About Leap Street

Prioritising early exposure to education makes for more confident, happy students – the perfect recipe for learning.

Illustration of a teacher and child with an abacus in a Leap Street Class, an early learning literacy program in Melbourne

Meet the founders

Emma Ellsmore, Leap Street early learning teacher in Melbourne

Emma Ellsmore

Emma is a qualified primary school teacher with a passion for seeing children thrive. Establishing her teaching career in two of Melbourne’s leading independent schools — Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar School — Emma has extensive experience teaching literacy and numeracy. 

Emma is a mother of two young children, Ivy and Jack. As a mother and an educator, Emma understands
the importance in early learning and the need for explicit and sequential teaching. 

Emma believes a confident start to a child’s schooling journey will set them up for success and a lifelong
love of learning. 

Caroline Peters, Leap Street early learning teacher in Melbourne

Caroline Peters

Caroline is a qualified primary and kindergarten teacher with a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education from Melbourne University. She has 12 years of practical teaching experience at one of Melbourne’s leading independent schools, MLC. 

Caroline has a wealth of knowledge across all year levels and is particularly passionate about teaching evidence-based literacy programs, early intervention and student wellbeing.

Being a mother of two children, Arabella and Charles, has further reinforced her strongly held belief in the importance of developing a confident and happy learner in the early years, and how this significantly improves educational outcomes.

Child in a Leap Street Class, an early learning literacy program in Melbourne

“We are passionate about reversing the trend of declining literacy levels”

Caroline Peters, Leap Street Founder

Leap Street founders Emma and Caroline hold a strong belief in the importance of nurturing a confident and happy learner in their early years, to enable significantly improved educational outcomes later in their education.

Children in a Leap Street Class, an early learning literacy program in Melbourne

“We nurture a love of learning that lasts a lifetime”

Emma Ellsmore, Leap Street Founder

We have our finger on the pulse of educational research, and it informs our ever-adapting approach to teaching.

We use phonics to teach reading more effectively – proven in a recent study to have increased the number of students meeting the literacy benchmark from 43 per cent to 67 per cent.

Whilst our programs utilise cutting-edge teaching methods, they are in alignment with state and independent schools, ensuring a smooth transition into the formal education system. 

Science doesn’t sit still, and neither do we.

Illustration of a group of children in a Leap Street Class, an early learning literacy program in Melbourne

We prioritise student wellbeing by keeping our group sizes small, no larger than 8 students and ensuring targeted teaching for everyone. We individually assess each student so we can meet their learning needs.

“Research is at the forefront of everything we do”

Emma Ellsmore, Leap Street Founder

Child and teacher in a Leap Street Class, an early learning literacy program in Melbourne

In our fun, face-to-face class environment, we maintain a focus on group learning, where children can collaborate and learn social skills. Alternatively, we are able to provide one-on-one classes for those who require a more advanced or tailored teaching approach.

We focus on five key areas in order to develop confidence in literacy:

1

Phonemic awareness

2

Phonics

3

Fluency

4

Vocabulary

5

Comprehension