Ambitious Learning. Sustainable Schools.
Reaching every learner, every day, is hard.
Sustaining the energy to do it year after year is even harder.
The best schools are built to do both.
Let's build together.
Ambitious learning for every student.
Sustainable work for every teacher.
Today's Reality
150 students.
86 learning targets.
1 teacher.
Teaching today is extraordinarily complex. We know more than we ever have about how students learn, what interventions work, and what great instruction looks like. But putting best practice into practice, every day for every student, is a task that even the most skilled educators find overwhelming.
Learning is a human first social endeavor. Connections and relationships are prerequisites for growth and development. Today's best practices aim to amplify that humanity. But the complexity of implementing them has buried the human underneath the demand. We are asking too much from too many, and it is wearing out our most vital resource.
At Eight Degrees Up, we partner with schools to embed AI into the complexity so educators can do more of what only they can do. Know students more deeply. Build stronger relationships. Drive deeper learning.
Learn more
Our Approach
Every school is different. Every solution should be too. Our approach starts with your context and builds toward something that lasts, for your educators and every student they serve.
Step 1: Understand Your Context
We start by understanding your people, your culture, your strengths, and your challenges. The entry point to our work is always with your reality.
Step 2: Build Internal Capacity
Whether that means strengthening collaborative structures, student response processes, or building AI fluency, we grow people first. Because no school is stronger than its people.
Step 3: Embed AI Into Your Workflows
We embed AI intentionally into your most complex workflows to drive growth and capacity. AI supports the educators so educators can support the students.
Step 4: Amplify Learning
For adults and students alike. Educators grow together. Students are known, supported, and challenged. And the school community becomes better at learning.
Learn More
Who We Are
Nola and Sascha Heckmann
We are practitioner-researchers. That order matters. We have sat where you sit. Led schools, coached teachers, and built learning cultures across five countries and every kind of school. We became consultants to help schools navigate a sustainable path to the future, to connect, share, and grow together. We founded 8 Degrees Up to help schools build something ambitious and sustainable over time.
Let's Talk