Changing Learning for Aussie Kids: Manny & Sarah, the Creators Behind Pevan & Sarah

What happens when two passionate educators combine music, movement, storytelling and play to help kids learn?

In this beautiful conversation, Donna Moala sits down with Sarah and Manny Kechayas, educators, musicians, and the creators behind Pevan & Sarah, to talk about how they went from primary school teaching and working out of their garage to becoming one of Australia’s most loved educational children’s brands.

Together, they share the inspiring story behind Pevan the Tiger, why music and movement are so powerful for children’s learning (especially neurodiverse kids), and how their educational platform is helping teachers and families connect learning with joy.

Donna absolutely loved this conversation, diving into conscious parenting, child development, neurodiversity, emotional connection, and the importance of making learning fun for kids.

Plus, exciting news! Pevan & Sarah are officially coming to ABC Kids and ABC iView, bringing their joyful educational music and content to even more Aussie families.

If you are a parent, educator, teacher, or simply passionate about helping children thrive through play-based learning, this episode is for you.

✨ Topics We Cover:

• Learning through music and movement
• Neurodiversity and education
• Conscious parenting
• Supporting school-aged children
• Educational songs and phonics
• The story behind Pevan the Tiger
• From teachers to children’s entertainers
• ABC Kids & ABC iView launch

🎙️Watch o listen now and discover why so many Aussie kids are falling in love with learning through Pevan & Sarah.

Follow Pevan and Sarah: 

Website: https://www.pevanandsarah.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pevanandsarah

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pevanandsarah

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@pevansarahmusic2008

Join Cub Club here: https://www.pevanandsarah.com/cub-club

I would appreciate it greatly if you could please LIKE and FOLLOW this podcast and if you are not following me over on instagram, head over there for all of my top tips and advice around sleep and parenting @parentingcollective.au.  I also offer a free 15 minute phone chat to run through all your questions CLICK here to book your FREE 15 minute chat

Much Love 💞

Donna Moala 
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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Parenting Collective Podcast. Today's episode is such a fun and heartwarming conversation, and one I know so many parents of little ones and teachers and all these little people absolutely love. As parents and educators and caregivers, we all know how powerful play, storytelling, music, and imagination can be in our child's world. The way children learn best is through connection, fun, and feeling engaged, and today's guests are doing exactly that in such a beautiful and creative way. I'm so excited to be joined by the creators behind Pevan and Sarah, which are Sarah and Manny, who are bringing joy, learning, and imagination together for children through educational videos, playful characters, and truly capturing the magic of childhood, which is so beautiful. You can find them on YouTube, Instagram. They're very, very excited. As of the 1st of June, they have created some spectacular music videos, professional music videos, that will be shown on ABC Kids. So I can't wait to share that with everyone too. But definitely check them out. They have so much funky music that's fun to listen to, but also how to help our kiddos learn to read and write and all those good stuff. Hope you enjoy. Let me know your thoughts. Speak to you soon. So hello guys and welcome to the Parenting Collective. Thanks for having us, Donna. It's great to be here. Thanks, Donna. Yeah, I'm so glad that you um are being able to be our special guest, uh, what you do for the families and everything out there and the kiddos. So I'd really like I've really been looking forward to having this conversation because what you you are doing and creating for families and children educators is just so beautiful and fun. It looks like fun. It's probably a lot of work as well, but it looks like fun. Um, and for anyone listening who may not know about Sarah and Manny, the who Sarah Mania, um, you know, you have created educational entertaining content for children using storytelling, music, imaginative play, and their gorgeous tiger character, Heaven. Bring so much joy and learning together in such a playful way. So a little bit of an intro there, but I'd really like my guests to explain their wise, the passion, where it came from. Peven the tiger. I want to know all of their where it came from. Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Well, firstly, Pevan sends his apologies. Oh, he's not here. Yeah, it's a bit of a diva, that tiger. So he's not here today. But um yeah, look, thanks for having us. Essentially, um, Peven and Sarah was born in the classroom. So Manny and I were, I guess, musicians first. We went, we met at the Victorian College of the Arts together, so got our music degrees. Um, quickly realized not a whole lot you can do with a music degree. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed the degree though. Oh, absolutely. Best time of our lives. But um, yes, so then we we had a passion in education. So we went on to become essentially primary school teachers and were for a very long time. And so my very first classroom that I was in uh as a grad, uh, you know, a very green teacher, I was in what's called a like a pre-prep class. So it was a bridging class between uh kinder years, so like preschool years and before they actually started official sort of mainstream school. And in this class, um, I had a very vast range of additional needs. And as a grad teacher, so green, I literally just went back to what I knew best, which was music. And so I'd come home at nighttime and be like, hey, Manny, this we need a song about this, or we need some. And I just found that music was connecting with these kids in a way that maybe some of like the traditional teaching methods weren't. And it just it kind of went from there. That's amazing. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

