Acting Deputy Head of Campus, Burnie  

When I started teaching some 40 years ago, we did not have much formal training in child safety compliance, but we did have a strong culture of caring for children in the school. Parents and teachers saw themselves as working in partnership, grappling with how to best create an environment in which children would flourish – both at home and at school. At Leighland Christian School this remains a distinctive of our school culture as well.  

More recently, to continue to ensure that children and their needs are always put first, over a 5-year period from 2012 – 2017 an inquiry was held, called the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.  Victims were given a chance to share their story and many recommendations for reform came out of this inquiry. 

One of those reforms has resulted in us having a lot more formal staff training, and training for volunteers in schools and other organisations; we have strong codes of conduct to follow, risk assessments to prepare, procedures for filing and investigating complaints, mandatory reporting processes and the like to ensure that Child Safety remains at the fore of all that we do and plan to do. 

Tasmania’s response to the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual  Abuse included a number of law reforms. One of these was the establishment of a Child and Youth Safe Organisations Framework, which became mandatory for Schools to implement from 2024. This framework includes 10 Child Safe standards, plus a Universal Principle of Cultural Safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children. This Universal Principle was the subject of my Newsletter contribution last term. 

Let’s take a look today at Standard 1: “Child Safety and Wellbeing is embedded into organisational leadership, governance and culture”. 

This is a very important statement. It recognises that all these new rules and procedures will only work if they result in a change of culture.  

I understand this to mean that Child Safety is something we all need to be committed to together; in practice as well as in theory, from the School Board, to staff, to parents, and even students. It becomes part of our culture when these principles move from just a compliance requirement to something that is heartfelt and integrated into practice. 

We come back to a Biblical principle: “What the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did…according to the Spirit. Romans 8:3 

The rules and procedures, while important, are powerless to make a change unless there is also an inward change of attitude, resulting changes in organisational culture. 

At this Christian school, we believe that both can work hand in hand. We are rigorous in our application of compliance processes, but we are also focused on heart attitudes. We genuinely care for and love the children in our care, and together with parents, we are committed to see them flourish. 

Ken Greenwood 

Acting Deputy Head of Campus, Burnie