Year 6 transition to Year 7- update
This week, parents of students in year 6 will receive their placement offer letters for year 7, 2023. Students will receive the letters at school to take home. Please contact Trish Johnston if you have any questions about the Year 6-7 transition process.
The Child Safe Standards
On July 1, the new Child Safe Standards came into effect across Australia. In Victoria we move from 7 standards to 11 standards which are aligned with the National Standards. The Child Safe Standards aim to:
- promote the safety of children
- prevent child abuse
- ensure effective processes are in place to respond to and report all allegations of child abuse
Child safety includes matters related to protecting all children from child abuse, managing the risk of child abuse, providing support to a child at risk of child abuse, and responding to suspicions, incidents, disclosures or allegations of child abuse. Importantly, the new standards are focused on making sure that schools involve parents and carers more in efforts to reduce child abuse.
Child abuse is:
- any act committed against a child involving: a sexual offence or grooming
- the infliction, on a child, of physical violence serious emotional or psychological harm
- the serious neglect of a child
Whilst we would all like to think that it does not occur in our community, we must not assume that it doesn’t. We have a unified responsibility to both reject and address any form of child abuse in our school community. Every child has the right to be safe and protected from harm.
Our school council plays a key role in making sure that our school complies with the new standards.
- The Education and Training Reform Act 2006 and Ministerial Order 1280 outlines Government school councils powers, duties and functions
- When performing these powers, duties and functions, school councils must comply with the Child Safe Standards and Ministerial Order 1359
Over the coming months we will progressively update our school policies and procedures taking into account the changes to the Child Safe Standards and also making sure we address new focus areas such as safety in online environments. At our most recent school council meeting we undertook School Council Child Safe Standards training to ensure our school council members are aware of their obligations in relation to these updates, and to support the implementation across the school.