Annual Report to the School Community

Policy

This policy sets out the requirement for schools to develop an Annual Report to the School Community (Annual Report).

Summary

• It is a legislative requirement that all Victorian government schools prepare an Annual Report by 30 April each year, for publication on the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority State Register.
• The Annual Report must be completed and attested to by the principal and school council president in the Strategic Planning Online Tool (SPOT), following endorsement by the school council.

Details

The Annual Report provides principals and school councils with an opportunity to share the year’s achievements and progress with the school community. This includes reflecting on the school’s performance and explaining the impact of school improvement efforts on student outcomes.

The preparation and publication of an Annual Report is a legislative and regulatory requirement for all schools under the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 (Vic), Ministerial Order 1280 and the National Education Agreement 2008. It reflects the Department of Education's commitment to building pride and confidence in our government schools and highlights the importance of transparent communication about school performance with our school communities.

Annual Reports are presented to the school community via a public meeting of the school council, and are published on the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) State Register.

Preparing the Annual Report

The Annual Report must be completed and attested to by the principal and school council president in the Strategic Planning Online Tool (SPOT), following endorsement by the school council.

The Annual Report is prepared in 2 parts:

• a performance summary which details the school’s performance from the past year and trends across a 4-year period. The performance summary is downloadable via the Annual Report module of SPOT
• the ‘About our school’ commentary which is prepared by the principal and outlines the achievements of the school in the previous year.

The Guidance tab includes advice for completing the Annual Report.

Exemptions from completing an Annual Report

All schools that were operating for the entire 2022 school year are required to complete an Annual Report for 2022.

Schools who commenced operations in 2022 are required to complete an Annual Report if they were operating for the entire school year.

The following schools are not required to prepare a 2022 Annual Report:

• schools that closed in 2022
• new schools in 2023, including those formed through a merger or de-merger
• previous entities that formed part of merged or de-merged schools are considered as closed.

Guidance for non-compliant schools

Principals of schools that are not compliant with the Minimum Standards or Child Safe Standards cannot attest to the Annual Report. If you have been advised that your school is not compliant, or are concerned that this may be the case, please contact the department’s School Compliance Unit for support to become compliant, phone: 03 9084 8788 or email: school.compliance@education.vic.gov.au

Guidance for hub and annexe schools

Schools in hub and annexe arrangements must each have a stand-alone Annual Report, with endorsement by the respective school council and attestation by the school council president. When preparing to complete the Annual Report, principals of annexe schools should contact spot.support@education.vic.gov.au for technical assistance.

Related policies

• Annual Implementation Plan (AIP)
• Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO)
• Minimum Standards and School Registration
• School Strategic Plan

Relevant legislation

• Education and Training Reform Act 2006 (Vic)
• Education and Training Reform Regulations 2017 (Vic)
• Ministerial Order 1280

Guidance

This guidance contains the following chapters:

• Step by step guide to completing the Annual Report
• Principal checklist
• Completing the ‘About our school’ commentary in SPOT
• Attestation and endorsement
• Access to SPOT for School Council presidents
• Quality assurance
• Sharing the Annual Report with the school community

Step by step guide to completing the Annual Report

This section covers the key steps for completing the Annual Report:

• Step 1: Prepare for the Annual Report cycle, including the principal or delegate organising a school council meeting in March or April to endorse the Annual Report and checking the school council president’s @education account is up to date so they can access the Strategic Planning Online Tool (SPOT)
• Step 2: Principal reviews the Performance Summary in SPOT
• Step 3: Principal completes the ‘About our school’ commentary in SPOT
• Step 4: Principal attests the draft Annual Report in SPOT
• Step 5: Annual Report is presented and endorsed at a meeting of school council
• Step 6: School council president attests the Annual Report in SPOT by 30 April
• Step 7: Department quality assurance process
• Step 8: Share the Annual Report with the school community

The Annual Report is completed in the Strategic Planning Online Tool (SPOT). To access your school’s Annual Report:

• log on to SPOT (staff login required)
• on your school homepage under ‘Annual Report to the school community’ select ‘2022’ from the drop-down box and click ‘Manage report’.

Please note, hub and annex schools must complete their own Annual Report, with endorsement by the respective school council and attestation by the school council president. Principals of annex schools can contact spot.support@education.vic.gov.au for SPOT technical support.

Step 1: Prepare for the Annual Report cycle (February/March)

Prepare for the Annual Report cycle including the principal or delegate organising a school council meeting in March or April to endorse the Annual Report and checking the school council president’s @education account is up to date so they can access SPOT.

• Organise to present the draft Annual Report at a school council meeting prior to 30 April.
• Confirm that the school council president can access their @education email, and the account details are up to date, so they can log in to SPOT.
• Principals of schools that are non-compliant with the Minimum Standards or Child Safe Standards cannot attest to the Annual Report. If you have been advised that your school is not compliant, please contact the department’s School Compliance Unit for support to become. compliant, phone: 03 9084 8788 or email: school.compliance@education.vic.gov.au

Step 2: Principal reviews the school’s Performance Summary and uploads school logo (March)

• All schools receive a Performance Summary which details the school’s performance for the past year and trends across a 4-year period.
• Principals should review the Performance Summary in SPOT and consider how this may inform the ‘About our school’ commentary.
• Principals should upload their school logo on the ‘Performance Summary’ tab in SPOT.

Step 3: Principal completes the ‘About our school’ commentary in SPOT

• The ‘About our school’ commentary is prepared by the principal, supported by relevant leadership staff.
• Schools should use the ‘About our school’ commentary to give further context to data contained in the Performance Summary. In 2021, this may include discussion of remote and flexible learning.
• Schools are required by legislation to address the following areas in their ‘About our school’ commentary:
  • school vision and values
  • commentary on progress towards strategic goals
  • commentary analysing student attendance for the year.
• Schools can ensure they address these legislative requirements by following the guidance available on the ‘About our school’ commentary tab in SPOT.

Step 4: Principal attests draft Annual Report (March)

• Once the ‘About our school’ commentary has been completed, the principal is able to attest the draft Annual Report in SPOT.
• Further guidance on this process can be found in attestation and endorsement chapter of this topic.

Step 5: Annual Report presented and endorsed at a meeting of school council (March/April)

• The draft Annual Report must be endorsed at a meeting of the school council and noted in the meeting minutes.
• The draft Annual Report for presentation to school council can be downloaded from the ‘Attest and view report’ tab in SPOT after principal attestation.

Step 6: School council president attests the Annual Report by 30 April (April)

• Once the draft Annual Report is endorsed by school council, the school council president can attest the draft Annual Report in SPOT.
• Further guidance on this process can be found in the Attestation and endorsement chapter of this topic.

Step 7: Department quality assurance process (April to June)

• Principals may be contacted by the department to update their Annual Report if their Annual Report is found to not meet the legislative and quality requirements.
• Once you receive notification that your Annual Report has either not been selected for quality assurance, or has passed quality assurance, download the final Annual Report from SPOT, including cover page, attestations and commentary.
• Further guidance on this process can be found in the Quality assurance chapter of this topic.

Step 8: Share the 2022 Annual Report with the school community (July)

• Once the principal and school council president have completed their attestations, a final version of the Annual Report becomes available for download in SPOT in the ‘Attest and view report’ tab.
• It is a legislative and regulatory requirement that the final, fully attested Annual Report is shared with the school community and presented at a public meeting of the school council.
• Schools will receive an email notification from SPOT when the quality assurance process has been completed and their finalised Annual Report can be shared. It is recommended that schools share their Annual Reports with the school community at the start of Term 3.
• Schools are encouraged to publish the Annual Report on their school website. Schools are also asked to share the Annual Report in ways that best meet the needs of their community, for example, providing hard copies of the report.

Principal checklist

To prepare for the completion of the Annual Report in the Strategic Planning Online Tool (SPOT), principals should complete the following actions.