So um, yeah, and so look, the like we did that for years and we were teaching full time for a long time and writing on the side, and then eventually we got to a point where we sort of took a leap of faith and we, you know, we developed the characters, Pevan and Sarah. We'd started doing gigs, uh, we started creating videos online, and then you may remember what happened um early 2020. Um remind me again a little, a little like a global pandemic, and yes, a little bit of a pause on life, just a little bit, which happened to which is obviously horrible. And you know, people in our industry were absolutely destroyed.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Totally.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

But for us, we'd created this little pocket of online learning videos that teachers were desperate for, and we were kind of like, here's something we prepared earlier, and so we were really lucky that um Cub Club was there that, and so it's kind of kind of referred to as like Netflix for teachers, which I love that.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

I love that, yeah. So um yeah, that's amazing. So there, and sort of that's an incredible the whole story, and I'm also a very big believer in that everything happens for a reason, everything. So even do an arts degree was absolutely meant to happen. And you know, the thing is, like I took, I work with so many families, you know, from newborns up to 10-year-old kiddos, parenting, sleep, mental health, the whole lot. But what I keep saying to parents, especially parents of young children, us humans haven't changed, you know, what we need, what we require is love, food, you know, I don't know, shelter and movement, you know. And the thing is, what's happened over the years, which is what I think you were explaining, is that um kids are different. They're they're their attention span's not as great as it used to be, you know, lots of neurodiversity. All my children are, I am surprised, surprise. I talk about it all the time. But um, it traditional schooling, teachers are so important, as you know, and it's such a challenging job at times and a lot of work, but um kids have changed, but the schooling hasn't. No, traditional schooling hasn't. And so I'm talking from my own lived experience and now working with so many children is neurodiverse children or neurospicy, whatever you want to say, are very awesome, but they want to learn through movement. What you've created is incredible. And I've only, you know, saw a little bit of it for the teachers and stuff, but the kids, oh my gosh, the way that they could learn, not just neurodiverse kiddos, but uh through movement and cool songs, fun for songs, is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Yeah, look, I think, and also it really depends. Um, obviously, education is always changing. Yes, teachers, like, you know, we're not long out of the classroom, and already we're seeing different things come through, you know, the way that phonics is taught and you know, the return to explicit teaching and all and all of that. But I know that the school that we were at um had this motto if they can't learn the way we teach, we need to teach the way that they can learn. I like that motto. Like, and so this was, you know, in our in every staff meeting, that was at the top of, and so we've sort of the way that and a lot of teachers do approach their teaching. Yeah, you know, they've got a class of 25 kids, and every single one of them learns differently. And so we're always adapting and we're always individualizing um and differentiating what we do. And I think music and movement is really just one of those tools that a teacher can have in their toolkit.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

And it makes it a bit of fun too, you know. Like again, I've got my um family-in-law, my mother-in-law, father-in-law teachers, sister-in-law's teachers, my niece and my daughter at uni doing teaching. So, you know, always teach talk, you know, from back in the old days, old days, you know, when when they were working till now. And, you know, what it sounds like is the expectations for teachers outside of the classroom so much higher, meaning paperwork and stuff. I mean, I'm not a teacher, just saying, but keep getting back to this, you know, fun learning. I mean, I know it's just one part of it, one facet, but um, yeah, I just yeah, I think it's fantastic and you must really enjoy it. Do you still enjoy it? I should say that.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

We are very comfortable when it comes to music. If we're talking about like how to get include music in the classroom, we get a degree in it. We're really comfortable with it. We understand the ins of it and the ins and outs, and we know all the boring technical stuff behind it. Yeah, um, and unfortunately, I think because it is everyone's like, oh, music is so great for kids, and everyone loves it. I mean, everyone loves it. I've heard David Radenborough talking in an interview about how music has been a part of every culture since before humans even existed, you know. Like music is everywhere, and but it's really unfortunate, it's it's one of those weird skills where I think a lot of teachers who aren't trained in it, it's quite uncomfortable and weird.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

And people go, I can't sing. So, you know, like I get we laugh about this all the time, like you know, the singing voice. Um, but yeah, totally it's not their um porte.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

No, but they understand the importance of it. Yes, and so they're doing their very best, you know, to work and they want to implement it. Yes, a lot of the writing that we do and the composing that we do, not only are we, you know, hitting curriculum points and like trying to make fun and you know, writing bangers because it's just good music, yeah, but we're also trying to create tools that are useful in the classroom and can support a teacher who is maybe not so confident in being, you know, putting on their singing voice. Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

They just whack you on. Um and so I mean, obviously, we've just got to meet each other um of recent, but now we'll, you know, I'll be sharing you everywhere. Um I actually sent it all to my daughter and stuff. Look at this, you might know a lot. Um, but is it something that obviously parents can find? I was looking on YouTube and stuff like that. You know, the Cub Club was is individual schooling. Is that for specific educators, or can that be for parents that might love what you do?

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Absolutely. I think I mean it's if you have children that are school aged or school starting, I think um we could sort of bridge that strange gap. I think we're not really making preschool nursery rhyme content. It really is a lot of the stuff inside Cub Club is really aligned with school curriculum along with our fun songs as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Um so you'll find that most of our subscribers are teachers, but then a lot of parents are subscribing because when they get home and they want to teach phonics, yeah, what what is what is phonics? Oh, okay. We've been talking about Pevin and Sarah at school. Oh, and we're kind of bridging that gap between the home and the classroom when we can.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

It needs to be, yeah. And the thing is, you know, I've been um working with clients for 10 years, and and even, you know, my kids are 21, 18, and 15, and you know, all seems very clear what we used to do and what's changed and stuff. But um, life has changed for parents as well, and it's not particularly their fault. Life is expensive, well, the world's changed, it's busier, the whole of that. But again, our kids still need that support at home, you know, and and parents are exhausted. I get that, you know, but like that would be a little bit of fun, like if they're doing some kind of fun phonics, yeah. End of the day, instead of like having to do homework, getting to learn the songs, yeah, sing it in the bath, like singing. That's how our kids learn, like absolutely singing and through charts everywhere in the toilet and the bathroom, and you know, yeah, all of this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

So and you mentioned YouTube, and and sure, we yes, we do have videos on YouTube, and I guess a lot of what we create has been put on our own platform. But I guess you know, the big news that we've had recently is that we've had the ABC acquire some of our clips. That's that's really exciting. So, in the comment, I want to hear more about that.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

That let's let's tell me, tell me what that's going to be look like, what that's gonna look like, because that's huge.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Yeah, no, it is, it is, it's it hasn't happened overnight, it's been a really long time coming, obviously. Um, and we last year we kind of just set out to make everything that we do, we make in-house, and we're really kind of uh secluded and we do all the production, all the writing, and everything. Yeah, I love that. And then we thought um, which is great, and it is a lot of work, and we thought, let's we just wanted to make something beautiful. And it was more because um we'd been going for well 12 years now ourselves. It was about just after our 10-year birthday, and we thought, let's kind of time capsule Pevin and Sarah in this moment. And the first time we decided to work with some external help. We've got some cinematographers and some production companies to kind of help us.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

We just kind of leveled up a little bit, yeah. Now about time, about time.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

That's right. And it was fantastic because it was awesome because Sarah and I kind of just got to be Peven and Sarah for once.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

We didn't have to be the you know, the composers, the recording, the production, uh social media, but all of the other parts of running a business. As you would know, when you when you run a business, you're wearing all of the hats.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

And so and you know, engaging with incredible professionals who are really good at their jobs. Um, and so we just kind of had some crazy ideas, presented them to some people, and they said, Yeah, I think we can do that, let's do it. And it all kind of happened. So then we had this nice little package that we presented to ABC and said we've made these new film clips and they seem to like them.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yes, please.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

So yeah, um, so this is the thing, right? It's like for me, I'm 10 years into this as well, and everything's exploding into all different areas. But the work that I've put in, and like you know, it's it's a whole life of from nothing, you know, and then all of a sudden we're here and people are oh, where'd they pop up from? Yeah, where how are they new these new people, Pevin? And you know, it's like we're here, but we've worked our way up, you know. So we us um entrepreneurial type of people um definitely understand hustling for a very long time, and sometimes hustling doesn't even get us there. So I'm so glad and proud. I'm so proud of you. Oh no how hard you've worked you would have worked to get there. So then what does so that obviously I saw that on Instagram that sort of back end them doing the recording? Um where are they gonna put that? What are they gonna do? Are you gonna have a show?

