Independent Schools
For multidisciplinary teams bringing wellbeing, inclusion and allied-health contributions into one school-governed record.
- Typical starting point
- Wellbeing and learning support
- What stays clear
- School-defined roles and access
For Australian K–12 support teams
Descant
Student support and school wellbeing
Every professional who supports a student can record what they did, in their own words, in the moment. One student record, role-scoped visibility, and evidence that grows from ordinary work.
See school pricingReview school safeguardsOur school platform now lives at Descant (descant.com.au) →Illustrative record and workflow; no student information is shown.
One student record · role-scopedClassroom, learning-support, counselling and pathways work stays connected while each role sees only what it is authorised to see.
WorkSupport happensReviewA professional checks itRecordEvidence stays in place
Who it’s for
Fitted to the way your school works.
Start with the school’s governance context, then configure access around the staff and approved external practitioners doing the work.
Catholic & Faith-Based Schools
For pastoral care, counselling and inclusion teams that need reliable hand-offs across their existing support structure.
- Typical starting point
- Pastoral care and counselling
- What stays clear
- Each domain’s language and boundaries
Government Schools
For state-school teams assessing privacy, procurement and reporting fit before a staged student-support rollout.
- Typical starting point
- Referrals and triage
- What stays clear
- State context and school-owned review
Allied Health in Schools
For visiting psychologists, counsellors, speech pathologists and OTs working alongside the school’s internal team.
- Typical starting point
- Allocated-student documentation
- What stays clear
- Clinical content and coordination visibility
The problem, in published numbers
The documentation is the workload.
Australian teachers and support staff describe the same pattern: more student need, no more time, and the same information recorded more than once. Every figure below is quoted from a named, published Australian source.
Documentation is eating the hours
Australian teachers work 49.3 hours a week on average and receive 3.6 hours of non-contact time. Seventy per cent report that release time goes to administrative tasks.
Student need is getting more complex
Ninety-five per cent of respondents say the diversity and complexity of student needs in their classroom has increased over three years, and 73% say it has increased significantly.
Evidence work lands outside the school day
In a Queensland survey, 85% said NCCD workload and complexity were increasing, and fewer than 5% were allocated any time during the school day for it. Teachers estimated 22–34 hours a term; coordinators frequently exceeded 40–60.
Queensland Teachers’ Journal, 6 November 2025 — 440+ members
The same information, entered twice
More than 90% of those respondents were required to upload evidence to a central system, “often duplicating the same information across multiple systems”. Referrals still arrive on paper slips, in email and in corridor conversations.
Support teams work in silos
Counsellors, learning support, careers and attendance staff each hold part of the picture. Cross-domain referrals get lost, and no one sees the whole student.
Figures are quoted from the published sources named above. Neither the Australian Education Union nor the Queensland Teachers' Union is affiliated with, or endorses, Grounded Scribe.
Every support domain, one platform
Six teams. One student record.
Wellbeing is one part of student support — not all of it. Each domain captures in its own language and gets the workflows it needs. The record underneath is shared, and role-based access decides what each team can read back.
Wellbeing & Counselling
- Counselling case notes and session documentation
- Student check-ins and wants-to-talk routing
- Mandatory reporting workflow mapped to your state
Inclusion & Learning Support
- Reviewed work that can be linked to an NCCD evidence manifest
- Adjustment documentation and IEP reviews
- SST meeting coordination with linked decisions
Careers & Pathways
- Career interview and pathways meeting notes
- Support plans and goals on the student record
- Record of involvement visible to authorised staff
Attendance & Engagement
- Follow-up notes and improvement plans
- Referral triage when attendance flags deeper needs
- Family contact history in one timeline
Behaviour Support
- FBAs, BSP reviews, and restorative conference notes
- Behaviour documentation with full student history
- Care-team visibility without leaking clinical notes
School Health
- Health assessments, first aid, and care plans
- Parent consent managed digitally with audit trail
- Role-based access keeps health records scoped
What the platform does
Everything your support team needs.
From referral to report — support students, meet statutory obligations, and document confidently in one platform the school owns and controls.
Student Support Workspace
One case file per student. History, notes, assessments, and outcomes visible to the staff who need them — and only those staff.
Digital Referrals & Triage
Teachers, parents, and students submit referrals through a secure portal. Priority flagging and triage workflows replace paper forms.
Check-ins & Wants-to-Talk
Students self-refer with a quick tap. Requests route to the right support staff member, not a teacher's inbox.
Mandatory Reporting Workflow
Guided reporting flow mapped to your state's obligations. Each step prompts what's required and audit-logs the action.
