This article was first published by Education Matters on 27 October 2026 as “How Cannon Hill Anglican College unified communication and learning with Schoolbox”. It is republished here with the kind permission of Education Matters.
At Cannon Hill Anglican College (CHAC), no two days unfold in quite the same way. For Deputy Principal Ms Holly O’Sullivan Williams, that constant activity is part of what makes school life so special at the independent Anglican co-educational school in Brisbane.
“The school to me is a place of hyperactivity. There’s always something going on, whether it’s sport, music, debating, let alone what’s happening in the classroom,” she says.
Sitting at the heart of its surrounding suburb, the college has developed a strong community feel. But keeping a community that busy connected is no small task.
Information is constantly being shared, updated, stored and acted upon. With more than 1,300 students from Prep to Year 12, CHAC needed a better way to streamline learning, bring its community together, and keep everyone on the same page.
That search led to Schoolbox, an Australian technology platform that brings together learning management systems (LMS), a community portal and pastoral care into one place. Plus, Schoolbox enables ‘white-labelling’, so schools can brand it as their own, creating a sense of culture and identity.
In the case of CHAC, its Schoolbox-enabled platform is called CHAC Home and – after a gradual rollout during the past four years – it has transformed the way the school operates day-to-day.
Too many places to look
“The problems we were seeking to solve emerged from a gap in parent communication,” says Ms O’Sullivan Williams.
“Previously, there were loads of different methods. So whether that was through email, letters or Microsoft Teams, it became confusing for parents to know where to expect the next piece of communication.
“Teachers were storing content and information in their own way. But again, all faculties were dealing with items in a different manner.
“For students, every time they walked into a classroom, there was a different platform they were having to search for information. That was the impetus for us to look at a solution that was going to bring those three stakeholders to a place where they could find everything they need to know about CHAC.”
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Along for the journey
Most principals will know that transformation of this magnitude requires a considered change management approach.
After all, the apps, platforms, and communication lines that teachers, students, and parents were accustomed to were being replaced. This naturally comes with questions around whether change is being enacted for change’s sake.
“Today, Schoolbox is central to the rhythm of CHAC,” says Ms O’Sullivan Williams, noting that it is now embedded across communication, teaching, learning and assessment at the college.
“It’s the first place staff go each morning, whether they’re checking the calendar or seeing what learning is planned for students. It’s also the first point for students in their homeroom. They have time that’s allocated to check what their day looks like. And then for parents as well, it is now their first port of call.”
But it didn’t happen overnight.
Bringing staff on board
Teachers are already fatigued with evolving policies and legislation, as Ms O’Sullivan Williams points out, so the college intentionally took a “gentle” approach that started by clarifying the issues, and then taking staff along for the journey.
“Before making a change that is significant to a school, the first thing you need to consider is why you’re making the change. For us it was communication,” she says.
“The second thing is being transparent about what you’re trying to achieve. We were keen to avoid a situation where a small group suddenly returns saying, ‘We’ve found the answer, it’s going to be great, just follow us’. It needed to come from a place of: this is the feedback we’ve got. This is what we understand to be a concern for many people. Here are some solutions. Have a look at them.
“And then, ordinarily, if everyone’s working together with that same goal and understands the why, they will hopefully end up in the same destination.”
Champions for every part of the rollout
A big part of that was asking Ms Kat Upton, CHAC’s Digital Projects Officer, to drive the implementation, and become the school’s interface with the Schoolbox team.
CHAC also established teacher champions for different aspects of the rollout, and a steering committee to decide on big decisions and keep things moving forward.
“Prior to Schoolbox, one of the biggest challenges we faced was getting the right information to the parents in a timely manner. Being a P–12 school, the requirements of parents in the primary school are very different to those in the secondary school,” says Ms Upton.
“We needed a solution that could integrate with our existing software providers in our edtech stack. Schoolbox was the clear frontrunner.
“But what impressed me with Schoolbox was that implementation wasn’t the end of the journey. It was just the beginning. Schoolbox isn’t something that you set up and you walk away from. It’s something we’re continuously improving upon, bringing in new features and making sure that we continue to upskill the teachers to get the most out of the platform.”
A hotline to Schoolbox
Underpinning this is a “continuous relationship” with Ms Krystal Goudge, CHAC’s own Schoolbox School Engagement Manager.
“She’s our hotline that we can call up and ask: we really want to have this in Schoolbox. Can you help us?,” adds Ms O’Sullivan Williams.
Ms Goudge, a former teacher who understands the pain points of schools, can often point the school in the right direction, drawing on the experience of working with 80 other schools across the country. But for more complicated queries, she can tap into the developers and experts at Schoolbox.
She thinks of herself as a daily problem solver.
A daily problem solver
“In fact, I encourage schools to bring their problems to me,” Ms Goudge says.
“The team that supports me in my role as a School Engagement Manager is super important, because I can’t know everything.