March

• Organise a school council meeting before 30 April to present and seek endorsement of the draft Annual Report. It is recommended that this meeting is arranged for Term 1 due to the timing of the school holidays
• Confirm the school council president can access their @education email, and the account details are up to date, so they can log in to SPOT. Please refer to the Access to SPOT for school council presidents chapter for further details
• If you are concerned that your school may not be compliant with one or more of the Minimum Standards for School Registration, contact the department’s School Compliance Unit for support, phone: 03 9084 8788 or email: school.compliance@education.vic.gov.au
• Review the school’s performance summary on SPOT (staff login required)
• Complete the ‘About our school’ commentary on SPOT and attest the draft Annual Report
• Download the draft Annual Report for presentation to school council

Before 30 April

• Present the draft Annual Report at a school council meeting for endorsement
• After endorsement by the school council, ensure the school council president attests the Annual Report in SPOT

May/June

• Update your Annual Report, if required, as a result of the quality assurance process run by the department
• Once you receive notification that your Annual Report has either not been selected for quality assurance, or has passed quality assurance, download the final Annual Report from SPOT, including cover page, attestations and commentary
• Share the final Annual Report with the school community via the school website

July

• Share the final Annual Report with the school community at a public meeting of the school council

Completing the ‘About our school’ commentary in SPOT

The ‘About our school’ commentary is prepared in SPOT by the principal, supported by relevant leadership staff.

Schools should use the ‘About our school’ commentary to give further context to data contained in the Performance Summary.

Schools are required by legislation to address the following areas in their ‘About our school’ commentary:

• school vision and values
• commentary on progress towards strategic goals
• commentary analysing student attendance for the year.

While the Annual Report is a legislated requirement, it is also a meaningful opportunity for schools to communicate with their community. Schools are encouraged to write their ‘About our school’ commentary in a simple and succinct narrative style. Importantly, schools should articulate their responses using plain-English vocabulary, avoiding jargon and other terminology that may be unfamiliar or inaccessible to the audience.

The ‘About our school’ commentary contains the following sections, with further detail outlined below:

• School context
• Progress towards strategic goals, student outcomes and student engagement:
  • Learning
  • Wellbeing
  • Engagement
• Other highlights from the school year (optional)
• Financial performance

Completing the ‘School context’ section (approximately 300 words)

This section of the ‘About our school’ commentary introduces the school and its key contextual factors.

When completing the ‘School context’ section, schools should provide a clear and simple overview of key information about their school. The vision and values of the school should provide framing for this section.

Schools should include the following information in this section:

• an outline of the school vision and values
• school size and structure, including the number of staff
• geographic location
• social and enrolment characteristics
• brief mention of any other notable features of the school (can be elaborated on in upcoming sections if desired).

Completing the ‘Progress towards strategic goals, student outcomes, and student engagement’ section (approximately 900 words)

This section of the ‘About our school’ commentary presents highlights related to the school’s progress towards the goals, strategies and student outcomes outlined in the school’s Strategic Plan and Annual Implementation Plan.

This section provides context for the school community to easily interpret the data featured in the performance summary component of the Annual Report.

Schools should aim to outline approximately 2 to 4 ways the school progressed their strategic goals and supported improvement in learning and wellbeing outcomes. Where appropriate, schools should reference learning and wellbeing data from the performance summary (or other sources as appropriate) to illustrate highlights.

Similarly, schools should aim to outline approximately 2 to 4 highlights related to engagement, which is a key enabler of both student learning and wellbeing, in line with FISO 2.0. Schools should include commentary analysing student attendance for the year, and may also reference other activities related to attendance and retention, student voice and agency, or extracurricular activities and events that support engagement.

Completing the optional ‘Other highlights from the school year’ section (approximately 200 words)

This section of the ‘About our school’ commentary provides an optional opportunity for schools to share other highlights from the school year that may not fit in the above learning, wellbeing or engagement sections.

When completing this optional section, schools could consider significant activities or highlights that brought positive benefit to their school, students or local community, focusing on those things that they are most proud to share with their community

Schools may choose to comment on:

• school camps and excursions
• school productions
• whole school events and/or celebrations
• sporting achievements
• activities undertaken as part of community partnerships or school grants
• environmental programs.

