Issue 127 - Term 4 Week 6

Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams Class Teams are great ways for teachers to engage with their students online, using comments, classwork and assignments. However, many of these online learning spaces remain active after the school year concludes, meaning that they can often be left unsupervised or comments are unmoderated.

Later this year, ITD will be enabling auto-archiving of ALL Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams Class Teams. More information will be coming in the Week 9 edition of news.T4L, to help you understand how to keep your Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams Class Team active, should you need it for stage based classes, or any other unique environments you may have. 

EDUtech 2026 is coming to Sydney next year, and will be held at the International Convention Centre (ICC) in Darling Harbour, June 3-4. We are excited to showcase real school stories demonstrating how technology is utilised across our NSW public schools.

Are you considering attending the conference? If so, submit your expression of interest,  and as we confirm our availability, we will likely be able to provide a complimentary ticket. A maximum of two tickets will be available per school.

If you are based outside of Sydney, we plan on having a full wrap up resource to support you in your professional learning.
 

The 2026 NAPLAN Locked Down Browsers (LDB) will be released in early January 2026, and centrally deployed during the final week of the summer holidays, to ensure all school devices are ready for testing. 

To support a smooth transition, the 2025 NAPLAN LDB will be uninstalled from managed devices during November 2025 to minimise confusion.

Schools wishing to complete NAPLAN training or practice activities in Term 4, can request access to the pilot 2026 LDB by emailing naplan@det.nsw.edu.au. Please contact NESA directly for login credentials to the Training and Practice environment. 

Schools are strongly encouraged to power on all devices daily during Term 1 staff development days. This will allow Windows updates and patches to install, and enable automatic deployment of the 2026 LDB. Completing updates early will help ensure all devices are compliant and ready for NAPLAN device checks. 

As the year draws to a close, inspire your students to celebrate their achievements with a dynamic twist!

Discover the Adobe Express Guided Activity: "Record a Video Reflection" - a fantastic resource for student self-reflection. This activity empowers students to creatively reflect on their learning journey, helping them build confidence and communication skills, as they share what they have accomplished. 

Did you know? Every NSW DoE school enjoys free access to the full Premium version of Adobe Express for Education! Students simply sign in using their @education.nsw.gov.au accounts, while teachers use @det.nsw.edu.au or just access through the Student or Staff portal. 

Stay inspired and make the most of your Adobe tools - look out for fresh ideas, tips, and success stories in this monthly newsletter. Let’s finish the year on a creative high! 

In response to valuable feedback from school staff, the Transition to High School report has been updated to better support schools in preparing students for a successful start to High School.

Key enhancements include: 

• A new Primary School view, allowing Primary School Principals and Executive staff to see the data shared with High Schools 
• A Year 6 Integration Funding Support flag
• Partial attendance data 

The updated report is now available via the Student Administration app in Scout.

Bookings are open for Semester 1, 2026 stem.T4L kits, giving schools the chance to access exciting technologies in robotics, podcasting, 3D printing and more. These kits are a great way to bring hands-on, creative STEM learning into classrooms across NSW. 

Over 60% of kits have been booked already, with the 3D Printing and Podcasting kits being incredibly popular. Explore the full range of kits through the stem.T4L Learning Library, where you can also find full details about the booking process.

Semester 2, 2026 bookings will open early next year. Secure your Semester 1 kits now!
 

Every staff member at the NSW Department of Education is allocated a user account upon employment.

When this ceases, access to their staff user account is revoked automatically.

Once accounts expire, the full Staff Portal, corporate applications, department email, Microsoft 365 services, Google services and shared drives will all be inaccessible.

For further advice, explore the Leaving the department web page.

There are different terms of access for different types of employment. 

Read the quick reference guide for Moving on from the DoE

When a school marks a student as a ‘Leaver’ in ERN, students currently have 180 days before they lose access to their:

• school email account (Gmail)
• Google Drive contents and any Google Classrooms they belonged to
• Microsoft OneDrive contents
• Microsoft Teams they belonged to
• Adobe Creative Cloud apps.

If your students have finished Year 12, or will no longer be attending a public school, they can use their DoE account for a limited time. Anything left in their cloud storage after the 180 days will be removed. 

Read this handy guide for Year 12 students!

Information Technology Directorate publishes three issues of news.T4L each term. Remember - share each issue with your staff! And if you aren't receiving an email notification as soon as a new issue of news.T4L drops, then you're missing out! So why not subscribe?