“For example, as we go down the path of AI, there are a lot of technical things that schools want to take into consideration to ensure the safety of information. The team that I have supporting me within our product and infrastructure team has been able to step into meetings with the IT team here at CHAC to make sure all of their technical questions have been answered, so they feel supported in making the right decision.”
The thing that impressed Ms Goudge the most at CHAC was the staff who drove the Schoolbox implementation, armed with a sense of enthusiasm and desire to improve the experiences for teachers, staff and parents.
“It’s not one singular person. They are always bringing things to their steering committee. I think that is a key pillar to success,” she says. “They were looking for a partnership, and that ultimately spells out success when it comes to implementation.”
‘It’s on CHAC Home’
So now Schoolbox is part of the CHAC fabric, what has changed?
One of the most noticeable shifts has been a shared language around the platform.
“It’s become part of the way we communicate. Any time someone is seeking information or updates, you’ll hear ‘It’s on CHAC Home. That’s where you’ll find it’,” says Ms O’Sullivan Williams. “It’s taken some time, but people are increasingly engaging with it, and now we’re hearing people say ‘I posted it on CHAC Home’.”
A first port of call for teachers
For Mr Peter Holmes, the college’s Head of Faculty – Science, CHAC Home – powered by Schoolbox – has become his first port of call each morning.
“As a teacher, you come in and everything is there for you in terms of the daily notices, staff updates and so on,” he says. “For teachers, it means being able to deliver learning and assessments in a consistent format, ensuring what students see is the same across all classes.
“I find that it also removes a lot of the uncertainty, particularly for students. They know they can go to the one place and find all the information they need in a neat and presentable way.”
Assessment parents can see
Now, assessment happens via CHAC Home too. There, teachers continuously put in their reporting comments, giving up-to-date access to how a student is progressing.
“Every time there’s a piece of assessment that’s done, it’s marked right there,” says Ms O’Sullivan Williams. “Because the information is visible to both students and parents, there’s far greater transparency around progress and achievement. That has reduced the volume of emails and phone calls from parents asking how their child is tracking.”
Fewer cognitive switches
When students are in class, Ms O’Sullivan Williams says it’s easing “the cognitive switch” between tasks.
“These days, students are often switching between OneNote, a maths textbook, an online textbook, a podcast, or whatever it may be. Every time we’re asked to do that, it’s doing something to our brains,” she says.
“It’s a cognitive switch, and every time we’re doing that, it’s wasting time. If we can have something in one place that minimises that for each student, a parent or a teacher, that’s gold. And that’s where I see Schoolbox making a difference for us.”
More broadly, Ms O’Sullivan Williams says she can already see how the entire school community is better informed about key events, messages and concerns.
Clearing the way for learning
Schoolbox also helps CHAC with new rules around the right to disconnect, establishing clear communication windows that help protect staff, students and parents while setting expectations around response times.
Ultimately, Ms Upton says it is about clearing the way so students and teachers can have enriched learning opportunities.
“They don’t need to be bogged down with understanding the rules about submitting an assessment or finding information about the school disco,” she says. “If we can make life easier for parents, students and teachers, streamlining those administrative tasks so that they can focus on the learning and getting the most out of their time here, then we’ve done our jobs.”
Connected, consistent, possibilities
Looking ahead, CHAC is only starting to delve deeper into the possibilities of Schoolbox. Marking is one area the school sees a clear opportunity, plus greater use of components like Social Stream, available on a class homepage, allowing students to leave comments, links, images, video and files.
There’s also Collab Docs, which allow multiple users to work together on a document, editing or contributing to it, with the goal of creating a single final version through collaboration.
“That’s one of my favourites,” says Ms O’Sullivan Williams. “That’s our next piece, looking at the teaching tools that can be better utilised that are engaging for students.”
It’s this mindset that makes CHAC such a standout Schoolbox case study.
It’s part of the reason why the college played host to the recent Schoolbox South East Queensland User Forum, where 160 educators using the platform in the region gathered to hear updates from the company and to learn how other schools had optimised the platform for their own needs.
“It’s a great way to get best practice out there. And that’s the bit that I absolutely love about the Schoolbox community. Everyone is always so willing to help each other out,” Ms Goudge says.
CHAC hosted the Schoolbox South East Queensland User Forum, bringing together 160 educators from across the region.
“One of the statistics I enjoyed sharing at the user forum is that we have delivered 119 feature requests that have come directly from the educator community since our last user forum in 2025.
“That means that we are listening to our customers. They are the people at the coalface using the product, and we need to deliver them a product that is meaningful to them.”
If Ms O’Sullivan Williams was to describe Schoolbox’s impact in three words, she would start with “connected” – across the entire school community.
“Another word is ‘consistent’. You consistently know where to find things. You don’t have to search. And the more you use it, you realise how consistent it is as a tool,” she says.
“And the third thing would be ‘possibilities’, in that there are still so many possibilities that we haven’t embedded yet that we’re excited about.”
The parts of Schoolbox in CHAC’s story
More schools making the move to one connected platform
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