Tes SEQTA review

SEQTA is an Australian school platform that brings teaching and learning, pastoral care and attendance into one system. It is now sold as Tes SEQTA by Tes Global, the UK education company. Staff work in SEQTA Teach, students use the SEQTA Learn portal and app, and parents use SEQTA Engage. Tes describes it as a learning management system, but it also holds a lot of what Australian schools think of as student information: attendance, behaviour, wellbeing notes, health information, timetables and reports. Schools featured by Tes include Concordia College and Woodville High School in South Australia and John Paul College in Brisbane.

Who it’s for

SEQTA fits Australian secondary and K-12 schools that want teachers to plan, teach, mark, report and record pastoral notes in one place, and want parents to see the results in one app. A head of year can open a student’s profile and see grades, attendance, behaviour entries and wellbeing notes together before a parent meeting, instead of pulling them from three systems.

It suits schools that already run, or plan to run, a separate school management system for the office side. Tes lists integrations with Synergetic, its own management system, as well as Tes Timetable and other student information systems. If you want one product that handles enrolments, fee billing and the teaching side together, compare it with all-in-one systems such as Compass or Sentral.

IB schools get specific support. Tes says SEQTA supports the Primary Years, Middle Years and Diploma Programmes.

What it does well

Planning and teaching are the strongest part. Teachers build curriculum, units and lessons from templates, share resources in libraries, and set and mark work with structured feedback. Marks go into the marksbook and feed reports, and parents can see progress during the term as well as at the end. A faculty can build a Year 9 science unit once and share it with every teacher on the course.

SEQTA AI Assist drafts lesson plans from curriculum links, year level and the teacher’s notes, with objectives, materials and differentiation ideas the teacher can edit. Tes says it is included in the standard SEQTA Teach subscription, that administrators can switch it off, and that the AI receives no personally identifiable information and cannot read data inside SEQTA.

Pastoral care sits next to teaching. Staff record wellbeing notes, behaviour and attendance in the same system, and SEQTA Analyse gives dashboards at student, class, year and school level. SEQTA Kiosk tracks students signing in and out or checking into a classroom, which helps the office answer “where is this student right now?”

SEQTA Engage gives parents academic progress, wellbeing information, attendance records, notices and the timetable. Parents can report an absence, choose activities, book parent-teacher interviews and see the school calendar. Students get their timetable, work and feedback in SEQTA Learn.

Where it falls short

SEQTA does not replace a management system for every school. Tes’s own pages describe integration with Synergetic and other systems, and they do not describe enrolment or fee billing tools in SEQTA. Payments in Engage only work if the school uses a compatible management system. Ask exactly what your school will still need alongside SEQTA, and price both.

The range of modules takes planning. Teach, Learn, Engage, Analyse, Kiosk and Tutor each need settings, permissions and training, and a school that switches everything on at once risks confusing staff and parents. Our LMS rollout plan suggests a staged approach.

SEQTA is one product among many at Tes, a company registered in England. Australian schools should ask where support staff are based and how Tes plans the Australian product, so they know who to call during reporting season.

Pricing

Tes does not publish prices for SEQTA. Schools book a demo and receive a quote. Ask which modules the quote covers, whether Analyse and Kiosk cost extra, and what migration and training cost. Our guide to the total cost of school software explains which costs to add.

Privacy and data

Tes says SEQTA Cloud runs on Amazon Web Services, but its pages do not say which region holds Australian schools’ data or name security certifications such as ISO 27001. Its security page says SEQTA uses encryption, regular security audits and monitoring, and is designed to comply with privacy rules including GDPR and local regulations. It supports single sign-on through a school’s identity system.

Ask Tes in writing where your data is hosted, for its current security certifications and audit reports, and for a data processing agreement that meets the Australian Privacy Principles and your state’s rules. Because SEQTA holds health and wellbeing notes, check who can see them and whether access is logged. Our student data privacy checklist lists the other questions to ask.

Verdict

SEQTA is a good choice for Australian schools that want planning, marking, reporting, pastoral care and parent access in one platform, especially if they already run Synergetic or another management system for the office. Get the hosting location and security documents in writing before you sign. Schools that want one product to also handle enrolments and fees should compare Compass and Sentral.

See the best Tes SEQTA alternatives