TORONTO - The case of a Toronto-area Grade 1 student who was assaulted by a pair of older boys inside a school washroom earlier this year has critics urging the Ontario government to require schools to report incidents of assault between students.

There's a "loophole'' in existing child-protection legislation and some kids are falling through it, Progressive Conservative critic Frank Klees said Thursday.

Under Ontario law, police and Children's Aid must be notified about cases of child abuse at the hands of a parent, guardian or person of authority, but not when a child is abused or assaulted by another student, Klees said.

"There's no requirement under law for a duty to report student-on-student assault or abuse and that is what has to be addressed,'' he said.

"Every parent in this province wants to know that when their kids are in school, the administration of that school will take every possible step ... to report any assault that's taken place to the parents immediately, and then to the police if in fact it's required.''

Klees cited a case from earlier this year involving the York Catholic District School Board, in which two 13-year-olds allegedly used their belts to assault a Grade 1 student in a school washroom.

The administration never reported the incident to the child's parents or police, who eventually charged the teens after the parents learned what happened.

"The Minister (of Education) needs to take a step to ensure something like this will never happen again,'' said Klees, who wants the changes implemented before classes begin in the fall.

"It's a simple thing. Move forward with an amendment to the existing legislation that will make it mandatory for school administrators to report this kind of assault.''

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne agreed a provincewide protocol on reporting such incidents is necessary and that Ontario is looking into the idea.

A Safe Schools Action Team is already looking into where reporting gaps are happening and what sort of protocol might fix the problem, she said.

The group is expected to report back in the fall.

"We're absolutely clear that there needs to be rules in place about who gets informed, when and how that works,'' Wynne said.

"That shouldn't be up to the discretion of an individual principal. There needs to be protocols in place.''

School boards currently have their own policies on reporting incidents, said Wynne, who admitted the administrators in question did breach board protocol.

Disciplinary action has been taken by the board, she said.

Still, Klees urged the minister to call on the school to issue a formal apology to the child involved in the attack and to his parents.

New Democrat Rosario Marchese suggested it isn't good enough that each board has it's own incident reporting policy and agreed the protocol should be provincewide.

"As long as we create a provincewide protocol so that the expectations are clear to all, both principals and parents, then we'll all feel better and that's what we need.''