NCCD Reporting
Index eligible, reviewed sources into a dated evidence manifest while the school retains every category, adjustment-level, inclusion, and census decision.
Automated Parent Consent
Send consent requests via email with a secure link. Parents grant or decline online. Token-based, time-limited, with full audit trail.
SST Meeting Coordination
Schedule Student Support Team meetings, link them to referrals, record discussion notes and decisions in one place.
Validated Assessments
Administer assessments like DASS-Y, RCADS, and CES-DC directly in the platform. Auto-scored with trend tracking across administrations.
Record of Involvement
Org-wide, metadata-only timeline of who's working with which student — coordination without exposing clinical content.
Supervision Toolkit
The same supervision toolkit used by clinical practices — hours, competencies, session notes, exportable reports.
Privacy-Act-Aligned Audit
Every access to a student record is logged with timestamp, user, and action. Built around the Australian Privacy Principles for K-12.
Team Chat for Support Staff
Private staff-team channels with role-based access. Coordinate handovers and case discussions — never in personal DMs.
Not just for counsellors
Every role that supports a student.
Referrals can move across domains while each professional keeps the language, templates and access boundaries their work requires.
Student Support LeadersTriage, allocation, governance
School CounsellorsCounselling sessions, group programs
School PsychologistsAssessments, observations, reports
Learning SupportIntervention sessions, reading programs
Behaviour SpecialistsFBAs, BSP reviews, restorative conferences
Speech PathologistsLanguage assessments, therapy notes
Inclusion CoordinatorsNCCD evidence, IEP reviews, SSG minutes
Careers CounsellorsCareer sessions, pathways meetings
Attendance OfficersFollow-ups, improvement plans
School NursesHealth assessments, first aid, care plans
Year Level CoordinatorsWelfare reviews, check-ins, transitions
ESL/EAL TeachersLanguage assessments, progress records
Plus visiting practitioners, occupational therapists, youth workers and chaplains — with 30+ education-specific note templates for Australian schools.
How work moves
From referral to a reviewed record.
One connected workflow replaces the hand-offs between paper forms, inboxes and spreadsheets. AI may help draft a note; a professional remains the checkpoint before it becomes part of the record.
Step 01Referral comes in
Teacher submits online, parent uses the portal, or student self-refers. The referral lands in the triage queue with priority flagging.
Step 02Triage & allocate
The support coordinator assigns the right team member based on domain, year level, and caseload. State-specific reporting paths are configured during setup.
Step 03Support, draft & review
Staff provide support. AI Scribe prepares a structured draft, but it stays private until the professional edits, approves and files it.
Step 04Report & comply
Retrieve reviewed evidence, prepare school-owned summaries, and export the record for the school’s own reporting and review.
Any AI-generated note stays a private draft until the professional edits, approves and files it.
Audio is deleted immediately once it's processed successfully. If a recording can't upload, it stays on your own device so you can retry. If it uploads but can't be processed, it's held securely in Australia for up to 48 hours so you can retry, then deleted.
Disability category, adjustment level, eligibility and reporting decisions remain with the authorised school team.
See it working before you price it.
Bring your wellbeing leader, inclusion coordinator or principal — we will walk the referral-to-record journey with your school's roles and questions, in 30 minutes.
Procurement-ready
Built for the school’s own review.
Designed to support school-led privacy, security and procurement reviews, with controls built around the Australian Privacy Principles and the practical realities of running a student support team. Supporting evidence is available on request.
School Risk Review Support
Stored in Australia
Encrypted in Transit & at Rest
Auto Audio Cleanup
Privacy by Design
Role-Based Access
Further reading
Useful guides for school teams
A curated selection from the Grounded Scribe library for implementation, inclusion, wellbeing and safeguarding work.
Student support operations
Practical workflows for bringing multidisciplinary support work together.
NCCD and inclusion
Build defensible evidence from the records a school already keeps.
Wellbeing and safeguarding
Documentation guidance for sensitive student-support work.
School pricing is on Descant.
Descant has its own pricing for schools, with a quote calculator. You can also start a 14-day demo there with a made-up school, so no real student information is needed.
Questions schools ask
Frequently asked questions.
How school support teams use Grounded Scribe day to day — mandatory reporting, NCCD, SIS sync, pricing, role-based access, privacy and school-led risk review.
Is this only for wellbeing teams?
No. Grounded Scribe is built for every staff member who supports students — wellbeing and counselling, inclusion and learning support, careers and pathways, attendance and engagement, behaviour support, school health, and EAL. Each role gets tailored note templates, and referrals flow across domains so nothing gets lost between teams.