If schools choose not to complete this optional section, their Annual Report will be published with this section hidden.

Completing the ‘Financial performance’ section (approximately 150 words)

This section of the ‘About our school’ commentary outlines the school’s financial position at the conclusion of the previous year. It should support the school community to understand the financial data available through the performance summary.

When completing this section, schools should aim to:

• provide an explanation of the schools’ overall financial position
• identify any extraordinary revenue or expenditure items
• detail any contracts, agreements or arrangements entered into by the school council
• explain the sources of funding the school received, for example, equity funding, special grants or fundraising initiatives, as well as details of any additional state or Australian Government funding the school received beyond the School Resource Package.

Attestation and endorsement

The obligations of attestation and endorsement recognise the different roles and responsibilities of principals, school council presidents, and school councils in relation to school governance, and the importance of the minimum standards in keeping students and staff safe.

By attesting the Annual Report, the principal attests that:

• all teachers at the school meet the registration requirements of the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT)
• the school meets prescribed Minimum Standards for registration as regulated by the Victorian Regulation and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) in accordance with the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 (Vic). This includes schools granted an exemption by the VRQA until 31 December 2021 from the Minimum Standards for student enrolment numbers and/or curriculum framework for school language programs
• the school is compliant with the Child Safe Standards prescribed in Ministerial Order 1359 – Implementing the Child Safe Standards – Managing the risk of child abuse in schools (PDF).

Principals of schools that are not compliant with the Minimum Standards or Child Safe Standards cannot attest to the Annual Report. If you are concerned that your school may not be compliant please contact the department’s School Compliance Unit for support, phone: 03 9084 8788 or email: school.compliance@education.vic.gov.au

By attesting the Annual Report, the school council president attests that the Annual Report:

• has been tabled and endorsed at a meeting of the school council under the Education and Training Reform Regulations 2017 (Vic)
• will be publicly shared with the school community.

How to attest in SPOT

Principals

To attest the Annual Report in SPOT, principals should follow the steps outlined below:

• Log on to the Strategic Planning Online Tool (SPOT) (staff login required)
• On your school homepage under ‘Annual Report to the School Community’ select ‘2022’ from the drop-down box and click ‘Manage report’
• Navigate to the ‘Attest and view report’ tab
• Attest the Annual Report by clicking on the ‘attest’ button

School council presidents

School council presidents will receive an email to alert them that the Annual Report is ready for their attestation once it has been attested by the principal.

School council presidents should ensure they wait for school council to endorse the Annual Report before attesting to this in SPOT.

To attest the Annual Report, school council presidents can follow the link provided in the email alert, or follow the steps outlined below:

• Log on to the Strategic Planning Online Tool (SPOT) (@education username and password required)
• On the school’s homepage under ‘Annual Report to the School Community’ select ‘2022’ from the drop-down box and click ‘Manage report’
• Navigate to the ‘Attest and view report’ tab
• Attest the Annual Report by clicking on the ‘attest’ button, under the ‘School council president: attest’ heading

If the school council requests changes to the Annual Report prior to providing their endorsement:

• it is recommended that it is motioned and noted in meeting minutes that the Annual Report is endorsed by the school council pending changes – this ensures the principal does not have to take the Annual Report back to a subsequent school council meeting for endorsement
• where changes to the Annual Report are required, principals can click the ‘Edit About our school commentary’ button, under the ‘Attest and view report’ tab in SPOT, and make any adjustments required in the ‘About our school’ tab
• once the required changes have been made to the Annual Report the principal can re-attest
• an email notification will then be sent to the school council president’s @education email account prompting them to attest to school council’s endorsement of the annual report in SPOT.

Note: If your school council president is experiencing difficulties attesting the Annual Report in SPOT, please refer to the Access to SPOT for school council presidents chapter for guidance on troubleshooting.

