Catholic Education Sandhurst’s technology strategy blazes a new trail

"Our remit as an IT team is for every student, everywhere across the diocese to have access to the best technology and the best education solutions."

This mission, articulated by Ryan Neville, ICT Lead at Catholic Education Sandhurst Limited (CESL) has created a clear mandate for change that is driving the organisation’s technology transformation forward from a decade behind to five years ahead. Delivered in record time, CESL’s new cloud-based Enterprise solution brought consistency across devices, platform, and security within the diocese’s extensive network of schools. By transitioning from a cumbersome model with sporadically managed devices and significant security challenges to a centrally managed device strategy with security at the core, CESL has created the foundation to deliver transformational educational outcomes for students and teachers.

Where to start? Think like an Enterprise

Mr Neville believes that when you view your education technology through an Enterprise lens it sets you on a path to outstanding outcomes. Tasked with the ICT management of 51 primary and secondary schools across the Victorian diocese of Sandhurst, a matrixed Enterprise is a pretty good analogy.

“When I started at CESL in 2022, I outlined a technology vision to shift to a centrally managed Enterprise model IT ecosystem at scale across platform, solutions and devices. Like going from a collection of small businesses to empowering an Enterprise business at scale. For the last 15 years each school had managed its own IT, leading to inequality and a mixed bag of devices and platform, making it hard to do anything consistently. When we switched the strategy, it really uplifted the IT team and placed us in a position to show the true value of a holistic approach.”

The strategy targeted business outcomes of consistency, simplicity, efficiency, and standardisation; underpinned by best-in-class security. A key application would be the diocese’s new transformative curriculum program ‘Magnify’, a research-based standardised approach to delivering outstanding holistic educational outcomes.

Plotting a course with the right technology

Mr Neville and his team partnered with the CESL Executive team on a clear mandate: “We knew we had to move schools into a central management model and uplift security across the board by connecting data and devices. We set an agenda and drove that forward.”

“We looked at the current BYOD device fleet and there was no standard. In head office, most people were on Mac devices, with some on Windows devices. All were managed manually at device level, with no visibility of security. The G-suite platform we were using posed a similar security risk assessment.”

The team chose Microsoft as its key technology partner knowing it had the best secure Enterprise standard to power CESL’s strategy and goals. CESL identified that the purposefully ‘better together’ nature of Microsoft’s platform and devices was the right choice. From secure cloud and AI-first infrastructure with Microsoft Azure, the collaboration and productivity-focused Microsoft 365 solutions, and the seamless integration that comes with fit-for-purpose Microsoft Surface devices. “We felt it was far more advanced than the Google environment when you’re trying to manage at an Enterprise level, particularly as security was a major priority,” reflects Mr Neville. “With this solution we’re trying to work smarter, not harder. We can increase productivity and efficiency in the way we work.”

Setting the stage for a rapid and successful migration

When CESL Executive Director Kate Fogarty challenged Mr Neville and his team to accelerate their migration plan from two years to just six months in preparation for the upcoming Magnify initiative, they responded with remarkable speed. Within six months, they successfully migrated 36 schools from G-suite to Microsoft 365 and deployed 3,500 Microsoft Surface devices in just three months. Mr Neville highlighted that leveraging the Microsoft 365 environment and Microsoft’s Surface devices, fully managed through Intune, empowered the IT team to achieve outcomes that would have otherwise been impossible. He also acknowledged the extraordinary efforts of his team in making this happen smoothly. This included team members covering 10,000 to 12,000 thousand kilometres across a diocese spanning 45,000 kilometres as they drove from school to school.

A Device as a Service (DaaS) strategy provided ease of implementation and peace of mind through centralised end-to-end deployment and secure device management. “The devices were a sprawl across schools, some were well managed, but a lot weren’t. With Microsoft partner ASI Solutions and our partner CHG-MERIDIAN our Device as a Service Solution means ordering is now streamlined through a single portal at scale for our schools through the implementation of Intune. The devices can now be shipped to our wholesaler who stages them and sends them directly to schools without us even touching them.”

As for the completion of the migration, there are four primary schools to go, with Mr Neville casually remarking: “We did another one yesterday.” It all has an aura of calm confidence that is arguably the goal of any ICT leader and team undertaking transformative strategy and execution.

Partnership at the heart of success

In spearheading this momentous effort, the ICT team has transformed the perception of IT from a commodity to a deeply valued partner.

Mr Neville is proud of his team’s dedication: “We wanted to position ourselves as unnoticed enablers of the company. This model helps us do that while moving things forward and adding value, at scale.” He also acknowledges the vital role that partners have played in the journey.

