2023/24 Year in Review: What Launched in Xello UK?

What a year for Xello (powered by CASCAID)! As we close out the 2023-24 school year, let’s review all of the exciting updates that have rolled out in the past ten months. From new survey tools to additional work-related learning enhancements, there’s a product update for every stage of a students’ future readiness journey.

We know that educators are already pressed for time, which is why these new Xello tools will help streamline communications and processes. We also care deeply about student engagement–it’s their futures, after all! So you can look forward to even more personalised offerings. 

These features are more than just bells and whistles; instead, they were built intentionally to drive educator efficiency and student engagement. 

Below is a recap of the updates launched in the 2023-2024 school year to help students and educators enhance their career and future planning experience.

Key Feature Releases

Surveys

It’s important to have feedback and data at your fingertips, which is why Xello introduced its survey functionality. With Surveys, you can easily create and send fully-customisable questionnaires to specific student groups, making the evaluation of WEX, careers interactions, university planning, and feedback more organised and efficient.

With survey results in hand, you’ll gain valuable insights to better support your students’ career planning journey, improve engagement, and monitor outcomes.

Why It Matters: Customisable Surveys empower advisors and educators to target and track specific student groups to ensure learners are meeting deadlines, completing Xello assignments, and moving along their career planning journey. 

Survey Reports

Xello’s Survey Report enhancements provide a visual breakdown and tally of students’ survey responses, providing educators with an efficient and convenient way to understand students’ experiences, preferences, and needs. 

Learn more about how to run a report on Xello Support.

Work-related Learning (WRL) Enhancements

We’ve made a handful of exciting enhancements to our Work-related Learning module to help you streamline your WEX and employer program, minimise administrative burdens, and empower students to take ownership of their experiences. 

Here are just a few additions:

• Match students with opportunities: Students can now identify WRL experiences that align with their favourite or matched career clusters, ensuring a tailored exploration journey. Meanwhile, employers, educators, and admins gain valuable insights into each student’s career interests when reviewing opportunity requests, allowing for a more targeted and meaningful experience.
• Submit, track, and verify hours: Students or educators can conveniently record their completed hours and upload optional supporting evidence for their WRL opportunities. Educators get instant access to these submissions, ensuring seamless oversight. 
• Family access to Work-Related Learning: Through a dedicated WRL tab on Xello Family, parents or guardians gain access to a list of their child’s active opportunities, including information about the opportunity type, company, and request status. This feature enables families to stay informed and engaged, fostering a collaborative support system that ensures their child’s successful exploration of real-world experiences. 

Why It Matters: Work-related learning introduces new experiences for students: staying accountable with external stakeholders, navigating the real-world, and identifying the right opportunities, to name a few. These latest updates help make Xello WRL a positive experience by promoting organisation, providing families with information to provide meaningful guidance, and encouraging students to pursue opportunities that genuinely resonate with their passions and aspirations. To learn how to run reports on student work, go to Xello Support.

Guidance Notes: 

When you’re juggling hundreds (or sometimes thousands!) of students, it can be difficult to stay organised. With Xello’s Guidance notes, you have a centralised space to effectively track student communications, log meetings, share resources, and manage ongoing notes for each student. 

By consolidating all student information in one convenient location – a tab on your educator dashboard – you can simplify the organisation and monitoring of career readiness progress and foster seamless collaboration. Guidance notes allows you to record meetings and notes on a shared platform, ensuring crucial information is accessible to everyone involved. As an added benefit, access to the notes can be shared with students and parents/guardians. 

Why It Matters: Every educator wants to feel prepared before talking to a student or hosting a parents evening. Guidance notes allow you to house all student information in one convenient location to help provide personalised and proper support, as well as tailor discussions and guidance based on each student’s unique needs and recorded activities.

Test Scores

With this new feature, educators can upload and access students’ test scores – and even add custom test scores as needed – gaining a comprehensive view of each student’s academic performance. 

Educators can also choose to make Test Scores visible to students and families through their Xello account or family portal. 

And with all test scores and grades housed in one spot, students can integrate these documents into their Xello Portfolio and share them when applying for colleges, universities, work-related learning opportunities, and jobs. 

Why It Matters: This feature simplifies the management and reporting of test scores by centralising your data, allowing you to provide personalised guidance and advice to students. 

What’s Next? 

Book Your End-of-Year Call with your Success Manager

 Wondering how to incorporate these latest releases into your training plans, or engagement activities? Contact your Xello Success Manager to learn how. They’d be happy to schedule a refresher that’ll kickstart your program for the upcoming academic year. If you’re unsure of who that is, contact our Client Solutions team (help@cascaid.co.uk).

In the meantime, you can learn more about Xello tools and updates with these resources:

• YouTube Playlists: Subscribe and receive notifications when new videos are available
• Learning Modules: Online self-serve training modules
• Reporting Tools Tips and Tricks