Student records governance: access, retention, audit

Why governance matters for student support

Case notes, NCCD evidence, wellbeing check-ins and safeguarding records describe children at their most vulnerable. Families trust schools to keep that information safe, use it only to support the student, and share it only when the law or the family allows.

Governance is also what lets a school answer hard questions later. A parent asks who has read their child's file. A records authority asks how long notes are kept. A staff member's access needs to be reviewed after they change roles. A laptop is lost. Each of these needs an answer drawn from records, not recollection.

The building blocks of good records governance

Know who accessed what

An access log records when staff view or change a student's record. It is the basis for answering a family's question, reviewing access after a concern, and showing that staff only open records they need. Logs are only useful if someone looks at them, so build a regular access review into the year: once a term for staff with broad access is a sensible starting point.

Show involvement without exposing content

Many staff need to know that a student is already being supported, and by whom, without reading the notes. A record of involvement, showing who had contact and when, helps staff coordinate without widening access to the content itself.

Keep records for the right length of time

Each state and sector has its own records authority and retention schedules. Some records, such as those relating to child safety, are kept for decades. Others can be destroyed after a set period. Find your schedule, write down the retention period for each kind of record you hold, and apply it consistently.

Use holds and two-person approval

When a record may be needed for a legal matter, an inquiry or a complaint, place a hold so it cannot be destroyed. Make destruction a two-step process: one person requests it, a different person approves it. That protects staff as much as students.

Handle access and correction requests

Families and students can ask to see or correct the information a school holds about them. Record each request, how identity was checked, the decision and when it was completed.

Respond to privacy incidents on time

Under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, organisations it covers must assess a suspected eligible data breach within 30 days of becoming aware of it. Government schools may be covered by state privacy laws instead. Either way, log each incident when it is discovered, record what was done to contain it, and track any notifications. The privacy compliance pages summarise the frameworks by state and sector.

How Descant supports records governance

Logging views of student records

When staff open a student's record in Descant, the view is recorded in the school's audit log, including which part of the record was opened. Changes, downloads such as handover PDFs, and key actions such as running a year transition are logged too.

Audit log

School leaders (owners and line managers) can open the Audit log, which lists logged actions, filtered by the kind of action, the staff member and a date range. It answers "who opened this student's record last month?" without searching through system files.

Record of involvement

The record of involvement lets staff look up a student and see who has had contact with them, when, and what kind of contact it was, without showing any of the content. Confidential notes appear only as "Confidential note". Mandatory reports do not appear at all for staff without access to them, because even the existence of a report is sensitive.

Records governance settings

A records governance page brings the rest together for authorised staff:

• Retention policy: a retention period in years for each record class: case records, support notes, assessments, consent records, NCCD evidence, safeguarding records and communications. The form starts at 7 years (45 for safeguarding records); change each period to match your own schedule.
• Legal holds: a hold on the whole school, one student, one case or a specific record.
• Controlled disposal: a request for disposal goes to a second person for approval. The person who requested it cannot approve it. A disposal is blocked until the retention period has been met, and while a legal hold is active, while an access or correction request is open, or while safeguarding records for that student are inside their retention period or also concern another student.
• Access and correction requests: each request is recorded and tracked through identity checks, review and completion.
• Privacy incidents: suspected or confirmed breaches, inappropriate access and lost records are logged with when they occurred and were discovered, with a reminder of the 30-day assessment timeframe for suspected and confirmed breaches.
• Access review evidence: a list of access reviews and their status.

Disposal requests are off until the school switches them on in its retention policy. The records governance page is not available in the 14-day demo school.

Where student data is kept

Student data in Descant is stored in Australia. The security page explains how, and the privacy policy explains what Descant collects and why.

Common questions

Does Descant set our retention periods? No. The form starts with placeholder periods (7 years, or 45 for safeguarding records); change them to match your state or sector's schedule. Descant applies them and blocks disposal that would break them.

Can staff delete a case note on their own? No. Disposal goes through a request and a second person's approval, with the checks above.

Can a family see the audit log? The Audit log is for school leaders. If a family asks who accessed their child's record, leaders can use it to answer, in line with your school's access request process.

See how Descant works, or start a demo to see the Audit log and record of involvement on a made-up school.