At St Columba's Primary School we hold the care, safety, and wellbeing of all children and young people as a central and fundamental responsibility of our school.
Child Safety Policy
We believe that every student has the right to:
- Feel and be safe
- Be respected
- To learn
Therefore we endorse the following (as created in collaboration with our Student Representative Council):
- Everyone in our school has a responsibility to help others to feel safe and be safe.
- Everyone needs to respect the right of the teacher to educate and the right of students to learn.
- We all need to follow classroom and playground rules.
- We all must respect the belongings of others.
- We all need to respect each other's personal space.
- No one should use language that is disrespectful swearing is unacceptable.
- No one in our school should BULLY others our school is a No Bullying Zone.
The introduction of Child Safe Standards form part of the Victorian Governments response to the recommendations of the 'Betrayal of Trust' report which found that more must be done to prevent and respond to child abuse.
As a result of the increased scrutiny around universal child safety, Ministerial Order 870 was enacted. This order is supported by Catholic Education Melbourne (CEM), Catholic Education Commission Victoria (CECV) and the Department of Education. The order requires that all schools meet the seven standards and have policies and procedures in place to meet the requirements.
St Columba's is committed to policies and procedures that have a central focus on Child Safety and practices that support the ongoing wellbeing of all children.
