The First Gen Alpha’s Start School

The launch of the iPad in 2010 coincided with the beginning of our current generation of children, Generation Alpha – and there are now 2.5 million Gen Alphas being born around the globe each week.

As school starts back this week, we welcome Gen Alpha to the beginning of their educated life, as they commence their formal learning process.

WHO IS GEN ALPHA?

Following our Gen Zeds are our pre-schooler and kindergarteners of today – Gen Alpha.

Born since the year 2010 they are aged 0-5, they are the children of Gen Y, and there are 1.6 million of them in Australia. If they’re a boy they’re likely to be called Oliver, William, Jack, Noah or James. And if they’re a girl, Charlotte, Olivia, Ava, Emily or Amelia are the top 5 most common Gen Alpha names.

Gen Alphas began being born with the launch of the iPad in 2010, and already a third of Australians use a tablet.

A GENERATION OF DIGITAL NATIVES

Gen Alpha were born into a world of iPhones (in fact the word of the year in 2010 when they were first born was “app”), YouTube (there are now 100 hours of YouTube videos uploaded every minute, and in this environment they are more influenced by the visual and the video than the written and the verbal), and Instagram (where life is photographed and shared instantly and globally).

It’s a world of Screenagers where not only do they multi-screen and multi-task, but where glass has become the new medium for content dissemination and unlike the medium of paper, it is kinaesthetic, visual, interactive, connective and still portable. Glass was something that Gen Ys were told to look through and keep their fingers off – for Gen Alpha, glass is a medium through which they touch, talk, and look at. And whilst Baby Boomers remember the introduction of the colour TV in the 1960s and 70s, Gen Alphas are being shaped in a world where they can view a YouTube video from a smartphone onto the home TV.

It’s truly the millennial generation, born and shaped fully in the 21st century, and the first generation that in record numbers will see in the 22nd century as well. They are logged on and linked up – digital natives. They are the most materially endowed and technologically literate generation to ever grace the planet!

THE MOST FORMALLY EDUCATED GENERATION TO DATE

Gen Alpha babies are the product of Australia’s second and bigger baby boom, and they will grow up to be smarter, richer and healthier, obtaining the highest level of formal education in history.

Because their parents will indulge them in more formal education and at an earlier age, Gen Alpha will have access to more information than any other generation gone before. Their formal education has never been equalled in the history of the world, with a predicted 1 in 2 Gen Alphas to obtain a university degree.

Generation Alpha will surpass even the praised and sophisticated Zeds in terms of education, with 90 per cent predicted to complete Year 12, compared to 79.9 per cent today, and with the majority going on to tertiary education in some form.

A shift in educational engagement is also occurring for Gen Alpha, changing from structural and auditory to engaging, visual, multimodal and hands-on methods of educating this emerging generation.