Non-government schools have ongoing obligations and responsibilities that must be maintained.
Governing bodies and registered schools must:
- observe the standards throughout the period of their registration
- notify the Director General of any changes to the membership of the governing body or the constitution
- notify the Director General of any reportable incidents
- comply with any conditions and directions on the school registration certificate
- surrender expired, replaced or cancelled registration certificates.
Governing body membership and constitution changes
The governing body of a registered school must advise the Director General of any changes to:
- the membership of the governing body (such as the addition or removal of a member)
- the constitution of the governing body.
Notification of these changes must be within 30 days of the change being made.
To make a notification, complete and submit the Notification of change in constitution or governing body membership form. This form includes a statutory declaration by which the governing body Chair attests that each of the new members is fit and proper to operate a school.
Notifications about changes to the constitution must be accompanied by a copy of the new or amended constitution.
Reportable incidents
The reportable incident categories have been revised effective from 1 July 2022, noting Registration Standard 7 Critical and emergency incidents content has not changed.
Non-government schools must notify the Director General of reportable incidents within 48 hours by using the Reportable incident notification form.
This notification is additional to any other notifications that a school may need to make, for example, to the:
In the management of all critical and emergency incidents, including those which must be reported to the Director General, schools must give the highest priority to the best interests of the student or students affected.
Reportable incident information received assists the Department to monitor schools’ compliance with the registration standards and other requirements. To this end, the notification should be as detailed as possible. The Department may subsequently request further information.
Record keeping
Non-government schools are required to create and keep records in case there is an actual or alleged incident of child abuse in the future.
To assist schools in determining which records need to be kept, guidelines have been created. The guidelines detail the minimum requirements of the 5 principles of Recommendation 8.4 of the Royal Commission.
A self-evaluation form has also been created to help school assess their current practices, identify areas for improvement and adopt good record-keeping practices.
