With just 80 students enrolled – all Indigenous – the remote independent Wadja Wadja High School in Central Queensland may not be the first place you’d expect to find the latest digital technology for managing administration.
As the only high school in the Woorabinda region, home to 52 Indigenous clans, Wadja Wadja school plays a vital role in equipping students with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to succeed while staying connected to their heritage.
Strong cultural ties often lead to fluctuating student attendance, with some students enrolling, relocating, and later returning.
Managing these highly transitional enrolment patterns has “always presented challenges” for the school, says Demi Sainsbury, Wadja Wadja’s Student Services Officer and project lead for the transition to a new School Information System (SIS), Sentral.
“We have many students who switch between schools frequently. Because we are an independent school and not a state school, a lot of the schools assume we can access [Education Queensland’s] OneSchool database.”
Now, when a student moves away and then returns, “we can re-enrol them seamlessly, and all their information pops up again,” she says.
As well, start-of-year enrolment reporting is now effortless. “For Census Day, instead of spending an entire day compiling data manually to generate a report, I just click a few buttons on Sentral, and it’s done automatically.”
Enrolment management wasn’t the only administrative headache under the school’s former system.
The Challenge: A system that no longer served the school
Before implementing Sentral, Wadja Wadja High School relied on another system with minimal functionality , which primarily supported enrolments and attendance.
“The SIS did not fully meet our needs. It was very basic and lacked the features and functionalities we needed, unlike Sentral.” Demi Sainsbury, Student Services Officer
Staff struggled with inefficiencies in manual data handling, particularly for attendance tracking, academic reporting, and student wellbeing records. Data management was cumbersome, as was the auditing process required to justify spending to funders and grant bodies.
Reports and student records were mostly manual. "Our academic reports were created in a Word template – I had to build them myself.”
There were also limitations on tracking student wellbeing.
The school’s old system had only a ‘notes’ section for the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD), which was inadequate for managing students’ wellbeing and additional support needs. Not being able to structure the data made it difficult to track interventions, progress, or support strategies over time, as well as ensure consistency. Extracting insights from the notes to identify trends, evaluate interventions, or report effectively to funding bodies and regulatory authorities was also challenging.
“We had to collect the data manually, spending a lot of time scanning documents into the system. It was especially problematic at audit reporting time, and the one before we signed onto Sentral was intense,” says Demi.
In mid-2023, a learning support teacher was “pushing for a different student information system,” leading Demi to take on the task of finding a best-fit system to recommend to the school’s board.
The Solution: Why Sentral?
Sentral was chosen not only for its comprehensive functionality but also because it was the only vendor that had engaged deeply with the school’s needs before the purchase.
“Of all the SIS vendors, we got the most information from Sentral, which provided so much info before we signed on-it made everything really easy.” Demi Sainsbury, Student Services Officer
Sentral also stood out for its ability to:
- Generate automated reports, reducing manual workload
- Provide seamless student data tracking, making information more accessible to staff, and
- Improve wellbeing management, with dropdown menus and structured entry options instead of free-text fields.
Implementation: A smooth and supported transition
The implementation process began in April 2024, with training sessions facilitated by Sentral’s Implementation Manager, Jumana Husein.
“It was super easy, thanks to Jumana and her co-workers, Fabio, and Michelle. They made all the training straightforward, making my role much easier.” Demi Sainsbury, Student Services Officer
In preparation for switching to a new SIS, one of the biggest tasks was manual data migration – a necessary step due to the school’s size. Instead of transferring records in bulk, Demi took time to meticulously check, clean, and input student data.
“I didn’t do it all at once; I spread it out over two weeks. It was nice to go through all our student data and ensure everything was correct before putting it into the new system.”
Training followed a ‘train the trainer’ model, with Demi taking the lead in onboarding other staff. "It was my first time training staff, but because our team is small and we see each other every day, it went smoothly.” she said.
A testament to this success is that Wadja Wadja High School didn’t need all the implementation and post-implementation support hours provided by Sentral.
“The process to implement Sentral was much simpler than I expected. If I had a question, it was just a phone call to Sentral to sort it out, not being sent a 90-page document to read through and dealing with people outside of Australia like we had to with our old system.” Demi Sainsbury, Student Services Officer
The Impact: Transforming school operations
The school went live with Sentral in August 2024 in term 3, but continued using its old SIS in tandem until term 4 for a smoother transition. The move to Sentral has significantly streamlined the school’s operations. The improvements include:
- Faster and more efficient data management
- Seamless student transitions, such as when they re-enrol at the school
- More effective student support, and
- Faster reporting for audits and funding.
“For starters, the display and organisation of student information make my life and teachers’ lives so much easier. Click a few buttons, and you have phone numbers, addresses, and reports instantly.”
With a highly mobile student body, tracking progress is no longer a hassle.
Teachers can now access student wellbeing plans directly, allowing for more effective student support and making it easier to plan excursions and camps.
Demi says: “When we’re deciding which students can go on camp, teachers can easily check if there are any significant behavioural concerns.”
Sentral’s intuitive design ensured staff picked up the platform without issue.
“Sentral is so simplified; teachers quickly adapted to the platform.” Demi Sainsbury, Student Services Officer
The adoption rate has been 100%, with all teachers, teacher aides, and admin staff actively using the system daily.
“Even our teacher aides are using it now for wellbeing and NCCD data, which they never did before.” Demi Sainsbury, Student Services Officer
Sentral has proven valuable for finances, giving Wadja Wadja the tools to document and produce reports for audits and funding.
A system that works for Wadja Wadja High School
Sentral’s impact on Wadja Wadja High School goes beyond efficiency – it has provided stability in a school where students and staff frequently transition.
“We have such transitional students and staff; in fact, each year we have a new group of teachers come in from all over Australia, but Sentral is a constant. Everything we need is in there – it’s a program we can trust.” Demi Sainsbury, Student Services Officer
As the school moves forward, the platform will continue to evolve with its needs. Currently, it’s opted not to use the parent portal because the school community is unlikely to use it.
“Sentral has definitely brought us into the 21st century – we’re no longer doing everything manually, meaning we can focus more on supporting our students rather than getting stuck in admin.” Demi Sainsbury, Student Services Officer
For remote schools like Wadja Wadja, technology that understands their unique challenges makes all the difference. With Sentral, they now have a reliable, easy-to-use system that’s customised to support both their educational and cultural vision.
"Sentral has definitely brought us into the 21st century – we’re no longer doing everything manually, meaning we can focus more on supporting our students rather than getting stuck in admin."
