Time is running out and there is still an estimated 500,000 students who have not yet had a school photo taken. We need your help to get back into schools.

The Department of Education and Training Victoria has declared that school photos cannot be taken in Victorian schools during Term 4. Aside from giving families a lasting memory, school photos are an essential school service. They are used in every school for the purposes of student and staff identification (including ID cards and medical alerts), as well as archival/historical records, and to mark milestones such as graduations.

Like many Victorian businesses, school photo companies have been hit hard this year with over 500 workers being stood down since March. As a united body, changes have been made to procedures and product offerings to enable us to safely get back into schools and work with those that have missed out. 

Families have missed out on so much this year, we feel that it is important for them to have a lasting memory of their 2020 school year, especially for students starting school or graduating in Year 6 or Year 12. These are memories that families treasure and that cannot be recreated in 2021.

School administrators and educators are asking for school photos to be allowed as they believe this service to be essential. Essential for school administration and essential for students and parents/guardians to give them an emotional record of the school year they are proud to have endured and survived.

The photography businesses of Victoria are hopeful of this decision being overturned so that they can photograph as many schools as possible in the little time they have left of this year. They want to ensure ALL schools receive 2020 student images, not only for administration and archiving but to bring some pleasure and normality to a year that has been full of disappointment to many. It will also allow an industry that is on its knees to give work back to over 500 local employees and keep themselves financially viable.

Victorian photography companies have agreed to ensuring their staff complete daily health checks before starting each day, have created entirely touch free photographic processes to use within the school and can easily maintain Social Distancing within our schools during the photographic process.

We ask that you reconsider your decision to ban school photographs from being taken in Victorian schools in Term 4 – there is a lot more to lose than to be gained by this decision. This will be a much needed boost to the mental health of so many people; school staff, parents and students alike.