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Are you gonna have so so they have have the ABC have done a sort of a uh real focus on music recently? Um they have musical march and they're really working to acquire, you know, some quality music. And there's some already some really great artists on ABC with their film clips. So we've just yeah, created a bunch of film clips that as of June 1st are gonna be included in their broadcasts like rotation on the telly, and then um we're gonna be on iView as well. So then which is really cool because it when you said where can parents find you, and we're like, well, you could go to Cub Club, which is really great, but also you could just flick on the telly and you'll be seeing us too, which is I can't wait.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

I can't wait to see it all. I'll be celebrating with you. Um, because that's a thing, you've you've done the work, you know, you're educated with it. It's not just like, oh, we want to make some money, it's not about that. Oh, not making any money. It's not about the money. No, no, no. I know that I know sometimes it can be looking so great. It's like crickets with the money. Doesn't make you stop though, when you've got this purpose and why and passion that you guys have, and um, yeah, you deserve abundance and financial abundance. Let's hope for that, mate. All the work you put in. Now we want you've got the um yeah, financial abundance. So um, so did it take long to figure out about Peven? Like, because he's looking pretty cute, and you would have had to make him and yeah, well, you mean find him, yeah. You well, I mean make a decision of make the decision of him, and then that he was gonna be the character, is what I meant.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Well, that's Sarah's got a great story about.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Well, actually, Peven, well, you know, I always wanted like I I am the voice, so I was doing the singing and all the dancing and always have kind of thing, but I didn't want to do it by myself. Yeah, and Manny can't dance, so we decided to get uh the tiger in. But the thing was, um, so Pevan, people often ask us about the name Pevan, they're like, where did that come from? It's a strange name, right? Yeah, but in that first grade that I was talking about before, we had a cuddle buddy, which was a tiger. And um, you might remember maybe your kids did this on a Friday. One of the kids would take home the class cuddle buddy and they'd write a diary over the weekend. So this tiger was our cuddle buddy, and I asked the kids what they wanted to name it. And so we did a vote and we all put up our hands and we what do you want to call this tiger? And one little girl who had not said boo the entire year, like really nervous and and and quite scared to be at school, put her hand up and said Peven. I'd never heard of this name before, but the fact that she'd actually, you know, put her hand up and said something, I was like, Gertrude Brumin. I don't really care. Like it's the fact that she felt confident to say something. So yeah, so we named this tiger Peven. I love it all.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Yep, yeah, and then there's this actual story behind it, but it is a little bit different, so it's going to be easily reminded remembered, hopefully, you know, like it's it's it's different, but it's not hard.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

SER Google Search has never been better because there are better.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

There's no other pevans, and now people will start naming their babies Peven.

SPEAKER_03 16:31

Ah, you just like can you imagine?

SPEAKER_02 16:34

It'll happen, it'll happen one day. Um, and also talking about from where you came from, I mean, could I love hearing everybody's stories is you know, you literally came, like you said, from uh teaching to um, I think you did you did music teaching or dance teaching, one of the and then I was a prep teacher and Maddie was a music teacher, yeah. Got crazy, and then everything you've created, but um you were working from a garage for a very, very long time, yeah?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um our garage were is uh we were sorry, let me just start that again. It was, it is, is it is it did start in our garage and we we even started in a bedroom, honestly, originally.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Yeah, so our rental property, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

And then yeah, we kind of converted our double garage into uh a little green screen studio, which um worked really, really well.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Um except when it rained, yeah, yeah. I think that's what I saw that you would keep getting wet.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

We got uh wet a little bit, uh a few times actually, um, which is okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

And that was yeah, and look, we were still teaching at the time, yeah, and we were like hybrid, you know, three days a week at school, two days a week. Yeah, until we could finally take that leap of faith, which we did. And we yeah, so first of all, it was just you know, going Peppin and Sarah full time, and then it was getting a studio that didn't leak, and then it was, you know, we've got some amazing staff working with us now, you know. Um we seem to poach teachers, don't we?

