Queensland Corella AI now runs across every state school

Two state rollouts, two federal clocks, one Sunday brief

The first Sunday of August is a quiet news day, which makes it a good day to look at four things that have already moved and now sit inside the Term 3 planning window.

Queensland's Corella now runs across every state school, and it is a government owned AI

The Queensland Department of Education's Corella platform, a government owned generative AI tool built for Queensland teachers and students, is now available across every state school by the end of Term 2 2026, following a pilot from 2024. Teachers, teacher aides and school leaders have full access; Years 7 to 10 students can be given access at the principal's discretion once parental or carer consent is on file. The rollout is one of 37 actions the Crisafulli Government has committed to for a 25 per cent teacher red tape reduction over four years (Queensland Government on the Corella expansion, Queensland Department of Education on generative AI in schools).

Why this matters: For principals in other jurisdictions who have been told to pick between MagicSchool, Eduaide, Khanmigo or a Copilot licence, Queensland has done the thing nobody else has committed to at state scale, which is build the AI tool inside the department, so the data, the prompts and the safety controls all sit in the department's own environment rather than in a US vendor's tenancy. The concrete Term 3 action for an independent school head or a Catholic diocese IT lead is to compare their current AI vendor's Australian data residency clause against what a state department is willing to publish, and to ask whether the school's own AI vendor cost per student clears the bar of "cheaper than the state building it in house". For a NSW or Victorian public school lead, the read is that a sister department has moved from pilot to universal access inside 18 months, which shortens the "we are still evaluating" window your department can defend.

The ACT ships 8,500 ASUS Chromebooks through 2026, and it is what the state auditor will benchmark against

The ACT Education Directorate's 2026 device tender awarded ASUS and ASI Solutions the contract to ship more than 8,500 fully configured ASUS 12.2 inch Flip/Touch Chromebooks to ACT public schools, with bulk deliveries scheduled throughout 2026 (Appliance Retailer on the ASUS and ASI Solutions ACT deal, ITBrief on the 8,500 device order). Every device ships configured, staged and imaged by ASI Solutions, with a three year next business day on site service warranty, ASUS repair coverage and battery support inside the tender price. Education Matters Magazine positions the tender as the next step in the Territory's centrally managed device fleet (Education Matters Magazine on the 2026 ACT classroom technology boost).

Why this matters: For a school IT lead in any jurisdiction, the ACT deal (single tender, single hardware SKU, single deployment partner, three year warranty inside the price) is what the "buy Chromebooks as we need them" model quietly gets measured against by the state or diocesan auditor next year. The concrete Term 3 action is to price out what the school pays per student for the device plus the deployment plus the three year warranty, and compare it against what a state department gets under a bulk tender, because the gap is often 30 to 40 per cent and school councils are starting to ask. For NSW public schools where the End User Device Refresh Phase 2 rollout to students opened at the start of Term 3 (yesterday's brief), the ACT deal is the reference point the department will point to when the "why can't we just keep our own devices" argument comes up at the P and C.

The Children's Online Privacy Code deadline is 130 days away, and it names EdTech, not just social media

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner's Children's Online Privacy Code, mandated by the Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024, has to be registered by 10 December 2026, which puts it 130 days away as of today (OAIC on the Children's Online Privacy Code). The OAIC exposure draft was released on 31 March 2026 and the industry consultation closed on 5 June 2026; the Code explicitly covers EdTech services used in and out of schools, not just social media (Moores on schools consequences and liability under the Code, Baker McKenzie on the exposure draft). Independent research on nearly 200 school approved Australian apps has already found many share children's personal information with third parties from the moment the app opens.

Why this matters: For every school business manager and every director of ICT, the December deadline is the one that turns the school's app inventory from an internal wish list into an APP entity liability exposure, because the Code targets services likely to be accessed by children and used by schools, not just consumer social media. The concrete Term 3 action is a one page audit of the top 20 apps the school has procured or endorsed for classroom use (LMS plug ins, formative assessment tools, wellbeing check ins, revision apps, camera and video apps) and a note against each on whether the vendor's Australian privacy policy names APP 8 cross border disclosure, because the ones that do not are the ones that will trigger a Term 4 procurement review. For an independent school head, the December deadline is the one that lets you put "we tightened our student data posture ahead of the Code" in the November board pack rather than the March one.

TEQSA's 24 June resource names four capabilities as the assurance backstop for a gen AI curriculum

TEQSA released "Assuring quality learning in a gen AI integrated future: The role of adaptive capabilities" on 24 June 2026, the third resource in its assessment reform series after "Assessment reform for the age of artificial intelligence" (2023) and "Enacting assessment reform in a time of artificial intelligence" (2025) (AcademicJobs on the new TEQSA resource on assurances of learning, Ruth Bridgstock's read of the TEQSA adaptive capabilities publication). A panel of authors led by Professor Jason Lodge of the University of Queensland (the same Professor Lodge on the Castlereagh Statement panel covered in yesterday's brief) names four capabilities the resource treats as the assurance backstop for a gen AI integrated curriculum: evaluative judgement, critical thinking, ethical reasoning and metacognitive regulation.

Why this matters: For a DVC (Academic), a director of teaching and learning or a head of assessment, the TEQSA resource is the compliance frame the regulator will read the Higher Education Standards Framework against for the next cycle of accreditation and re registration, and the four named capabilities are the language TEQSA now expects a course level assessment map to speak. The concrete Semester 2 action is to map at least one assessment task in every core unit against one of the four named capabilities, so that when a compliance risk review comes, the answer is a course level table not a slide deck. For a smaller provider, this is a heads up that the burden of proof is moving from "we have an AI policy" to "our assessment structure builds these four capabilities", which is a much larger lift and worth starting on before the November curriculum committee.

The Term 3 planning window is still open, and the school or faculty that puts one week against the Children's Online Privacy Code audit and one meeting against the TEQSA capability map will move into Term 4 without a compliance backlog. More at digitalattitudes.com.au.