In Week 8, during our weekly staff meeting, our staff spent time reviewing all of the Child Safe Standards and making suggestions about ways in which we can improve our culture, our strategies, and our actions to put the interests of our students first, and to keep them safe from harm. Each fortnight, I will present one of the standards in our newsletter and ask you to reflect on how you think we’re addressing the recommendations. We welcome ideas and feedback from our families and community! This week, we look at Standard 5. 

Child Safe Standard 5: People working with children are suitable and supported

The aim of this standard is for our school to attract, recruit, supervise and support staff to keep our students safe. This standard is important because it assists our staff to follow policies that reduce the risk of harm to children. 

Our aim is to prioritise this standard for child safety in what we say and do:

• All staff receive an appropriate induction and are aware of their child safety responsibilities. 
• All relevant staff have relevant checks, such as Working With Vulnerable People registration. 
• Catholic Education recruitment process, including advertising, emphasises child safety. 
• Messages to students about behaviour and safety are consistent. 

If we are addressing this standard successfully, we would expect our children to say: 

• I feel safe with the adults here.
• Adults show concern for me.  
• I trust adults here and can talk to them about things that upset me. 
• All the adults tell me the same things about how we should behave and how they should behave. 

We’re very proud to have a page on our school website dedicated to child safeguarding, and we encourage you to view it. 

If you have any questions or feedback about how we are addressing this Standard or about our new Child Safeguarding page, please email me (petra.cole@cg.catholic.edu.au). 

Petra Cole

Assistant Principal