Located on Queensland’s Gold Coast, Coomera Anglican College is home to over 1,600 students from early learning through to Year 12. The school’s teaching and learning framework is centered on nurturing students and supporting their holistic development.
Throughout its 27-year journey, the school has wrestled with a maze of disconnected tech platforms across different aspects of teaching and learning. The sheer number of tools had begun to wear on the staff.
Jo Muirhead, eLearning and Innovation Coordinator, explains, “We were using 5 disconnected platforms at a time, and it was exhausting trying to keep up with all the systems. Atlas and OneNote for planning, Moodle for organising resources, paper portfolios for student work, Schoolbox for parent emails, TrackOne for record keeping, Microsoft Teams for student accommodation record keeping, and a shared drive for saving files. It was absolute mayhem and even people who’d been here forever didn’t know where all the resources were stored.”
“That’s what drew us to Toddle”, adds Lisa Glass, their Head of Teaching and Learning, “The first thing that struck me was how beautifully it integrated everything. Our planning, portfolios, and progress reports — all happened on one unified platform. We’ve streamlined our processes, and replaced eight of our systems with Toddle, and there’s room to simplify further.”
“We were able to bring our planning together in one place, connecting big-picture curriculum goals with daily lessons”
Before switching to Toddle, the staff at Coomera were using two different platforms just for planning, creating a fragmented workflow.
“We were using Atlas for big picture planning and OneNote for learning experiences. It was very messy. If someone forgot to link something from OneNote into Atlas, we’d run into problems, and if someone forgot to update a link, it left gaps in the information. Syncing issues with OneNote also made collaboration frustrating, especially when teachers had to wait for updates to show. In all the back and forth between these two platforms, we were tending to miss the connections between our big picture planning and daily lessons,” shares Ms Muirhead.
With Toddle, curriculum planning became more effective for the teachers at Coomera. They could plan units, break them down into learning activities, and share them with students — all from one place.
Mrs Glass explains, “With Toddle, everything — from curriculum planning to learning experiences — is in one place, easily accessible and visible to everyone on the team. Teachers can now tag specific learning objectives for each engagement, making the connection between daily learning and the curriculum clear to all of us.”
“We went from managing assessments on 4 different platforms to doing it all within Toddle”
Coomera had an inefficient, multi-step process for assessment and reporting. Teachers had to manage paper-based tests, rubrics, and multiple systems for tracking and reporting.
“We’d print out heaps of paper, run the tests, and then mark them by hand. After that, we’d fill out rubrics on paper, but the kids didn’t even get to see them. Then came the real challenge: transferring all the results into TrackOne for academic data and WebBook for reporting. It was constant back and forth, and everyone was double or even triple-handling the same information. It took hours and left so much room for human error,” reports Ms Muirhead.
Now, with Toddle, the teachers at Coomera can assess, track, and report student progress all in one place without all the extra steps.
“Teachers could build assessments and rubrics, share them, have students submit their work, conduct the assessments, and then send the grades back—all seamlessly within Toddle.
Assessment and student feedback was just as smooth. Our teachers had to simply verify and approve them. Plus, we could attach photos and videos of students’ work to substantiate those grades, making the reports even more engaging and informative for families.”
“What once took hours now happens instantly with Toddle’s streamlined, digital portfolios”
Coomera’s portfolios were paper-based, making them difficult to manage, share, and update. Teachers spent significant time organizing physical documents, and parents lacked timely access to their child’s work.
“Managing portfolios used to be a nightmare. For every student, we had to gather work samples from every subject — math, English, art, PE, you name it. On top of that, we’d spend hours sorting and filing everything into folders. The younger kids couldn’t do it themselves, so teachers had to step in. By the time we sent folders home at the end of term, parents had no idea what their kids were doing until months later,” explains Ms Muirhead.
Ms Muirhead continues, “Toddle has really changed how we approach continuous reporting. Teachers would capture live learning moments during class — snapping photos of group activities or recording videos of debates — and upload them to the portfolios. And the parents would get notified instantly. It was that simple. There was no more chasing behind and updating folders, plus, parents felt a lot more connected to the classroom as opposed to before when they were waiting 6 months to see their child’s progress.”
Another important shift was how multimodal portfolios enabled students to take ownership of their learning. By allowing students to document their progress through photos, videos, or voice recordings, students became more active participants in curating their achievements.
“We love how Toddle empowers students to showcase their learning in ways that feel true to them,” adds Carolyn Thistlethwaite, Head of Primary. “It’s designed to be user-friendly for everyone, from our youngest learners to high school students, making it easy for them to share their work with teachers and families.”
“We’ve seen a big shift in how we work,” concludes Ms Muirhead, “Whether it’s planning lessons, tracking student progress in portfolios, or handling assessments, Toddle has transformed almost every aspect of our work, and it all happens so seamlessly now.”
