Welcome to the forefront of conversational AI as we explore the fascinating world of AI chatbots in our dedicated blog series. Discover the latest advancements, applications, and strategies that propel the evolution of chatbot technology. From enhancing customer interactions to streamlining business processes, these articles delve into the innovative ways artificial intelligence is shaping the landscape of automated conversational agents. Whether you’re a business owner, developer, or simply intrigued by the future of interactive technology, join us on this journey to unravel the transformative power and endless possibilities of AI chatbots.
St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls and Hale School had data scattered across systems and needed AI solutions that ensured privacy, scalability, and educational relevance for their staff and students.
Using Azure OpenAI and Power BI, St Hilda’s consolidated student data into instant AI summaries while Hale’s personalized student chatbot queries, freeing educators for deeper student relationships.
St Hilda's educators now access years of student data instantly in AI summaries. Hale students get personalized study support anytime, reducing repetitive queries and freeing educators for meaningful interactions.
In late 2023, something remarkable happened in the competitive landscape of Australian independent education. Doug Loader, Director of Information & Learning Technologies at St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls, and Rob Barugh, Director of Learning Technology at Hale School, began discussing something that would have seemed impossible just years before: What if, instead of developing AI tools in isolation, they worked together, shared their intellectual property, and co-developed a dynamic new solution to improve student learning for both institutions?
The two schools developed a legal Statement of Intent to safely share IP and co-develop AI tools, signed by both schools' principals, which established a framework for open collaboration.
“The reason we came to this understanding and put this legal document in place was so that we could have the freedom to explicitly share everything and it was all cards on the table,” says Nicole Adams, who spearheaded the project in her former role as Director of Teaching and Learning, now Director of Junior School at St Hilda's.
The partnership worked because the schools weren't direct competitors. Hale is a boys’ school serving 1,650 students from pre-primary through Year 12, while St Hilda's is a 130-year-old girls' school. This made sharing insights and fast-tracking the project mutually beneficial for both institutions.
Both schools shared technical insights through regular Microsoft Teams meetings to overcome challenges like secure data injection and prompt engineering. This dynamic feedback loop accelerated development while each school pursued distinct yet complementary implementations.
St Hilda's faced a very modern challenge: data fragmentation.
“We were drowning in data,” Adams reflects. “We had it in so many different pockets everywhere.”
The solution became Hilda360, a comprehensive dashboard that consolidates every data point about each student: from academic records and attendance to pastoral care notes spanning years.
The technical architecture integrates Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse, Power BI, and Azure OpenAI within their secure Microsoft tenant. Data flows nightly from on-premises systems through Microsoft On-premises Data Gateway into their cloud infrastructure, where it's transformed and analyzed.
But what makes Hilda360 stand out isn't just the technology, it's how it helps educators focus on personal growth, a priority at the school for years. Programs like the "Wandering Spirit" initiative for Year 9 students encourage resilience through experiential learning. Now educators can access AI-generated analysis that brings together pastoral notes, academic trends, and behavioural patterns. Each report is clearly labeled as AI-generated and includes reminders for educators to review and personalize, ensuring transparency and trust.
“We now have a dashboard that enables staff members to meet our students’ needs much more quickly and effectively,” says Cora Algie, Dean of Academics and Analytics.
While St Hilda's focused on empowering educators, Hale School took a different approach: creating a personalized AI assistant for students themselves. The team quickly realized their solution would be far more powerful if the AI chat had as complete knowledge of each student as possible. At the time, Barugh kept referring to this level of personalization as “The Holy Grail”: an AI that would know each student individually. Rather than accepting existing limitations, they started with this end goal and worked backward to achieve it.
Built on Azure OpenAI with the GPT-4o mini model, the Hale GPT authenticates students via Microsoft Entra ID and integrates personalized data—grades, enrollments, assessments, cohort averages, and upcoming deadlines—updated hourly. Students use it to create study schedules, generate practice tests, and even debug code for design technology projects.
Keeping students focused on learning rather than simply getting answers required careful guardrails. Barugh and Murray Webber, Hale's solution architect, used Power BI to monitor every conversation, tracking student queries and the AI's responses.
"We were super impressed with just the initial chatbot using even the GPT 3.5 model," Murray explains. "It appears to have been trained at the machine learning stage about the Australian curriculum." Each time they identified an off-track conversation in the Power BI logs, they could fine-tune the prompt to handle similar situations better in the future.
For Year 8 student Shlok Awasthi, the impact is practical and immediate. When facing tight deadlines, he uploaded a textbook PDF to the assistant, enabling faster homework completion without sacrificing understanding. "My diary used to be really messy," Shlok explains. "Now the GPT creates a study schedule and helps me keep track of everything." Before major assessments, Shlok asks for challenging practice questions tailored to his progress.