SPEAKER_02 17:59

No, same minds, birds of a feather is what we were saying.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

Birds of a feather.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Exactly. Well, that's amazing, and you know, it sounds like you know, as much as you've done all of that work, it's just about to take off. Oh, which is exciting. Yes, hope so. Definitely definitely say yes, yes, yes, yes, and we're very excited. Um, so obviously, um, yeah, very excited to see that. June starts being on the loop in A on ABC, which is great. So um, I'll be reminding people about that as well because obviously I'm sure they'll do some searches for you. But again, obviously, we'll put all the way to search you um in the show notes and things like that. Um, but like it's like I said, it people have to look at it, like it's it's fun, but it's learn you can learn. I reckon I'd learn my phonics and stuff better, you know, like by by that sort of stuff. Um and so I think, yeah, that's just so exciting. So you're coming, you're starting um your tour of Australia. Tour of Australia, that sounds so big, doesn't it? But you start traveling soon. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

So like yeah, so this like yeah, this this world we created in Cub Club, which is fantastic. The teachers use us in the classroom every day. It it we discovered this audience, and so we've got thousands upon thousands of kids watching us in the classroom every day. Yeah, and we I mean, we know that's what's happening, we can see the numbers ticking over, but it wasn't until we went, hang on a second.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

People just started asking us to come to their school.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

And we need to make money. So yeah, totally, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

And it was like, well, we could maybe just go and visit your school, and then we like the the the request just kept coming, and we thought, well, this is getting a little bit unmanageable. So we kind of had this idea that if we hired a theatre and let told all the kids to come to us and have an excursion, and then we'll see get to see everyone at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Yeah. Um, so we tour annually every year now, and we you said Australia, but we literally go all over Australia. I saw it, yeah. I love that. So we've got um, yeah, we've got 47 shows coming up over 32 Australian locations. Um, so we'll kick off at the end of May and we won't finish up until the end of December. So it's cool though. That's a bit of traveling and doing well and being a little bit. We're very lucky because we get to go on stage and we walk out, and there's 800 five-year-olds in there, and like simultaneously their brains just explode because they can't actually believe it. Like, they can't believe that these people that they've watched on a screen all day every night at school are real people. I know. So we get oh, so it's so special. And then they sing every song, every word, because they've been doing them at school every day. And yeah, it's it's unreal. It's actually beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

You've created something so beautiful, and it's like they're gonna get better, better, big bigger and better. And we don't have to see Manny's dance. Um, Manny.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Manny runs Manny's on side stage running all the text up. Oh, is he? Oh so Manny's not Pevin. Well, uh well, hang on. Hang on a second.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

We don't know what you're talking about because remember, this is for adults only.

unknown 21:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

This is not I mean, the point still stands. Peven is peven.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Yeah, Pevin is Peven. Peven is a tiger.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

But to answer your question, Manny is not Peven. No, he stands side stage and does all the text.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Well, no, you got away with it, Manny. That's great. You don't even have to get in that suit when it's hot. It's quite suit. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, I mean, sorry, sorry. Yeah, you know, I mean, yes, run around after him. Yes, I don't know what he's talking about. This is like I said, after this is um parental guidance only. So not for children to not for hearing for children's ears. I'll warn people about that. Um so thank you so much for being guests today. It's really beautiful to meet you. And um, you know, this won't be the last. I'm sure I might even come see you.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Oh, we'd love to have you at our one of our shows. Let us know. We'll hook you up. We'll we know we'll go.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Yeah, yeah. But we'll come and meet each other and do some absolutely Grammy stuff, you know. But And um yeah, so we'll get um this out as soon as we can. But yeah, so lovely to meet you. Awesome. You too, Donna.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

And can I just say thank you for providing a platform for such a niche kind of uh field, you know, kids' entertainment. It's like you love it. You know, not a lot of people sort of yeah, so thank you.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Oh, I love it totally. And the thing is, if it's not, if it doesn't fit, I wouldn't have said yes. So I mean, not saying that I'm egotistical and everybody wants to come on my podcast, but if I didn't feel it wasn't going to be a fit, but I just as soon as I looked into it, I was like, absolutely, I want to share you with people. Like that's the whole thing with my podcast, too, is I love it and it's growing, growing, growing rapidly. Oh my gosh. But that's what I started with is showing um my listeners who have been around for a long time things I would have loved. Like I would have loved this with my girls, you know, like and and for grandchildren, not grandchildren, Donna, stop it. That's it that's a long way away. But you know, yeah, so you you, NUS, you guys, um, is yeah, I'm honoured to have you here. So I'm glad I could share you. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. No worries. Take care. Thanks. So if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave me a rating and review. I love reading all of your messages. So shoot me a DM over on Instagram. It is parentingcollective.au. I also offer a free 15 minute, no obligation phone chat. If you'd like to book one, head over to my website, www.parentingcollective.com.au, and request one there. So try to remember to be kind to yourself and always know you're doing the best you can every day, no matter what your day is looking like. Until next time, much love.