A review of the School Community Safety Order Scheme (Scheme) concluded in June 2025.
Its aim was to see if the Scheme was meeting its intended purpose and identify any improvements. This included reviewing Part 2.1A of the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 (Vic) and the School Community Safety Order Scheme Ministerial Guidelines.
About the Statutory Review
The Scheme allows principals and other authorised persons in Victorian schools to make School Community Safety Orders (Orders). Orders can be made so that adults in the school community, including parents and carers, must stop behaving in harmful, threatening or abusive ways towards others in the school community.
More information about the Scheme is available at School Community Safety Orders.
The legislation had a requirement for the Minister for Education to independently review the Scheme. The review was to be held two years after it came into effect.
The review identified opportunities for improvement, including how to overcome key barriers to the use of the Scheme.
The review process
In undertaking the review, the independent reviewer:
- reviewed the Education and Training Reform Act, Education and Training Reform Regulations 2017 and Ministerial Guidelines
- interviewed stakeholders across the department, including:
- principals who used the Scheme
- organisations representing school staff and principals at government, independent and Catholic schools, and parents
- analysed data, including department data and publicly available data relating to the use of the Scheme
- analysed documentation about the objectives of the Scheme and how it is currently being used.
Key findings
Feedback on the Scheme from government, independent and Catholic education sector stakeholders was largely positive. The majority agreed that the Scheme is an important tool for protecting school communities and should remain in place.
The review found that there was limited use of the Scheme in its first two years of operation. Some of the reasons from principals included:
- the Scheme was too complex to use
- there is too much work involved with making and keeping an order in place
- the way to enforce an order are not effective.
The review report
The report provides recommendations to:
- simplify the Scheme to make SCSOs more accessible and effective to use
- maintain an appropriate standard of procedural fairness for persons subject to orders.
Next steps
The Victorian Government is considering the recommendations in this report.
The government is seeking views from the public on how to strengthen and improve the Scheme. To have your say on what can be done to keep school communities safe, visit: Keeping school staff safe onsite and online
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