The impact of these parallel innovations extends beyond efficiency metrics. At St Hilda's, the dashboard has fundamentally changed how educators understand their students. Adams describes the transformation in parent-teacher conferences: “The parent finds comfort that I know their child and I'm on to what's happening because I've got all that information at my fingertips.”
The system has increased data literacy school-wide, with St Hilda's now recognized as a Microsoft Surface Lighthouse School for their innovative work. Educators who were initially cautious about AI have also become advocates.
“Many of us are now looking at what's been generated thinking ‘I couldn’t have done that any better,’” Algie says.
At Hale, Barugh observed a behavioral shift: students seeking less help from educators during lunchtimes for curriculum questions, getting answers themselves through the AI assistant. This hasn't replaced educator-student relationships; it's enhanced them by removing repetitive queries and enabling deeper interactions. Transitioning from GPT-3.5 to GPT-4 Omni Mini has also reduced token costs while improving performance, making school-wide deployment feasible.
Regular Teams meetings, together with collaborative sessions at the Hatchery AI in Education conference, created a dynamic feedback loop that fast-tracked the development of student-facing tools and sophisticated dashboards. Both schools are leading the way in responsible AI adoption. Loader calls their approach “an abundance of caution,” with careful prompt engineering designed to prevent inappropriate responses. At St Hilda’s, every AI-generated report is clearly labeled and accompanied by reminders, keeping students and staff aware of the AI’s role while fostering trust and understanding.
“The parent finds comfort that I know their child and I'm on to what's happening because I've got all that information at my fingertips.”
Nicole Adams, Director of Junior School, St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls
At the core of the approach is a belief that technology should empower—not constrain—every aspect of school life.
“IT and teaching and learning must walk hand in hand in everything that happens in the school,” Adams emphasizes. “IT absolutely in a number of schools is the roadblock. In our school, it's the absolute freedom.”
Loader, meanwhile, stresses a critical principle often overlooked in the rush to adopt new technologies. “A school has a responsibility to understand where they're putting [data] and how it can be accessed and to make sure it's not being owned and taken away by an external third party.” Both schools consciously built using standard Microsoft tools like Power BI, ensuring continuity even if key staff leave. “Another person could come in and they could pick up the Power BI project and they could still run with it,” he explains.
Viewing AI tools as executive assistants that deliver timely, relevant information, rather than as threats to traditional teaching, reframes AI as a practical support for educators rather than a disruption to pedagogy. "It can be thought of as an executive assistant who can provide key information within seconds," says Cora Algie. "This allows us to prioritize the time that we have to work directly with our students, because what we need to know is captured and ready to use."
At Hale, Barugh emphasizes the same principle: using AI strategically to "free up the teacher to spend more time on relational building and feedback loops and less time on the hardships of marking and lesson creation." The schools that thrive with AI will be those that treat it as an enabler, recognizing that offloading administrative burdens creates more space for meaningful human connection.
The schools’ technical journeys highlight the value of building on trusted, existing investments rather than chasing the newest technology. By extending their established Microsoft infrastructure with AI capabilities, both schools reduced risk while accelerating deployment.
Barugh and Loader have turned their partnership into a model for schools looking to innovate responsibly with AI. The collaboration has proved so successful that the principals of both schools recently renewed it for another year, with discussions now expanding into policy, governance, and shared risk management, ensuring the partnership continues to grow in both scope and impact.
“It can be thought of as an executive assistant who can provide key information within seconds. This allows us to prioritize the time that we have to work directly with our students.”
Cora Algie, Dean of Academics and Analytics, St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls
St Hilda's envisions extending Hilda360 to students and parents.
“We have a responsibility to prepare our students for what comes next,” says Algie. “Can they reflect on their progress? Can they set goals?” The ultimate goal is eliminating the semester report cycle entirely. “Why are we only getting this information twice a year?” Adams asks. “If we can get to the point in the next two years where we can actually say to the parents, press refresh every Tuesday and see how you're going.”
Hale is continuing to improve its student chatbot and exploring applications for staff and pastoral care. Barugh notes their solution may be one of the first in Australia to offer true personalization at the authentication stage, creating a strong foundation for future applications across the education sector.
The partnership itself has become a model for the sector. When showcased at the Australian Independent Schools of WA conference, it drew a packed audience eager to understand how two schools achieved what seemed impossible: true collaborative innovation in a competitive landscape. By choosing trust over secrecy, transparency over isolation, and mutual support over individual achievement, St Hilda’s and Hale have created something neither could have achieved alone.
“When we began developing a highly personalized student AI tutor, our focus was squarely on improving learning outcomes for our students,” Barugh reflects. “We didn’t set out to be first—we simply wanted to create the best possible educational experience. It was only later that we realized the work had taken us somewhere new."
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“When we began developing a highly personalized student AI tutor, our focus was squarely on improving learning outcomes for our students. We didn’t set out to be first—we simply wanted to create the best possible educational experience. It was only later that we realized the work had taken us somewhere new.”
Rob Barugh, Director of Learning Technology, Hale School
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