“We wouldn’t be here without our incredible team at Sandhurst and the partnership we have with Microsoft and Microsoft Partner ASI Solutions. Our ASI Solutions Account Manager was always ready to jump on a call to help us move forward rapidly. The Microsoft team has also supported us at every step. The way we’re all working together will take us forward with technology delivering excellent educational outcomes. It’s a testament to the calibre of people involved.”

Lowering the barriers to adoption

The consistent message from the CESL Executive team has been that this is a rare opportunity to change everything and get the system to where it needs to be.

Mr Neville acknowledges that fear drives people to resist change but when people get hands on with the change, it often becomes a very different proposition. This happened as head office, administration and teachers began to use their new Surface devices and Microsoft 365 solutions. People found they didn’t have to bring their old habits with them. “The speed of the rollout meant less time juggling two environments, which is better for everyone. The beauty of the Microsoft environment is that everyone adjusted to it quickly!”

The shift to Surface devices had similar notable headlines: “Our noise from device issues went from a lot to very few. We don’t see anywhere near the number of device issues we used to,” says Mr Neville. Crucially, each device is now secure. “In the past with everyone using their own device, we didn’t have control over security. Now we’re confident we’ve moved to best practice around sharing and security of data documentation and e-mail.”

The security enhancement of using Windows Hello with single sign-on facial identification created ease of access to email and apps. “Local device management used to be clunky with people having to log in to Microsoft 365 separately on their Mac device and use the apps in the browser instead of the desktop. Now it’s just up and running and away they go. It’s all very seamless and everything works natively. It’s really streamlining how people do things. We’re very excited by Surface and look forward to seeing an increase in productivity.”

Readiness is critical to ease of adoption and Microsoft delivered a bespoke starter guide for the new Surface Laptop 6 devices. Looking ahead, Microsoft partner ASI Solutions will be delivering onsite digital adoption training to enhance users’ new device experiences. There’s also more support to come on connecting Microsoft 365 and Surface device capabilities with the Magnify curriculum strategy to ensure it is enhancing this work.

Laying an innovation pipeline that feeds the best educational outcomes

The fast adoption of Microsoft 365 and Surface devices has paved the way for the next phase of the strategy, because this was never a case of what’s best for right now. Mr Neville sees this work as setting CESL up to take full advantage of Microsoft’s pipeline of innovation and matching it to the future of education.

“The work we’ve done with Microsoft 365 around identity management means we’re ready to plug straight into these new cloud-based systems,” says Mr Neville. This means taking advantage of what’s coming down the pipeline, like using Microsoft Teams for Education to enhance the Magnify curriculum, or using AI for lesson planning and matrices, Teams calls and Teams improvements. “It’s about being able to move fast when new things come along, and we’re excited to be in that position. Because we have the system in place, tools like Copilot become an enhancement of value versus a huge change.”

While it’s still early days, Mr Neville sees Microsoft 365 Copilot as being front and centre for CESL because of its focus on security and value: “Copilot is secure and that flows into our secure environment. Our CEO was an early adopter of M365 Copilot and anybody that has a license doesn’t want to give it back! I think the licence cost is consumed within at least a week.”

When there’s nothing holding you back

A commitment to take a leap forward is motivated by the focus, plan and teamwork to propel you quickly from A to B, with your eyes on C. Mr Neville sees the blue sky of CESL’s transformation clearly: “The systems are not holding us back. This has enhanced us. Our team hasn’t grown in size, but our capabilities have.”

That sounds like a pretty great place to be.

If you’re considering a significant shift in your technology strategy, solutions and devices, explore these tips from the CESL team and Microsoft resources:

• Act like an Enterprise. As with any business, your IT strategy and technology solutions need to deliver consolidation, efficiency, agility, teamwork and innovation.
• Create a mandate. Create a clear technology vision that aligns with your education strategy and outcomes, and secure unwavering executive sponsorship to rally the team behind a consistent goal and story for what you’re trying to achieve together.
• Assess new models. For CESL it was a full commitment to a cloud-only system and adoption of a modern DaaS model to take advantage of centralised management capability at scale, and to position the organisation for future innovation.
• Start small-scale. Like migrating the head office first. You can then collect learning and set the blueprint for the bulk of the remaining migration and rollout.
• Work faster than you think you can. An ambitious schedule is motivating for the team, and it also avoids working in two separate environments for a long period which minimises disruption to education delivery.
• Deliver training to support readiness. Take the time and work with partners to support your team and stakeholders through the change process. It will build momentum and boost useability and value.

Want to learn more?

Microsoft Surface for Education  
Microsoft 365 for Education