Penrhos College

The College’s implementation of CompliSpace Education has vastly improved policy and incident management and this has become a catalyst for cultural change. Policy and practice are now closely aligned – thereby reducing many risks.

Challenge 

Penrhos College is a single sex non-government, Uniting Church school in Como WA, which currently enrols 1100 girls and 300 staff. The College commenced operation in 1952 with 140 students and 11 staff. Penrhos College, along with four other Western Australian Schools, was one of the first schools to work with CompliSpace. The College is a faith community in the Uniting Church tradition and their educational philosophy extends beyond academic achievement to span the ‘Whole Person Paradigm’ of mind, heart, body and spirit.

As a school of the Uniting Church, inspired by the motto “Strive for the Highest”, Penrhos College provides a learning and working environment that is conducive to the nurturing of Christian faith and the adoption of sound moral and ethical values.

Penrhos engaged CompliSpace, to help bring consistency and transparency to the way it managed its policies, risk and compliance. They were looking for a single source of truth to ensure that all staff knew where their policies could be found and that the policies were regularly updated, ensuring ongoing compliance.

Solution

CompliSpace worked with Penrhos College to implement CompliSpace Education, which included:

Policy Management System

For policy content and management.

Learning Management System

To manage and track compliance training, staff induction and professional development.

Assurance

For hazard and risk management, task management, reporting and more.

The College’s investment in the CompliSpace platforms resulted in consistency and transparency in the way they managed their policies and procedures.

Staff know all policies and procedures can be accessed from the CompliSpace platform and that policies and procedures are regularly updated for ongoing compliance.

The system has enabled the effective management of risks, online reporting of incidents and complaints and provides staff access to school approved forms and templates. CompliSpace assisted the Board in their governance responsibilities with the implementation of the Board Portal through Boardroom Online.

The College has easy access to risk and compliance related content covering:

• Boarding
• Boardroom Online
• Business Continuity
• Child Protection
• Complaints Handling
• Compliance
• Human Resources
• Privacy
• Risk Management
• Student Duty of Care
• Workplace Health & Safety

Results

Policy Management

Before implementing Policy Management System, the Principal, Meg Melville explained that policies were stored in numerous places at the school – from the website, to the hard copy handbook, to paper copies in files in the staff rooms or to staffs’ own hard drives. This created confusion among staff about where to find policies and uncertainty about which policies were the most updated versions. Penrhos College now has a designated policy portal which can be accessed by all staff and College Council members on and off campus.

Assurance

Prior to the Assurance implementation the College relied on paper-based forms and the process was cumbersome with limited reporting and analysis capabilities. Penrhos College have commenced using their Assurance system to move a number of these paper-based forms to online forms. Additionally, the system has allowed the College to capture complaints internally and externally as well as setting up policy review tasks across our College Leadership Team.

Learning Management System

The Penrhos College staff are using the Learning Management System for staff inductions and on-going compliance training. Staff undertake numerous online training sessions regarding compliance with a particular focus on Child Protection, Student Duty of Care, Boarding and WHS. Training has also been provided to relief staff, direct contractors (Café Staff) and direct contact volunteers (Parent Helpers). While staff have also been supported with individual professional learning offsite, the ability to roll out staff wide training allows for continuous improvement.

Reporting

Fleur has found the reporting function of the CompliSpace Education platform to be very helpful. She is able to provide her Principal, Meg Melville, with the risk information that she requires for Board reports, the school Leadership Team and for general staff.

Testimonials

"To be able to rely on experts in the field of education, law & governance and risk & compliance, ensuring College policies are not only compliant with School Registration Standards but also best practice, is invaluable. It allows our College Leadership Team to focus on teaching students in a safe environment rather than writing policy content. The CompliSpace team have been wonderful to work alongside in ensuring we have a one-stop-shop for College policies, procedures and forms."

Meg Melville,

Principal, Penrhos College.

"Meg Melville, Julie Shaw and Fleur Noble have been exceptional to work with throughout the project, it has been a genuine pleasure to journey with them, answer their queries and progress the use of the CompliSpace services within the College. Our team have loved to see their hard work being both appreciated and well utilised in their College community. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Penrhos and their commitment to the highest of standards in the future."

Joylene Leaney,

Regional Manager, Complispace

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