Faith Students and Staff to Transition from Google to Microsoft for Term 1 2025

We are pleased to announce an update with our Microsoft licensing for 2025. Starting Week 1 of Term 1, 2025, students and staff will log into their Faith emails using Outlook (online) instead of Gmail.  All students will be now also be able to download the Microsoft Office product and install it on up to five devices.

This update means that students will now save documents to OneDrive instead of Google Drive. They can choose to use Microsoft Office online or open up their OneDrive file on their laptop device. Primary students, who mainly use Faith Curriculum workbooks, should notice little impact from this change. There is no change for parent access to Learning@Faith; parents log in to Learning@Faith with the same email credentials as 2024. 

Please watch the video below, or read the transcript, for more details of what to expect:

Video Transcript:

Leah: Hi, Faith families, my name is Leah Kollen and I head up our Marketing and Communications here at Faith. We're excited to be here to chat with you a little bit about what we've been working on behind the scenes to help streamline Communications and Technology.

Jeremie: And I’m Jeremie, I’m our ICT Systems Manager and helping our team out to support the needs of Faith Christian School, the students, teachers and parents, so, to make sure that we provide a high quality education service and learning environment for all our students.

Jeremie: Important changes for students coming up is that next year, you'll be logging into an Outlook address, rather than a Gmail address, for your emails.

Leah: Does that mean that the login password and username that the families are using changes, or does that stay the same?

Jeremie: At the moment, a number of students are logging into systems behind the scenes, like Box of Books and so on, where you're using your school email and password.That remains the same. When you look at logging into your Outlook next year or your OneDrive next year, those details will be the same, so there is no change.

Leah: Awesome! So, they can use their same credentials, it's just going to be Microsoft instead of Google?

Jeremie: That's right.

Access to Microsoft Office Products and Partnering Systems

Jeremie: These are probably the the biggest impacts that you'll see in terms of your day-to-day school usage, but you'll also be able to start using Microsoft Office products, instead of the corresponding Google counterparts, so, for example, Google Docs becomes Word, and Google Sheets becomes Excel.

Leah: What about Kami? A lot of students use Kami currently in partnership with Google Docs, so what does that look like?

Jeremie: So currently, Kami integrates with our Google Drive, but Kami also has an integration, in other words, it works in and connects in well, with OneDrive, so students will be able to do the same things as they’re doing now, but just take the file from a OneDrive source.

Leah: Gotcha.

Transition Timeline

Leah: So the next question is what that looks like in terms of timeline. We're in November now, so what do families have to expect for what that transition looks like, and when will that start?

Jeremie: So, for the remainder of the year, we'll be helping behind the scenes to transition towards these new systems that I've been talking about, such as the OneDrive and the emails.You'll find that those things will be just available for you when you log in, in the new year, and that's when staff and students will be using the new systems from Term 1.

We will be there supporting you the whole way, and we will have our Help areas, as well. The important thing is that we are doing this together, so if you have any concerns or anything, please let us know.

We will be there to back you up and we expect it to be a smooth transition, as people readily have these things already available and are experienced in using these tools, so, if there are any gaps, we will help to bridge those, as well.

Where to Go with Questions

Leah: And where should they leave any questions or just general comments?

Jeremie: So, if you need any IT support, please contact us, and you can find our details on the website, but the link, the email for our services, itsupport@faith.qld.edu.au, that's the best place to submit a ticket for our team to help you and prioritise support for your needs.

Leah: Awesome! And you could also ask your teacher for some support, or how should that work?

Jeremie: Yes, so, the general run-of-the-mill lesson, you can ask teachers for support. If it becomes more of a technical nature, then they'll refer you to the IT team to help resolve your issue.

Leah: Awesome! Well, thank you very much, Jeremie, for your time. It was good to chat, and we're looking forward to meeting up with families again soon!