The Support for Students Policy
Australia's Support for Students Policy asks you to identify students at risk early and help them succeed. First Six gives you a privacy-safe way to do exactly that, in the first six weeks.
The challenge
Since 2024, providers receiving Commonwealth support must have a Support for Students Policy and take reasonable steps to identify students at risk of not succeeding and support them as early as practicable. The expectation is clear; the practical means of doing it are not.
Most of the signal you need arrives in the opening weeks, scattered across systems. Acting on it early, without reducing students to a predictive risk score, is harder again.
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Outcomes
What changes when First Six is running for your team.
A practical way to meet the obligation
The policy expectation becomes a weekly routine your team can actually run.
At-risk students reached earlier
Support lands in the first six weeks, when it still changes whether a student stays.
A defensible record of support
Aggregate reporting and a clear support trail stand up to a TEQSA or internal review.
Support without surveillance
You meet the duty to support students without predictive risk-scoring or broad monitoring; support reaches those who signal they need it, with access logged.
How First Six helps
The same six-week method, pointed at what your team needs.
01
Spot who's at risk, early
A weekly check-in and engagement trends flag students who are slipping in the first weeks, while support can still change the outcome.
02
Reach them like a person
A human-answered inbox and your defined support routes connect a struggling student to the right help quickly.
03
Keep a record of support offered
Outreach and responses are logged, so you can show the reasonable steps you took for each cohort.
04
Report without surveilling
Aggregate, small-cell-suppressed trends evidence your support effort, with no predictive risk-scoring; support staff reach out to the students who signal they need it.
What you get with First Six
Three things this gives your team from the first week.
Identify early
Privacy-safe cohort and check-in signals surface students at risk in week two, not at census.
Support, on the record
A human-answered inbox and your defined support routes connect students to help, with a clear trail of what was offered.
Evidence it
Aggregate, suppressed reporting gives you a defensible account of how you supported students, ready for review.
Show how you support your students
Book a walkthrough and see how the first six weeks help you meet the obligation.
Frequently asked questions
What teams ask us most.
Compliance is your institution's responsibility, and the policy is broader than any one tool. What First Six gives you is a practical, privacy-safe way to identify at-risk students early, connect them to support, and evidence the steps you took, which are central to the obligation.
Not as broad monitoring. There's no prediction or risk-scoring. Signals are aggregate with small groups suppressed; when a student signals they're struggling, support staff can see who and follow up, and that access is audit-logged.
Yes. Outreach, help requests, and responses are recorded, and cohort-level reporting gives you a clear account of your support effort for a review.
In Australia (AWS Sydney), isolated per tenant by row-level security. See the Trust Centre for the full detail.
See it for your next cohort.
Currently meeting with universities.