Outcome: equity and inclusion
Needs-based funding puts new attention on low-SES, First Nations and regional students. First Six helps you aim support at the groups you already know about, and read how some of them are travelling in the first weeks, with any group under five hidden.
The challenge
From 1 January 2026, needs-based funding replaced HEPPP, paying universities for each low-SES, First Nations and regional-campus student they enrol. The Universities Accord expects much of the growth in enrolments to come from equity groups, and mission-based compacts with the Australian Tertiary Education Commission take a new approach from 2027.
The hard part is seeing, early, whether support is reaching the students it is for, without building a list of students labelled by disadvantage. Equity data is sensitive, small groups are easy to re-identify, and outcome data arrives years later.
What First Six does, and what it does not
- Uses what you already hold. First-in-family is a roster field, and students can also choose it themselves. Your roster can fill other groups one at a time. A group that reveals sensitive information, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, needs a recorded confirmation that you hold consent before the roster can fill it, and a student can always leave a group for good.
- Aims support at the right students. Weekly briefings, events and resources can be targeted by campus, program and the groups you define.
- Shows some groups in aggregate. Insights can narrow the weekly check-in pulse to a campus, a degree or first-in-family students, one group at a time, with any group under five hidden and no intersections. Other groups are used for targeting, not reporting.
- Does not label or score students. No Insights view, Needs attention list or report ranks or labels students by equity group, and First Six never infers a student's background. A student's groups are visible only to staff who can open their profile, and every open is logged.
- Does not claim outcomes. First Six shows what students say in the first weeks and the support they were offered. It does not see results, completions or withdrawals, so it reports no outcomes by any group; joining our exports with your own records is how you do that.
Context: Demand-driven Needs-based Funding (Department of Education). How groups and consent work: Filling groups from your student system.
Outcomes
What your team can see and do with First Six.
A first-weeks read by group
See whether first-in-family students, or a regional campus, are travelling differently from the whole cohort, weeks before results arrive.
Support aimed at the students it is for
Briefings, events and resources reach the groups you target, instead of everyone or no one.
No one singled out
Groups under five are hidden, groups are never intersected, and no screen ranks students by background.
Evidence, not outcome claims
What students said and what support was offered, ready to join with your own retention and completion data.
Who this is for
How First Six helps
The same six-week method, pointed at what your team needs.
01
Start from your roster
First-in-family is a roster field. Your roster can fill other groups one at a time, and students can join or leave groups themselves on their People page.
02
Aim the support
Target weekly briefings, events and resources by campus, program and the groups you define, so first-weeks support reaches the students it is meant for.
03
Read groups in aggregate
Narrow the weekly pulse to a campus, a degree or first-in-family students, one at a time. Any group under five is hidden, and groups are never intersected.
04
Join it to your own data
CSV exports let your planning team join support activity to the equity and outcome data you already hold, under your own data policy.
What you get with First Six
Three things this gives your team from the first week.
Uses data you already hold
First-in-family from your roster or from students, and groups your roster fills one at a time. Sensitive groups need a recorded consent confirmation first.
Aggregate, never a list
Insights narrows the check-in pulse to one group at a time, with any group under five hidden. No equity scores and no ranked lists.
Support aimed on purpose
Target briefings, events and resources by campus, program and group, so the support you fund is in front of the students it is for.
Outbound webhooks
Subscribe your own systems to signed First Six events (request created, crisis, updated, resolved), delivered over HTTPS with an HMAC signature you verify.
Help desk & CRM (email-to-ticket)
When a student asks for help, open a ticket in the help desk your staff already watch (ServiceNow, Salesforce, Jira Service Management, Zendesk, Freshservice) via email-to-case.
Calendar (ICS)
Pull your institution's events in from a public iCalendar (.ics) feed, and give each student a private feed for Apple, Google or Outlook calendars.
Student information system
Keep cohorts current from your student information system: push roster and enrolment as JSON over HTTPS, or import a CSV with no IT work at all.
SAML 2.0
SAML 2.0 is a proof of concept and is not available for production sign-in. OpenID Connect is the production path; production SAML can be enabled within an engagement that needs it.
OpenID Connect (OIDC)
Single sign-on through your identity provider over OpenID Connect, the production sign-in path. Students and staff never have a First Six password.
Microsoft Entra ID
Single sign-on through Microsoft Entra ID using OpenID Connect, with a documented setup walkthrough. Your MFA and sign-in policies stay in Entra.
See how support is reaching your cohorts
Book a demo and we'll walk through group views, targeting and the privacy rules behind them, on a sample cohort.
Frequently asked questions
What teams ask us most.
Start early and make support easy to find. First Six lets you target briefings and events to first-in-family students from before week 1, and shows their weekly check-ins in aggregate against the whole cohort, with any group under five hidden. It does not rank or list first-in-family students for follow-up.
No. First Six does not see results, completions or withdrawals, so it reports no outcomes for any group. Insights can narrow check-ins to a campus, a degree or first-in-family students; other groups you define are used to target content, not to report. Sensitive groups, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, need a recorded consent confirmation before your roster can fill them.
Only staff who can open a student's profile, and every open is audit-logged. Insights and the Needs attention list do not sort or label students by equity group, and other students never see anyone's groups.
From 1 January 2026, the Australian Government's needs-based funding replaced HEPPP, paying universities for each low-SES, First Nations and regional-campus student they enrol. First Six is not part of that scheme. It can help you see, in aggregate, how some of the groups you hold are travelling in the first weeks, and what support was offered.