Background
Newington College, a prestigious boys’ school situated in Sydney, has a rich heritage that dates back to its founding in 1863. With approximately 2,200 students spread across four campuses, the college prides itself on its inclusive environment and commitment to innovation. Recently, Newington made headlines by announcing its transition to a co-educational model starting in 2026, marking an exciting new chapter in its history. Alongside this change, the school identified opportunities to implement advanced solutions that would further strengthen its educational offerings.
The Challenge
Like many schools across the education sector, Newington College recognised increasing demands on staff time and resources, with administrative workloads growing to the point of affecting overall well-being. In response, the College sought smarter, more sustainable systems to ensure its staff could remain focused on what matters most — supporting students and delivering high-quality education
The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic brought a significant shift in student needs across the education sector, with many requiring greater academic, social, and emotional support. In response, Newington College recognised the importance of evolving its approach — seeking more agile systems and processes to better support individual learners and create the conditions for staff to respond with clarity, care, and confidence.
Recognising both the challenges and the opportunities presented by artificial intelligence (AI) technology, Newington College decided to explore AI solutions that could streamline operations and transform the classroom experience. The school envisioned a future where AI could support teachers in innovative ways while improving overall operational efficiency.
“It became clear that while adopting commercial tools like CoPilot was important, we also needed to build our own solution to address some of our unique requirements.”
Dan Collins, IT Director, Newington College
The Solution
To address their challenges, Newington College embarked on the development of an AI platform named NewAI, utilising Microsoft Azure AI services. This strategic choice allowed the school to harness advanced AI capabilities without requiring an entirely new platform, enabling rapid implementation.
Collaboration with Antares, an experienced partner in educational technology solutions, was instrumental in this process. Antares provided valuable expertise throughout the development journey, adopting a rapid, iterative approach that allowed Newington to refine the solution in real-time based on feedback from staff and educators. This flexible methodology ensured that the NewAI platform was tailored specifically to the unique needs of Newington College.
“We chose to build NewAI using Microsoft Azure AI services. One of the key reasons for this approach was data security. Keeping everything within our Azure environment gave us complete confidence that sensitive student data wasn’t being used to train external commercial models. That assurance was critical for us and helped build trust with all our stakeholders.”
Dan Collins, IT Director, Newington College
The QBot Platform
At the heart of NewAI is the QBot platform, which integrates advanced AI capabilities to empower staff and enhance the educational experience. The platform includes several custom components designed to address the challenges faced by educators and streamline operations:
- Newington Navigator: This powerful tool allows staff to access the school’s policies, procedures, and knowledge base instantly. By providing quick answers to common questions, the Newington Navigator empowers educators to respond effectively to inquiries and align their actions with institutional guidelines.
- Reporting Assistant: Writing student reports can be a labour-intensive process, and the Reporting Assistant streamlines this task by ensuring consistency with the school’s style guide and reporting procedures. The feature also includes voice dictation capabilities, enabling teachers to compose reports more efficiently and reduce their overall workload.
- MyChatGPT: A personalised AI assistant, MyChatGPT offers on-demand support for various tasks, allowing staff to interact with the AI in a conversational manner. One of the standout features of MyChatGPT is its ability to handle attachments securely, ensuring that sensitive student data remains within the school’s Azure environment while facilitating seamless collaboration
The QBot platform is designed to be user-friendly, making it accessible to all staff members regardless of their technical expertise. By providing a secure and authorised solution, Newington College empowered educators to integrate AI into their daily workflows confidently, alleviating concerns about data privacy.
Implementation Process
The implementation of NewAI followed a phased approach to ensure a smooth transition. Newington College began with a pilot group, including members of the IT team, and gradually expanded to involve a mix of operational and teaching staff. This careful rollout allowed the school to assess the platform’s effectiveness and make any necessary adjustments before full-scale adoption.
To track usage and ensure that the platform met expectations, Newington utilised Power BI analytics. This provided valuable insights into how staff engaged with the platform and whether it was being utilised effectively. The integration of different modules with existing Entra groups made it easy to enable features for specific staff categories, allowing them to explore and adapt the platform at their own pace.
Throughout the implementation process, the support provided by Antares was exceptional. The project team worked closely with Newington’s infrastructure team to configure the necessary AI services, ensuring that all aspects of the platform were optimised for the school’s needs. Post-implementation, Antares continued to offer robust support, addressing any issues promptly and rolling out product iterations based on user feedback.
Benefits and Outcomes
The implementation of NewAI has yielded significant benefits for Newington College. By making AI accessible and practical, the school has empowered staff to utilise these tools confidently, enhancing their efficiency and effectiveness. The tailored nature of the solution ensured that it met the specific needs of the school community, rather than being a generic one-size-fits-all approach
Key outcomes of this project included:
- Increased Efficiency: Staff reported significant time savings, allowing them to focus more on teaching and student support.
- Enhanced Support for Students: The AI tools have enabled better management of students’ diverse needs, helping address the gaps that existed post-COVID.
- Positive Adoption: The user-friendly design and secure environment fostered a high level of engagement from staff, leading to widespread daily use of the platform.
“Staff are now using the platform daily for a wide range of needs, which tells me that we’ve successfully met our initial goals. What’s even more exciting is that we now have a flexible platform that we can rapidly adapt to bring new ideas from teachers and staff to life”.
Dan Collins, IT Director, Newington College
Future Directions
Looking ahead, Newington College is committed to expanding the capabilities of the NewAI platform. With a solid foundation in place, the focus will now shift towards refining the platform to meet the distinct needs of various staff groups and students. This includes tailoring functionalities for specific subjects, year groups, or classes, ensuring that the AI tools continue to deliver meaningful impact across the school community.
As Newington College embraces its transition to co-education and the evolving landscape of education, the integration of AI technology will play a crucial role in enhancing the learning experience for both staff and students. By fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement, Newington College is poised to lead the way in educational excellence, setting a benchmark for others to follow.
The collaboration with Antares and the implementation of the QBot platform have positioned Newington College at the forefront of educational innovation, demonstrating the transformative potential of AI in enhancing teaching and learning experiences.
