Exploring the obligations for school record keeping, what you need to know

Exploring the obligations for school record keeping, what you need to know

In 2012 the Prime Minister recommended a Royal Commission inquiry into institutional responses to child abuse. The Final Report, released in 2017, made five record keeping recommendations, including one specific recommendation that non-government schools be required to comply with minimum standards in relation to the creation, maintenance, and disposal of records relevant to child safety and wellbeing, including child sexual abuse.

High-Level principles for recording and record keeping:

• Creating and keeping full and accurate records relevant to child safety and wellbeing, including child sexual abuse, is in the best interests of children and should be an integral part of institutional leadership, governance and culture.
• Full and accurate records should be created about all incidents, responses and decisions affecting child safety and wellbeing, including child sexual abuse.
• Records relevant to child safety and wellbeing, including child sexual abuse, should be maintained appropriately.
• Records relevant to child safety and wellbeing, including child sexual abuse, should only be disposed of in accordance with law or policy.
• Individuals’ existing rights to access, amend or annotate records about themselves should be recognised to the fullest extent.

Inadequate records and recordkeeping have contributed to delays in or failures to identify and respond to risks and incidents of child sexual abuse and have exacerbated distress and trauma for many survivors.

The introduction of good recordkeeping is an important part of making and supporting Schools to provide an environment where student safety comes first and ensures staff have a clear and consistent way to manage documents using the modern workplace tools that simply extend on the applications they are already using today.

Join experts from Ricoh and AvePoint in a 45 min interactive webinar to uncover

• The 5 Records + information management requirements for schools
• Why is this a problem for schools and the potential impact on them?
• How you can implement a compliance solution leveraging M365