The McDonald College

CompliSpace Education Transforms Compliance Practices at College Within a Year.

Challenge

The McDonald College is a co-ed 3-12 college and boarding school in Sydney, with 270 students and 50 staff.

In the middle of Term 3 2017, Deputy Principal, Ian Hird, and his Principal, Maxine Kohler, were challenged by their Chairman of Council to demonstrate that the College was operating fully compliant in every area of operation. Ian said, “I knew that we were compliant with NESA, but that was not necessarily the same as being legally protected.” The Chairman gave them a month to come back with a plan on how they were going to achieve this.

Ian said, “It was the first time in my career that I was concerned that I might actually not be able to do my job.” Having a background as a teacher and 30-year career in education leadership, Ian felt confident in many aspects of the challenge.

But there were areas he did not know well, like Workplace Health and Safety, and being up to date with legal compliance in many areas of the College’s operations.

He added, “We are a small school, but we are required to have the same level of compliance that the big schools have, despite having less staff. Everything still has to be done and we have to figure out how to do it.”

On top of this request, the school would be facing inspection for re-registration in 2019.

Recent changes to requirements for inspection mean that schools now have a responsibility to demonstrate their compliance, as well as significant additional compliance requirements – such as Governance. It’s not good enough to just have policies anymore.

Ian and Maxine remembered having read articles from CompliSpace and thought that maybe CompliSpace could help. He reached out for a meeting.

Before the end of Term 4, Ian had arranged for members of the College Executive and the College Council to have the CompliSpace solution presented by co-founder David Griffiths. In January, he created a small implementation team and began working with their CompliSpace consultant to create the CompliSpace link and home page on the College portal. CompliSpace was launched to the staff and the process of implementation was underway.

Solution

CompliSpace worked with Ian to deliver a CompliSpace Education implementation for The McDonald College.

CompliSpace Education includes:

• Policy Management System - a full suite of customisable policies and procedures delivered, managed and maintained through an online platform.
• Learning Management System (embedded within the Policy platform) - to manage staff training and professional development.
• Assurance - to manage risk, tasks, incidents and online forms, as well as provide high quality management reporting outcomes.

Policy Management System

The College now has easy access to risk and compliance related content covering:

• Governance – including Registration
• Compliance
• Workplace Health & Safety
• Child Protection
• Student Duty of Care
• Risk Management
• Boarding
• Overseas Students

As a result of recent updates to CompliSpace policies on Child Protection, he was recently able to:

• Brief staff on changes to the NSW Crimes Act and Working With Children requirements.
• Have these changes reflected in College policies – accessible by all staff on the CompliSpace portal.
• Have these changes reflected in the Learning Management System courses undertaken by staff as part of the mandatory annual training of staff.

Assurance

“It is very assuring for me, as a member of the Executive, and for my staff, that our policies and processes are absolutely up-to-date with the latest legal changes. These changes are not yet reflected in the NESA registration requirements – our focus as an organisation is now compliance to a much higher standard than NESA compliance. This provides the highest duty of care to our students, our staff and to legally to us as a business”.

Using Forms in the Assurance component, Ian has customised a wide range of forms which have revolutionized administrative processes (including record keeping and reporting).

The following processes and records are now fully managed within the CompliSpace platform:

• Injury and Property Damage
• Reporting a Hazard
• Reporting Student Behaviour & Bullying
• Excursions
• PD Applications

In January 2019, Ian plans to add Staff Leave applications, approval and records to the CompliSpace portal.

In addition to the Forms function in Assurance, Ian not only has the policies he needs, but also he has the tasks associated with meeting the requirements in those policies. He is able to assign those tasks and track and report on progress and completion.

Tasks are assigned in consultation with staff. His approach is to meet with staff, where he presents the tasks that need to be done. They then agree how frequently each task will need to be done, when they should be scheduled (where flexibility is an option) and determine the documentation that will need to be attached (for example, a certificate of service for the kiln).

Learning Management System

Finally, Ian recently launched the Learning Management System and found that staff were able to engage and complete the awards he’d created.

“It’s such a great testament to the robustness and ease of use of the new system. Within four weeks of implementing the system, we were able to create and roll out two professional development courses on Professional Conduct – based on our Staff Code of Conduct.

I am amazed at how well this launch has gone. As a result, I am confident that we can have our mandatory child protection training and TAA orientation operating smoothly at the beginning of next year - well in time for our registration and accreditation application and inspection...such a huge relief!”

Result

“I am now confident that everyone at the College has one source of truth for our policies, forms and processes.” Ian said.

The College manages their forms through Assurance. “Before, I was getting a wide range of versions of forms depending on who was saving what where – hard drive, shared drives, paper. Now, there is universal documentation, and everyone knows what it is, and most importantly, where to find it.”

Staff have embraced every part of the CompliSpace platforms from the policies to the forms to staff training and more.

“Staff satisfaction has been greatly increased and they’ve been very positive. Knowing where to find policies, easy access to forms (with a seamless process of approval and management) and a huge range of tasks covering every aspect of the College’s operation mean that administratively CompliSpace has transformed our daily operations. The only pushback I get is on the Assurance tasks reminder alerts that staff get when they haven’t completed a task. From a management point of view, that’s fantastic because I have peace of mind that tasks aren’t going to be forgotten about. And in reality, the staff are also VERY accepting of how the tasks ensure they are meeting their obligations.

There has been a transformative change with regards to compliance. I have been quite strategic in demonstrating to staff that everyone – including the Principal and me – receive Task reminders. Task compliance is our collective responsibility.”

Ian added that the two specialist programs - The Boarding Program and the Overseas Students Module – have been particularly helpful with meeting the requirements of the new AS 5725: 2015 Boarding Standard for Australian Schools and Residences and CRICOS registration for teaching overseas students.

Most of Ian’s Executive reporting comes from CompliSpace Education systems as well.

Testimonial

"It has been a big year and we have met the Chairman’s challenge to ensure our compliance, well beyond what I thought would be possible this time last year. The College finally has one ‘source of truth for our policies, forms and processes. Every part of the content and platform has made my job so much easier."

Ian Hird,

Deputy, The McDonald College.

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