Making changes to the Annual Report after attestation

• If changes are required after principal attestation, click the ‘Edit About our school commentary’ button under the ‘Attest and view report’ tab. This will revert the Annual Report to draft and the principal will be able to make any changes.
• School council presidents have read-only access to the Annual Report – they cannot add comments or make changes to the Annual Report.
• If the school council president has already attested the Annual Report and changes need to be made, please use the ‘Report an issue’ button on SPOT to request the Annual Report to be reverted to draft.
• After making changes the principal should re-attest the Annual Report, share changes with the school council, and ask the school council president to re-attest.

Access to SPOT for school council presidents

If a school council president is experiencing difficulties attesting the Annual Report in the Strategic Planning Online Tool (SPOT) (staff login required), schools can refer to the following.

• Ensure that the school council president can log in to SPOT with their @education email and password. This email account is managed at the school level, similar to those of school-based staff. For instructions on how to update your school council president’s password please refer to the Knowledge base intranet page (staff login required), noting that the same eduMail rules apply for @education email management.
• Once in SPOT, check the principal attestation has been completed by accessing the ‘Attest and view report’ tab. If completed, principal attestation will show the principal’s name and the date and time of submission.
• School council president attestation can only occur when the school council president is logged into SPOT on their own account. If the school council president is using the principal’s computer, SPOT may have automatically logged on via the principal’s account. Try using another device or entering private browsing mode on your web browser to enable the school council president to log in correctly.
• If these steps are completed and they still cannot see the Annual Report, please contact SPOT support by clicking the ‘Report an issue’ button on SPOT.

Quality assurance

Each year the department quality assures a random sample of Annual Reports to ensure they meet quality standards.

To meet quality standards, Annual Reports must:

• provide commentary on the schools’ progress towards their strategic goals
• be written in a clear and succinct narrative style accessible to the school community
• be written for a public audience
• omit individual staff and contractor names, for privacy reasons
• contain minimal spelling and grammatical errors
• include a school logo.

Schools will receive an automatic email from the Strategic Planning Online Tool (SPOT) (staff login required) to let them know when they have passed quality assurance, if any action is required to meet quality assurance standards, or if they have not been selected for quality assurance.

Where a schools’ Annual Report does not meet quality standards, it will be returned to the school with feedback through the SPOT platform. Schools can check the quality assurance status of their Annual Report in SPOT, by clicking on the ‘Quality assurance’ tab in the Annual Report and looking under the ‘Quality assurance status’ and ‘Quality assurance timeline’ headings.

Once a school has been notified that they have not been selected for quality assurance, or have passed quality assurance, the Annual Report can be shared with the school community.

Sharing the Annual Report with the school community

Once the principal and school council president have completed their attestations, a final version of the Annual Report becomes available for download in the Strategic Planning Online Tool (SPOT) (staff login required) in the ‘Attest and view report’ tab.

Schools will receive an email notification from SPOT when the quality assurance process has been completed and their finalised Annual Report can be shared.

Once you receive notification that your Annual Report has either not been selected for quality assurance, or has passed quality assurance, download the final Annual Report from SPOT, including cover page, attestations and commentary.

It is a legislative and regulatory requirement that the final, fully attested Annual Report is shared with the school community via a public meeting of the school council.

It is further recommended schools share the document by uploading it to the public section of their school website. Schools are also asked to share the Annual Report in ways that best meet the needs of their community, for example, providing hard copies of the report in addition to the online copy.

It is recommended that schools share their Annual Reports with the school community at the start of Term 3, 2023.

Resources

Useful resouces

• Example Annual Report (coming soon)
• 2023 improvement cycle planner for school leaders (DOCX) (staff login required)
• 2023 improvement cycle planner for SEILs (DOCX) (staff login required)

Useful links

• Complete the 2020 Annual Report using the Strategic Planning Online Tool (SPOT) (staff login required)
• Update school council president details: eduPass Knowledgebase (staff login required)

Useful contacts

• For SPOT technical support, please email: spot.support@education.vic.gov.au
• For questions regarding the Annual Report process, please email: improvement.support@education.vic.gov.au