Saint Michael's College

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IN THIS STORY:

• Manually identifying at-risk students was labour intensive
• Implementing Orah: a unified solution
• Post-Orah impact
• A successful shift from reactive to proactive student wellbeing management

St Michael’s College, Adelaide

In a dual-campus co-educational institution serving around 2,000 students, timely and efficient student welfare tracking was a complex endeavour. While educators had the tools to capture academic performance and attendance, they struggled with gaining real-time insights into students' emotional and mental well-being. Adam, a key stakeholder in student pastoral care, and Matt, 2IC to the principal, discuss how implementing Orah improved their approach to student wellbeing and enabled real-time, data-informed decision-making.

Manually identifying students in need was labour-intensive

The educators at St Michael's were burdened with the manual processes of identifying students who needed additional mental and emotional support. This often involved disparate data points, multiple meetings with counsellors and year-level directors, and a significant amount of "back-end work."

"The big question was, 'How do we proactively identify and support students who are struggling emotionally?' This is where Orah comes in," said Adam.

Implementing Orah: A Unified Solution

To address these challenges, St Michael’s introduced Orah, a platform designed to centralise and analyse student wellbeing, student moods & behaviour, and attendance data. Orah played a key role in identifying at-risk students, monitoring their mental health in real-time, and further enabling early intervention for their wellbeing and counselling teams.

Matt explains, "It's been really beneficial for us. We get immediate data on how our kids are feeling, what's triggering them, and whether our interventions are effective."

Staggered rollout and staff training

St Michael’s College chose to stagger the implementation of Orah across different year levels, understanding that each had unique requirements and maturity levels. Before the full-scale rollout, the school held training sessions, live Q&As, and provided flow charts to guide the staff in using the platform effectively.

The Post-Orah impact

Data-informed decision-making

Post-implementation, St Michaels realised a significant positive impact. Adam described the efficacy of their system, "We now have a flow chart that guides staff once they've identified a student at risk. The system automatically flags recurrent negative mood checks for immediate follow-up by the counselling team and year-level directors."

Parental engagement

Matt found that the data gleaned from Orah even helped in meetings with parents, "It's been quite data-informed, which has been good for both campuses."

Assessing overall campus climate

Orah has also been instrumental in taking the pulse of the overall campus climate, allowing educators to measure the efficacy of their well-being programs over time. 

Backing Orah for future growth

The Orah platform has shown promise, but Matt believes there's room for even more impact, "The platform's starting to gain traction, but it could revolutionize the educational landscape with more work and funding."

|| At the time this story was published, Orah had just recently released 5 new free tools for schools, furthering Orah’s global commitment to help schools maximise their students’ potential. ||

A successful shift from reactive to proactive student wellbeing management

By introducing Orah, St Michael’s College, a large educational institution, could shift from reactive to proactive student wellbeing management, better inform their interactions with parents, and have a holistic understanding of their students' health, both physical and emotional. 

Like St Michael’s, we believe Orah has the potential to redefine how educational institutions approach student wellbeing. You can get started on your journey to proactive student well-being management for free with Orah Notes or, see how Orah Nurture works.