Managing Student Safety
Overview
The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) is responsible for providing a safe, secure and stimulating learning environment for about 530 000 students at 1 559 government schools. The responsibility is shared between DEECD’s central and regional offices and individual schools. School principals are responsible for the day-to-day management of student safety risks.
The audit examined whether DEECD had provided students in government schools with a safe environment where the risk of harm is minimised and students feel physically and emotionally secure. It included an examination of safety incidents and injury data, the management of risks by schools and guidance and support provided by DEECD.
The audit found that students are generally safe in schools. The continuing low incidence of safety incidents and injuries to students attest to this and is supported by students self reporting over this period that they feel safe.
There are positive trends in the number of injuries to students but it is concerning that the total number of safety incidents are increasing. It is also concerning that DEECD is not well placed to determine if there are school level or systemic issues that need to be addressed. This is because DEECD does not undertake appropriate quality checking of the safety data, and has not established benchmarks or standards against which to judge the significance of trends in safety incidents.
At the school level, principals need more support with applying DEECD’s safety policies. They are particularly concerned about their ability to deal effectively with traffic safety and the emerging cybersafety threat.