Australian Tutoring Association — News and Course Shop

Information architecture, Web design, Development

The Australian Tutoring Association is Australia's peak body for tutoring organisations and tutors. It runs three sites: ata.edu.au for members and parents, ATA College for tutor qualifications, and Tutoring Scholarships, its charity. I was one of the first developers on ata.edu.au, at Wax. In October 2026 the CEO, Mohan Dhall, asked me back through Owlry to make the sites easier to run, starting with news.

The ata.edu.au homepage: "Find qualified tutors", with a search by subject and location
Role
Original developer, back as designer and developer
Team
Mohan Dhall, CEO, through Owlry
Timeline
2026
Platform
WordPress and WooCommerce

15

news pages split into linkable sections

26

newsletter issues with own pages, back to 2015

0

emails or renewals from staging

The problem

Everything lived under /news

Newsletters, media releases, AGM papers and award announcements all sat under one News menu, where only Latest news held real posts and the rest were long pages of file links.

Latest news on ata.edu.au today: a KAPTS introduction, a draft policy, a copyright guide and the 2023 AGM in one list, with the News menu beside it
Latest news today: introductions, policies, guides and AGMs in one list.

Date-based links

News posts lived at /2026/01/19/…, so a link didn't say whether it was news, a newsletter or a release.

One editing screen

Newsletters, media releases and AGMs shared one editing screen.

Mixed and mis-filed

Latest news mixed every type of content, and some AGMs sat under the wrong year.

My role

Original developer, back to streamline it

I scoped the work with Mohan, quoted it, drew today's site and the proposal in Figma, and built it in the theme once he approved.

October 2026

  1. 27 October

    Quote approved

    The news restructure, a how-to guide and three revision rounds.

  2. 30 October

    Designs approved

    Today and Proposal, side by side in Figma.

  3. 30 October to 1 November

    Built on staging

    Post types, templates, migration, redirects and a cutover script.

The process

Draw today first, then the proposal

I redrew the current news pages and site map first, so Mohan and I were looking at the same problem.

Site map, before and after. Today, four pages sit under News. Proposed, five sections each have an archive, an item page, content and a back-end screen, and old links redirect to the new ones
Each kind of content gets its own section. Research is new.

01

News

/news

News posts only.

02

Newsletters

/newsletters

26 issues, back to 2015.

03

Media releases

/media-releases

10 releases.

04

Conferences & AGMs

/conferences-agms

Awards, conferences and AGM papers, back to 2013.

05

Research

/research

A new section.

The solution

A section for every kind of content

Every section has an archive, newest first, then a page for each item. Newsletters filter by year, and Conferences & AGMs by type.

Newsletters todayNewsletters after: breadcrumb, intro, a slim subscribe bar, year filters, and each issue with a short description and a View link
The subscribe form became a slim bar, and each issue gained a description and its own page.

Every item gets a page

Each issue, release and set of AGM papers has its own page with a clean URL, so a newsletter link says it's a newsletter. The PDF opens in a lighter, ATA-blue viewer.

The September 2022 newsletter page: breadcrumb, title, a one-line summary, Download PDF and Share, and the PDF open in an embedded viewer
Each summary is written from what's inside, not just the month.

A migration script inventoried every file and described each item, as a dry run first, then for real.

Conferences and AGMs: filters for All, Conferences, AGMs and Awards, and items such as the 2026 National Conference and the 2026 National Tutoring Awards
Conferences & AGMs uses the same archive, filtered by type.

One editing screen per section

Each section gets its own Add New screen: a title, issue date, one-line description and the PDF. Members-only access is an optional extra.

The Add New Newsletter screen in WordPress: issue, short description, a PDF drop zone and a Members only option
It uses WordPress styling, because that's where the office works.

Old links keep working

Links shared over a decade, including links straight to a PDF, redirect to their new pages.

Old link New link
/news/newsletter/ /newsletters
/news/press-releases/ /media-releases
/news/agms/ /conferences-agms
An old PDF link That item's new page

A one-page guide means the office doesn't need me to add content.

Keeping members safe

A staging site that can't reach members

I needed a staging copy of production, but ata.edu.au emails members and renews subscriptions, so an ordinary copy could email or charge real members.

An environment guard

Off production, the site sends no email or texts, charges no renewals and makes no calls to ATA College.

A refresh script

Copies production to staging, keeping only the admin accounts.

The right order

Other users are removed without sending deletion emails.

Also on the site

Affiliates and partners

The affiliates page holds a prospectus and four partner tiers, Platinum to Bronze, all edited in fields so the office can add partners itself.

The Affiliates page: Become an affiliate and Our partners

ATA College

A course shop priced by module

ATA College sells the courses that qualify tutors. Each module is a WooCommerce product, and each course is a group of modules.

ATA College courses: Tutoring Fundamentals with 5 modules at $300, down from $375, and the Literacy Specialisation with 3 modules and 18 credits at $180, down from $225
A course is priced from its modules, less the course discount.

The theme also shows a remaining price, so a tutor who has finished some modules pays only for the rest.

The Reporting module: $75, part of Tutoring Fundamentals (CORE), with Buy now, Add to cart, what you'll learn, and credits, a certificate and 100% online beside it
A module page and the credits it counts towards.

Where it is

Built, and ready to switch over

The restructure is on staging, and the production switch is scripted: change the permalinks, draft the old News pages, add the new menu items and flush the rewrite rules in a fresh process.

Built through Wax; 2026 work through Owlry.