can see we are invested in their success; they can feel the love, for want of a better word.

We've also smashed school barriers with our mixed school groups in many sessions, which dismantles the divides and unfair stereotypes, and allows cookies to work towards collective success while making friends.

Our 'try hard' culture is infectious [and] our small group sizes ensure that the skills needed are focused upon and cookies can be accelerated or brought up to speed rapidly.

Another big part of our push is to make learning as 'cool' as say, footy.

So, we meet the kids where they are at - which is often on social media - and we show them that loving learning is actually very cool and that being a good human is also very important.

We want to create an experience of learning that is positive [because] we believe that every cookie deserves access to quality teaching and an environment in which learning is 'cool'.

Their very best effort is demanded and we are absolutely relentless in our pursuit of rockstar educators who not only know their stuff, but genuinely enjoy working with kids.

Our sessions are backed by educational research to trump one-on-one style structures and allow students to contribute without feeling singled out, so a team atmosphere is created where no one wants to let each other down.

Someone recently said it's about the "above and beyond" things we do, like holiday masterclasses, free parent seminars and our recent All-Star event.

Ultimately, we want to set cookies up with a love of learning - school should just be the beginning.

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