Greetings Colleagues and Friends,

Welcome to our May eNewsletter. 

Our board meeting was held in Melbourne earlier this week over a day and a half. After our meeting, one Director from each State and Territory represent ACPPA at the National Advisory Council of APPA to ensure we have a good representation across each sector: Catholic, Government and Independent Principals.

It has been an interesting few months, with the Federal election, NAPLAN testing issues and review submissions and the ongoing discussion around Principal health and wellbeing.  If you have any opinions or thoughts about these issues at a local level, please contact us, as that is one of the ways we advocate for you nationally and the information below is for you to be better informed at a State and local level so that we become stronger and more collaborative on a national level.

We continue to be committed to being truly representative and active to support every Catholic Primary Principal and we need your interest and input to keep growing.

Have a read of our newsletter and get in touch. We welcome your thoughts and comments.

Thnaks for all you do in Education

Brad Gaynor

ACPPA President

At each of our Board meetings we are meeting with Diocesan Directors to further establish strong and positive relationships with Catholic education authorities across the country.

It was a pleasure to be able to welcome Audrey Brown, Director of Education in the Diocese of Ballarat, who joined us as our guest speaker.  Audrey generously gave her time to explore and discuss both the achievements and challenges of Catholic education in the present social climate.

One of the key points of discussion was the ways in which Ballarat Diocese are supporting Principals wellbeing and looking at new and alternate ways to do this creatively.

Audrey expressed her appreciation of the work of ACPPA and encouraged us to be at the forefront of the national agenda.

It is always a pleasure to work alongside our valued partners Camp Australia and Teeth on Wheels.

Romney Nelson from Teeth on Wheels and Michael Reid from Camp Australia presented to the Board in Melbourne to give an update of their services to schools.

It was also our pleasure to host them at our Board dinner.

The Australian Catholic University (ACU) recently released a report titled The Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey 2018 Data.​

​CCI in past years has used Catholic ONLY data sets supplied by ACU to produce a CCI Catholic Principal Health & Wellbeing Report.​

​This year CCI have been keen to observe the differences between Catholic, Government and Independent schools as well as Catholic Primary versus Catholic Secondary Schools. 

CCI have reviewed the 2018 survey data in detail and extracted the relevant data. 

ACPPA has had significant input into this area with much work still to be done. ​

Some initiatives of whcih we have been a part include:

Principal Health and Wellbeing Survey: ‘Back to Balance’ released at the APPA 2017 National Conference in Brisbane. ​

​Principal Wellbeing Research Project – ACPPA & Camp Australia released 2015 AGM.

​Health and Wellbeing Surveys – Philip Riley, PhD, yearly since 2011​

We acknowledge and thank Catholic Church Insurance for their work in this important field and look forward to continuing to work constructively together in the future.

Click here for the full report.

An important element of our meeting was hearing from Sheree Limbrick, the CEO of Catholic Professional Standards, who explained the Standards (below) and the implications for both Church and Catholic education organisations. We apppreciate her time, especially on the eve of releasing the Standards nationally.

Excerpt form CPSL media release:

Catholic Professional Standards Limited has released the historic National Catholic Safeguarding Standards in response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Speaking shortly after the release, CEO Sheree Limbrick said that during the Royal Commission, Catholic leaders committed to establishing nationally consistent standards and to the audit and public reporting of the compliance of Church Authorities with those standards.

“The National Catholic Safeguarding Standards and their supporting criteria build on the Royal Commission’s child safe standards and harmonise with the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations,” Ms Limbrick said.

National Catholic Safeguarding Standards

Standard 1: Committed leadership, governance and culture Child safeguarding is embedded in the entity’s leadership, governance and culture

Standard 2: Children are safe, informed and participate Children are informed about their rights, participate in decisions affecting them and are taken seriously

Standard 3: Partnering with families, carers and communities Families, carers and communities are informed and involved in promoting child safeguarding

Standard 4: Equity is promoted, and diversity is respected Equity is upheld and diverse needs respected in policy and practice

Standard 5: Robust human resource management People working with children are suitable and supported to reflect child safeguarding values in practice

Standard 6: Effective complaints management Processes for raising concerns and complaints are responsive, understood, accessible and used by children, families, carers, communities and personnel

Standard 7: Ongoing education and training Personnel are equipped with knowledge, skills and awareness to keep children safe through information, ongoing education and training

Standard 8: Safe physical and online environments Physical and online environments promote safety and contain appropriate safeguards to minimise the opportunity for children to be harmed

Standard 9: Continuous improvement Entities regularly review and improve implementation of their systems for keeping children safe

Standard 10: Policies and procedures support child safety
Policies and procedures document how the entity is safe for children

This week I have had the pleasure of visiting both schools and fellow Principals of CPPAWA to discuss issues affecting them and our broader system. We discussed compliance and accountability issues, school leadership, quality professional learning and principal well being.

I would like to thank Peter Cutrona of St. Kieran’s, Tuart Hill and Pina Hutcheson of St Peter's, Inglewood for showing me around their schools and introducing me to their wonderful leaders, staff and students.

While in Western Australia I also had the opportunity to meet with CEWA Executive Director Debra Sayce, Deputy Director Peter Yensch and CPPA President Mark Powell.

We discussed a range of issues including strategic directions, Religious Education, Principal Wellbeing, leadership succession, initial teacher education and centralised compliance and accountability issues. 

In case you missed our first video - 

Please open ACPPA emails when you receive them. If you could spread the word with colleague Principals to engage with ACPPA that would be most appreciasted…together we can be better informed and share your views at national meetings with Ministers and key stakeholders.

ACPPA has been busy working on your behalf:

• Attendance at the VACPSP Conference in Lorne
• Attendance at the Breakthrough Coach course with Principals in Armidale
• Meetings with National Catholic Education Stakeholder Group
• Meetings with both Australian Catholic University and Notre Dame University to foster relationships
• Attendance at the Communications Summit in Sydney
• Creation of Just the ESSENTIALS brief through our App
• Attendance at the ACSP Conference in Sydney
• Hosting of Social function for Primary and Secondary Principals at the Sheraton hotel

Would you like to get together for a drink or a meal when ACPPA meets in a capital city?

We have already received interest from past members…please email us now!

This photo below was taken at the 2005 Conference in Melbourne.

Great opportunties await for interested past ACPPA Executive to catch up occasionally!

Ron Rosentreter and Frank Hennessy Qld; Kevin Clancy SA; Phil Cash Qld; Jim Smith WA.

Please contact Executive Officer – paul.colyer@acppa.catholic.edu.au

or Kevin Clancy kclancy@ozemail.com.au  for more information.

Would you like ACPPA news and feeds straight to your phone… SZapp is here and can be downloaded on your device. Click the side bar to go to app store.

• Visit the app store for apple or playstore for android and type in SZapp in the search field
• Click
  
  
     icon that looks like this

• Click install
• Once installed Click open
• Click region Australia/Pacific
• Start typing Australian Catholic Primary Principals Assoc.
• Our logo and name should appear
• Registration required
• Register by Clicking and sign in with your email
• Create a password

REMEMBER...ACPPA 'Just the ESSENTIALS'    is ONLY available through the APP

Download yours TODAY!