Accessing school records as a victim-survivor

The Restorative Engagement and Support team can help you get your school records.

How to access your records

If you’re a former student who has experienced sexual abuse by an adult in a Victorian government school, our team can get the records for you and support you through the process.

Call us on 03 9057 4500 (business hours).
Email us at rest@education.vic.gov.au.

If you would prefer not to contact our team for your records, you can request your records directly from your school or from the department’s Records team.

For more information on school records, including how to contact your school or the department’s Records team, see Access school student records.

For information on finding other types of historical records, including adoption, foster care and out-of-home care records, see Finding records | vic.gov.au.

Why your records might be helpful

Your school records could include things like enrolment records, year books, photos and school reports.

You might want these documents to help you understand your experiences or to help with making a claim for compensation or redress.

Unfortunately, sometimes these kinds of records may not be available. If this is the case, we can offer an explanation as to why.

This section explains the kinds of information we can and can’t share with you. We can talk you through this in more detail if you contact us.

Here is some of the information we can share with you, if it is still held by the department or the school (noting that some historical records no longer exist):

any record that is about you – such as your enrolment at a school, your school reports, or a school photo of you or your class
the name of a particular employee (for example, the teacher of your class at the school)
the year level when a particular teacher taught you or the subject that a particular teacher taught while you were a student
any action the school or department took to respond to a report of sexual abuse that involved you
the dates an employee worked at a school (if they are no longer employed by the department)
whether an employee is no longer working in a government school
the names of other teachers working at the school while you were enrolled.

We’ll ask to see a copy of your ID, before we give you this information.

There is some information that we can’t share with you for privacy reasons, unless it is under a court order such as a subpoena. This includes:

dates an employee worked at a school (if the person is still employed)
whether other students reported abuse by the same person and, if so, whether the school or department took any disciplinary action (unless that information is already public)
whether there is a limitation on the person that prevents them from being employed at a school.

We know that finding records can be a really important part of understanding your experience, and we welcome you to contact the department’s Restorative Engagement and Support team for assistance.

Education & training

Updated 27 March 2026

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Accessing school records as a victim-survivor

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How to access your records

Why your records might be helpful

Types of records we can share with you

Types of records we can’t share with you