How Beaconhills College built the foundations for whole-school AI adoption

Overview

Beaconhills College is an independent, co-educational school in south-east Victoria, supporting around 3,000 students across its Berwick and Pakenham campuses and employing approximately 500 staff.

The College began exploring generative AI early, developing staff and student guidelines, adapting an AI assessment scale for its own context and building an AI strategy. Its approach was deliberately considered, balancing the opportunities presented by AI with questions around ethics, academic integrity, privacy and its impact on teaching and learning.

As AI became part of everyday life for staff and students, Beaconhills recognised that its next step needed to go beyond policies and classroom use. AI adoption needed to consider how the entire College operates, including teaching and learning, business units and digital services.

Challenge

Beaconhills’ initial AI work had largely been shaped by people with teaching and learning backgrounds. This made sense given the College’s core purpose, but it also meant the operational side of the organisation had not been as closely involved in shaping its AI direction.

At the same time, attitudes towards AI varied across the College. Some staff were enthusiastic and already experimenting with it, while others had genuine questions and concerns about trust, ethics and the impact of AI on education.

Rather than seeing different viewpoints as a barrier, Beaconhills recognised that they could strengthen the way AI was introduced.

“There definitely is resistance, but I don’t actually think resistance is a bad thing. I think if we don’t have resistance, our ideas aren’t challenged.”

Victoria Spicer-Stuart, Head of Teaching and Learning, Digital Practice, Beaconhills College

Listening to different perspectives became an important part of the College’s approach. Instead of treating AI adoption as simply a technology project, Beaconhills wanted to understand what staff needed, where concerns existed and how AI could be introduced in a way that supported the College’s wider goals.

This reflects a broader challenge across education. AI is already becoming part of how people work and learn, while organisational readiness, governance and guidance are still evolving. Generative AI also reaches across areas such as teaching quality, privacy, copyright, academic integrity and operational processes, making a coordinated approach increasingly important.

For Beaconhills, the challenge was not simply deciding which AI tools to use. It was creating a clear and intentional approach to adoption that could bring different parts of the College together.

Solution

As an existing ASI Solutions customer, Beaconhills completed the AI Adoption Essentials for Education workshop, part of ASI’s AI Accelerator program, to build on its existing AI strategy and support a more coordinated approach to adoption across the College.

Practical use cases were explored across both teaching and operational functions, helping the College connect AI opportunities with real organisational needs and consider where measurable value could be created.

This broader perspective was particularly important for Beaconhills. In the webinar, Victoria reflected on how the College’s earlier AI strategy had naturally been shaped by its teaching background.

“When we wrote the AI strategy, that was very much written by teachers with a teaching and learning lens. And so this was the first time we really were having those broader discussions with people who allow the school to function and run.”

Victoria Spicer-Stuart, Head of Teaching and Learning, Digital Practice, Beaconhills College

Results

Beaconhills emerged with a clearer and more inclusive framework for AI adoption, supported by a shared vision, agreed priorities and a stronger understanding of what successful adoption could look like across the College.

The process gave Beaconhills greater clarity around the people needed to support adoption and how different groups across the organisation may experience change. This created a stronger foundation for ongoing communication, engagement and capability building.

Importantly, the AI conversation broadened beyond teaching and learning, bringing operations, HR, compliance and digital services into the planning. This gave Beaconhills a more complete view of how AI could support both educational and operational outcomes.

The College also considered how meaningful adoption could be measured over time, helping shift the focus from simply making AI available to understanding whether it is delivering value for staff and the wider College community.

“What has really resonated with our staff is that we’re solving real business problems quickly. People come to us with an idea, and within a week or two they’re seeing a solution that helps them work more efficiently.”

Victoria Spicer-Stuart, Head of Teaching and Learning, Digital Practice, Beaconhills College

For Victoria, the broader lesson from Beaconhills’ journey is the importance of involving people from across the organisation and keeping the focus on practical outcomes. By building on its existing AI strategy and widening participation in the conversation, Beaconhills has established stronger foundations for the next stage of its AI journey, with people, governance and organisational needs considered alongside the technology.

Some of the key outcomes include: