Australian Christian College (ACC)

The background

Australian Christian College (ACC) is a national group of six non-denominational (Christian) schools in four states: Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. As a network, the schools are able to take advantage of significant economies of scale, which, in turn, means that individually, they can offer a great private school education at an accessible price point. Students are also able to move between campuses if necessary.

In addition to providing on campus education, ACC is also the largest provider of non-government online education in Australia, with more than 1,400 students from Kindergarten up to grade 12 across Queensland, NSW and Western Australia. Their distance education (DE) program caters to a variety of needs – including students training to be professionals in sports or arts, students who live remotely and students with special needs – and is currently transitioning from the traditional, paper-based model to a fully online school, which handles all new enrolments.

ACC operates a class set scheme across all campuses and the DE program so achieving equity of resources for students had always been a challenge.

The challenges

At ACC, it’s “all about technology” and has been for quite some time. The school network is committed to the use of technology in education and providing a modern learning environment for students. That’s why they chose a cloud-based, license-based Learning Management System (LMS) back in 2010, unlike many schools which opted for a traditional LMS that requires multiple servers. This decision became an important turning point for ACC, which, today, is entirely cloud-based.

Since 2010, ACC has continued to accelerate its digital learning journey. After adopting a BYOD program in 2013, the network was in the market for digital resources that not only fit within their existing infrastructure, but could keep pace with how fast the school was moving.

The solution

ACC introduced the Jacaranda Digital Bundle for Years 7-10 students in school year 2013, becoming one of the first to roll out the new, high-value package from Jacaranda. Importantly, Jacaranda’s curriculum-aligned content enabled ACC to cater to the needs of each on campus school, as well as the distance education program. The bundle also provided significant cost savings compared to the previous class set model so parents enjoyed new-found value for money.

For ACC, the introduction of the Jacaranda Digital Bundle confirmed that Jacaranda’s core values and technology orientation — including an emphasis on cloud-based technologies and accessibility for students — aligned with those of the school, an important consideration when evaluating longer term partnerships. The subscription model was also very appealing because the school wants to provide students with the most up-to-date resources every year.

Teachers were also excited to continue using Jacaranda resources. The high quality content is well formatted, easy-to-use and media-rich, and additional resources such as 3D atlases, educational games (Knowledge Quest) and the assessON online assessment tool provide added value. The use of digital technology also facilitates differentiation in the classroom, which ultimately means better learning outcomes for students.

The staff at ACC worked closely with the Jacaranda team during the implementation. Despite the multiple campuses and DE program, the process was straightforward and the school found it easy to get set up.