“We were motivated to invent a tool that would help the community and society, by making an application not just for us students,” said Daniel (Year 11). “From what I’ve observed, our Student Administration Officer takes a lot of phone calls about student absence, and she could have more time to be focused on more meaningful tasks.”
In collaboration with Patrick Chye (AI Co-Curricular Director), students developed an Artificial Intelligence Digital Assistant Phone Answering Service for parents or carers to report their son being absent from school.
The Service allows unique and dedicated responses to be fed back to the caller using natural language processing and responses with multilingual capabilities. It’s designed to take 20 concurrent phone calls at once with a calming tone of voice. The project’s intention is to focus on the wellbeing of students, parents, and staff, by developing a tool that can alleviate stress and ensure better time management.
The project was developed by Patrick and a team of students including Daniel, Dominic (Year 9) and Joshua (Year 9), and was later pitched to Dr Andrew Weeding (Deputy Headmaster K-12 and Head of Senior School), Kate Lee (Head of Digital Learning, Senior School) and Chuck Ardron (Director of Co-Curricular Operations, Senior School).
The AI Digital Assistant makes it easier for parents to call in and swiftly connect and converse in their language of choice – currently including various dialects such as Arabic and Hindu, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Japanese, French and English.
From an administrative perspective, the AI Assistant can report and record student absences, collect medical certificates, and present data via a reporting and analysis dashboard back to stakeholders at the school. Without this tool, these operational tasks would be less time effective.
29 August 2025
On Wednesday evening, we hosted our second Knox Leader Development Program Twilight Event. It was a truly inspiring gathering of leaders across our community, brought together by a shared commitment to growth, connection and purpose.
27 August 2025
Last week, our Year 8 students ventured into the great outdoors for a week of camping in the Blue Mountains.
26 August 2025
This year, Book Week was a celebration of stories, creativity, and literary adventures.
