NSW Student Wellbeing - Understanding and Initiating a Formal Caution

This help article is relevant to New South Wales schools only.

The NSW Suspension process has been developed in accordance with the Department of Education Student Behaviour Policy and its accompanying specifications.  Terminology relating to the policy will be used where it is relevant to a specific feature.  This will assist with the understanding of the process.

Before a student can receive a Formal Caution a negative behaviour incident must exist.   It is therefore necessary to create a record in the Behaviour Incidents' Register first.

The Formal Caution/Suspension process utilises 2 separate 'designated' pages.  The Suspension Post Page is used to hold the internal formal caution/suspension information and will be closed to caregiver viewing.  The Suspension Letter Page is designed to hold the populated DoE templated suspension letters that will become visible to caregivers once published.  It is important to ensure that these pages are set up correctly before beginning, as they will hold sensitive information.  A Formal Caution Post page and Formal Caution Letter page will exist in your Hero site.  Contact Hero Customer Support if you do not wish to have either of these pages.  The Formal Caution/Suspension process can be used as a stand alone feature, however, creating posts and letters will provide a better historical record along with the ability to analyse data using Tag Data Sheets.

The details of a Formal Caution are uploaded to the DoE every time a change is made.

The following DoE specific parameters are used when creating a Formal Caution.  These parameters will be amended if DoE policy requirements are updated.

• A Formal Caution is valid for a maximum of 50 days.
• A Formal Caution can be carried over into the next calendar year.  If attempting to do so the next calendar year dates need to exist in School Dates.
• Only Principals can issue a Formal Caution (Hero also permits a Principal's Delegate to perform this function as the intended use of the Principal's Delegate is to stand in for the Principal when not available).

The Director, Education Leadership (DEL) plays an important role in the suspension process.   Prior to using the suspension process, a school needs to set up the DEL information.

SETTING THE DEL OPTIONS

1. Navigate to the Administration menu.  If you have a wide-screen device this will already be visible on the left-hand side of your screen. If not, click on the Administration menu icon at the top left-hand side of your screen.

2.  Under the heading Options select NSW Department of Education

3.  Enter the DEL Name, Contact Email Address and Contact Phone Number in the fields provided. 

4.  Upload an electronic signature to be used when printing a caregiver suspension or explusion letter.

UNDERSTANDING THE FORMAL CAUTION OPTIONS

Throughout the process several options will be available for all stages.

1.  The Information icon will display the internal post created for the Formal Caution.  This gets its information from the designated Suspension Post page.  The internal post will collect relevant up to date information.

2.  The Envelope icon will display any caregiver letters relating to the Formal Caution.  This information is obtained from the designated Suspension Letter page.

3.  The Edit icon provides the ability to edit the information previously entered.

ISSUING A FORMAL CAUTION

1. Navigate to the Administration menu.  

2.  Click STUDENT WELLBEING, followed by BEHAVIOUR INCIDENTS to view a list of all students with entries in the current year.

3.  Utilise filtering to find the student requiring a Formal Caution.  NB:  An associated behaviour incident MUST exist to initiate the process.

4.  Click the Halt Icon to create an entry in the Suspension Register   NB:  An Administrator will be able to action this process but only a Principal or Principal's Delegate will be able to take it any further.

5.  The action above will create a Pending entry in the Suspensions Register and will take you from Behaviour Incidents to Suspensions.  The incident you are working on will be partially highlighted green.   The Name, Year and Class columns are frozen so will remain static when scrolling horizontally.

6.  This action will also update the Pending count in the Administration Menu as an alert that action is required.

7.  If you are a Principal or Principal's Delegate, click the arrow to create the Formal Caution.   If you are not a Principal or Principal's Delegate you will only see the information icon which shows the behaviour incident post.  The red alert indicates that DEL approval is required.  This will be addressed later in this article.  NB:  A Formal Caution can be deleted but a Suspension cannot.  

7a.  There is no turning back from this point as the Formal Caution will upload to the DoE once it is created.  A warning popup will be displayed to prevent you proceeding in error.

8.  The entry screen will be displayed with Formal Caution as the default.    Refer to this article if you wish to create a Suspension rather than a Formal Caution. 

Understanding, Initiating and Updating a Suspension

9.  Complete the required parameters.

• The Suspension Reason will be pre-populated with the Behaviour Category and cannot be edited.  If the category of 'Other - Behaviour of Concern' was previously selected a Details field will be available for further information.
• Enter the Start Date for the Formal Caution.  Be accurate as this cannot be later changed.  If this error message is displays, it indicates that the school calendar has not been set up with sufficient dates to cater for the duration. CANCEL the entry and set up your school dates.

• The Duration will be set to maximum of 50 days but can be amended.
• The checkbox beside the Immediate threat field should be left blank for a Formal Caution.

• Set the Caregiver Meeting Date if known.  This can be entered at a later date.

• The Nominated School Contact will come from the Behaviour Incident - 'Referred to' field but can be changed.  Start typing or click the spacebar for a selection list of staff.
• Select the Caregiver who is to receive the Formal Caution letter.  Only Primary, Secondary and Caseworker Caregivers will be available for selection.   Only one caregiver can be selected so it needs to be the student's main point of communication.

10.  Enter the Details of Concerning Behaviour and the Behavioural Expectations.  

11.  The system is designed to create a post on a designated internal Suspension Posts Page.  Uncheck 'Create Post on Suspension Page', if you do not which a post to be created in this instance.

12.  The system is designed to enable documentation to be sent to caregivers.  Click ADD ATTACHMENTS to upload any supporting documentation required by the caregiver.  This will show as a post attachment on the Suspension Letter page.

13.  Click NEXT.

14.  The caregiver letter will be displayed in editable form.  Check the letter carefully and apply any custom changes.  NB:  These will be created in Draft so will not be visible to the caregiver until published.   

Notes:

• It is not necessary to insert a signature at this point.  When printing the formal caution the signature uploaded to your school settings will be automatically inserted.
• Once the formal caution has been created any editing of detail via this process will NOT update the letter.   An already created letter can be edited or deleted by a Principal or Principal's Delegate via the designated Suspension Letter page.   This will amend the post only.

15.  Click PREVIOUS to go back and make changes or CONFIRM to complete the process.

16.  Click FORMAL CAUTIONS to view the entry in its next phase.

17.  The caregiver meeting date is a mandatory field but may not be known when creating the Formal Caution.  If the date has not been entered the Missing Info icon will be displayed.  Click the icon to enter the caregiver meeting date.