Which Australian states is mandatory reporting aligned with?
NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, SA, TAS, ACT, and NT. Each state has its own reporter types, thresholds, and report destinations — our workflow prompts the right questions and routes to the right authority for your jurisdiction. We update the workflow when regulations change.
How does Grounded Scribe align with ST4S?
ST4S does not currently assess AI services that process health and wellbeing data. This is a category-level scope decision, not an assessment outcome for Grounded Scribe. Schools should complete their own internal risk assessment to determine appropriate and safe use. We provide privacy, security, and data-handling evidence to support that review.
How does NCCD tracking work?
Ordinary support records remain in their professional home. Where a reviewed source is eligible, authorised staff can link it into a dated NCCD evidence manifest that resolves back to the original record. Grounded Scribe helps retrieve and organise evidence; the school retains judgement over disability category, adjustment level, inclusion and census reporting.
Can we sync with our SIS (Sentral, Compass, XUNO)?
Yes — student rosters sync from Sentral, Compass, XUNO, and other Australian school information systems via our Wonde integration. Schools not yet on a supported SIS can import students via CSV during onboarding. The platform complements your SIS — it does not replace it.
How does pricing work for a school?
Descant has its own pricing for schools, with a quote calculator, at descant.com.au/pricing.
Can we start without signing a contract?
Yes. You can start a 14-day demo at descant.com.au/pricing with a made-up school, so no real student information is needed.
Who in the school gets access to which student records?
Access maps to defined roles that you assign to each staff member. Line managers (head of wellbeing, deputy head) get full visibility across the team's caseloads. Practitioners (counsellor, psychologist, social worker) see students they're allocated to, plus shared care-team cases. Supervisors see notes from supervisees they oversee. IT staff get system administration only — no access to clinical records or note content. Reception roles see scheduling and contact metadata, no clinical content. Every access is timestamped and logged.
How does student and family privacy work?
Student records are stored in Australia, encrypted at rest and in transit. Family contact details are stored separately from clinical notes. Audio recordings auto-delete after transcription. Disclosures to third parties (e.g. mandatory reports) are tracked separately and require explicit action. Your school's data is never used for AI training.
Is student data stored in Australia?
Yes. All student records, case notes, and reports are stored in Sydney, Australia, and AI note generation runs in Australia. We comply with the Australian Privacy Principles. When AI Scribe records a session, the audio is transcribed in Australia and then deleted. Only the resulting text is kept, stored securely in Sydney, and the note itself is drafted in Australia.
Does any student data leave Australia?
Your records, case notes, reports, and the entire student support system are stored and processed in Australia (Sydney). AI Scribe recordings are transcribed in Australia, the audio is then deleted, and the note is drafted in Australia. A few supporting services, such as email and text-message delivery, run overseas. We never use your data to train AI. See our Privacy Policy for full information about data handling and overseas disclosures.
Can different staff have different AI Scribe plans?
Yes. Each staff member can be assigned a different tier based on their needs. A full-time school counsellor running 4-5 sessions daily might need Core (60 sessions/month), while a part-time visiting OT might only need Plus (30 sessions/month). Volume discounts apply across all seats regardless of tier mix.
How does onboarding work?
We handle the setup for you. After an initial consultation, we configure your school organisation, set up support teams by domain, configure your referral form and state-specific reporting paths, import year levels and term dates, and provide training for your staff. Most schools are up and running within a week.
How do you handle upcoming privacy regulation changes?
We track Australian privacy regulation closely. Independent and Catholic schools nationwide operate under the Australian Privacy Principles, which Grounded Scribe already aligns with. The WA Privacy and Responsible Information Sharing (PRIS) Act takes effect for WA government agencies — including state schools — on 1 July 2026; our data-handling, audit logging, and breach-notification posture is being aligned to meet those obligations ahead of that date.
Join the founding cohort.
Descant is onboarding its first intake of schools. Founding schools work directly with the founder: your team's workflows shape the roadmap and onboarding is hands-on. Intake is deliberately small — each founding school gets set up properly, not queued.
Pricing and the 14-day demo are at descant.com.au/pricing.
Talk to the founderSee school pricingTell us when you're free — we call when you can actually pick up.
School walkthrough
Plan the school’s review.
Bring your decision-makers. We will walk through roles, privacy boundaries, implementation and pricing, then answer the questions that matter to your school.
A walkthrough shaped around your support team
Clear privacy and implementation boundaries
Founding-cohort schools work directly with the founder
No obligation — just a useful review conversation
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