The founders, Ros Wolfers and Anne Hodgkins, both teachers with an interest in the needs of bright students, first set up as a backyard operation in 1991. Their professional interest was satisfied initially by catering for 25 students in two classes each week. Much time was spent researching resources and creating materials to challenge the students and to assist them to use higher levels of thinking.

Word of mouth resulted in a steady increase in students and it was not long before the professional interest became a large scale business operating in commercial premises.

In 1997, The Swot Shop appeared on the current affairs programme, Today Tonight,which focused on the benefits of our Pre-School programme. In 1999 it featured on Sixty Minutes who described the organisation as "the best education money can buy."

Today, with a staff of 70, there are in excess of 2000 students attending classes with many more unsuccessfully attempting the entry assessment.

Each year, the results of external competitions have seen hundreds of our students win awards and distinctions, gain entry to selective schools and obtain private school scholarships in quantities not mirrored by any other school or organisation. (As an example, all ten of the students selected by the University of Canberra as members of the Australian team to compete in the Asia Pacific Olympiad for Primary Students in Singapore in 2005 were from The Swot Shop.)

The owners have rejected many offers to franchise the operation, believing, instead that the quality of our service and product can only be maintained by retaining control.

In a continued drive for improvement, staff from the organisation have attended conferences and researched resources in many states of Australia, in the US, in the UK, in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, India and China.