Catholic Education Diocese of Wagga Wagga prepares students for the future world of work with aXcelerate

Results

• Improved RTO oversight: Seamless alignment and consistency with compliance and quality standards across all high schools, ensuring every VET student receives world-class training and assessment
• Streamlined assessment management: Leveraging centralised Learning Management functionality, the Diocese has transformed assessment management into a streamlined process of engaging delivery, accurate mapping and swift marking.
• Refined RTO compliance and reporting: Simpler tracking and documentation of compliance-related activities through automated processes and centralised materials, ensuring compliance standards are consistently met.
• Increased stakeholder satisfaction: The Diocese is empowered to inspire confidence, foster engagement and drive success for their students, admins and trainers. 

The Catholic Education Diocese of Wagga Wagga manages five high schools in The Riverina, NSW, with vocational programs offered across 12 qualifications in years 9, 10, 11 and 12. 

The Diocese provides VET opportunities that prioritise practical skills and real-world experiences to bridge the gap between education and employment. A robust training management system is indispensable in supporting their RTO operations, ensuring students receive quality training aligned with industry standards. 

Before Vanessa Jennings joined the team as the RTO Manager in 2021, the Diocese had legacy and outdated systems that created inefficiencies and poor compliance management.

Vanessa and her team identified the value of centralising both Student Management and Learning Management in one platform to: 

• deliver their mission of providing high-quality vocational programs for young people, 
• centrally manage every aspect of five high schools’ vocational education programs, and
• simplify and streamline assessment and compliance management.
  ‍

Empowering student success

In a rapidly changing employment environment, the Diocese RTO’s shared goal is to provide students with workplace skills and technical knowledge to help them advance their careers, now and in the future. It’s crucial that the Diocese delivers learning and assessment that instils confidence in their VET graduates as they step out into the workforce. 

With aXcelerate, the team ensures their students have a world-class learning experience from enrolment to completion.

• Students seamlessly enrol and access induction materials directly through their personalised aXcelerate Learner Portal. Students are empowered to take responsibility for inputting their own information, like their USI, right from the beginning. With in-system USI verification and an automated report to let the RTO know which students are yet to submit their USI, no student is left behind.
• Students are more actively engaging with the knowledge and learning content. With aXcelerate’s Learning Plans and Online Assessments, the team has refined the learning experience by segmenting lessons, assessments and content into manageable portions enriched with imagery, videos and interactive elements. ‍
• Students can revisit past assessments and learner guides via their Learner Portal. Every important resource can be securely stored within the centralised Resource Library. This accessibility proves invaluable, especially during critical evaluations like a HSC review, where having all pertinent materials readily available significantly enhances efficiency.
  ‍

Our students love that their Learning Plans flow beautifully. They can see exactly where they’re up to and how much they’ve got left to complete.
– Vanessa Jennings, Education Officer - VET and Transition Pathways

‍

Powerful trainer management

Before implementing aXcelerate, managing trainer competencies and evidence was a manual and time-draining process. Trainers used to complete paper-based logs, which underwent a multi-step manual approval process.

Implementing aXcelerate’s automated trainer management tools has significantly reduced paperwork and saved time.

• Trainers can self-serve by logging their professional development, industry currency activities, and evidence within their own portal in aXcelerate, giving the RTO team real-time insights into trainer activities. 
• Trainers are automatically notified when their evidence is missing, expiring soon, or has expired – ensuring trainers keep their information current and nothing falls through the cracks. The team can easily view a trainer competency matrix and TAE evidence portfolio within aXcelerate to holistically manage their trainers’ competencies and evidence.
• By centralising currency and evidence logging in aXcelerate, the Diocese has significantly streamlined the RTO and trainers' processes. A recent internal audit of trainer competencies in 2023 took just 25 minutes.
  ‍

My trainers had said aXcelerate Turbo was a platform they’d like to try. We’ve been implementing aXcelerate Turbo via a staged approach, and it’s been very well received amongst our trainers.
‍– Vanessa Jennings, Education Officer – VET and Transition Pathways 

‍

Robust Compliance and Reporting

The integration of both the SMS and LMS functionality within aXcelerate has empowered the Diocese to work towards a centralised space for compliance, reporting, assessments, and trainer management. Having all information in one place provides the RTO with greater control and efficiency in their operations. From mapping to marking and matrices, assessment compliance has been majorly improved.

• Enhanced Reporting Efficiency: aXcelerate's comprehensive reporting capabilities have significantly streamlined the RTO's reporting tasks to ASQA, NESA, and internal leadership teams. Centralised data management allows for quick and easy access to completion statistics and other critical information, reducing the time required to gather and share information.
• With aXcelerate’s training.gov.au integration, assessment mapping has become a breeze. This feature lets compliance staff map assessment questions and items to related training components, or vice versa, to create mapping relationships. The RTO can then see direct visual feedback about these mapping relationships, including the number of components mapped to each assessment criterion/question – all within aXcelerate.

• Trainers can swiftly address and mark student submissions without sifting through lengthy documents. 
• Trainers can see the status of students with the class matrix being automatically updated whenever a student completes an assessment action, such as submitting an assessment.
• With a Student and Learning Management solution built specifically for VET compliance, the Diocese is able to ensure every assessment easily meets ASQA’s quality standards.
  ‍

It’s been quite a dream come true for me. I’ve been in vocational education and training for almost 25 years, so I’ve seen assessments go from these very paper-heavy documents to being the streamlined online, user-friendly tools that just make life so much easier for the RTO to manage data.
– Vanessa Jennings, Education Officer – VET and Transition Pathways 

‍

Responsive and Collaborative RTO Support

With so many staff members, students and materials across the schools, support from aXcelerate is crucial. aXcelerate’s Customer Success teams are always on hand for ongoing support, from proactively touching base to quick ticket responses, and tutorial videos covering all areas of the system.
‍

Have a go and be brave. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. But also don’t be afraid to ask for help because the aXcelerate support system is there for all stakeholders and user groups.
– Vanessa Jennings, Education Officer – VET and Transition Pathways  

‍

Continuing to drive educational excellence

The Wagga Wagga Diocese's adoption of aXcelerate has revolutionised its vocational education programs by centralising and simplifying management tasks. With aXcelerate, they've minimised paperwork and manual processes, focusing on delivering top-notch vocational programs. This streamlined approach has not only enhanced the student journey but also empowered trainers with efficient tools and ensured assessment compliance, enabling a consistent student experience across their schools. Looking ahead, they're eager to maximise aXcelerate's features, particularly aXcelerate Turbo, ensuring continued success in their education programs.