Greetings Colleagues and Friends

Welcome to our final newsletter for 2019 and what a year it has been!

As you read this newsletter you can easily see the work that has been undertaken to advocate and act on your behalf over the last 12 months.

We all undertsand and appreciate how busy you are leading your local school community, but I urge you to engage with some of our communications to ensure you hear the latest about our work so that you are informed and know where to find information as and when you need it.

Recently you have received an invitation to complete our 3rd national survey. Please participate in this short survey and help us to continually refine and improve what we do as an Association.

If you have not already completed the survey click the link here.  If you have, thank you for supporting us and we sincerely thank our corporate partner MSP for their sponsorship of this intitiative.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ACPPA2019survey

Last week the ACPPA Board did a one year review of our Strategic Plan. The aim of the process was to review our work over the last 12 months to assess our success in achieving our goals so far.

Many thanks to John and Sharee from tatu who have been assisting us with this important process.

It was a pleasure to host both Mark Grant, CEO of AITSL (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership) and David De Carvalho, CEO of ACARA (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority)

Discussions with Mark centred around Teacher and Principal Standards, the gap between lead teacher and Principal, red tape reduction for schools and phonics.

Discussion with David centred around the proposed updates and changes to the MY School website, and the review of Australian Curriculum.

ACPPA is proud to be developing strong relationships with these key educational bodies as we continue to advocate, communicate and connect on your behalf.

As is customary at our Board meetings, we invite Diocesan Directors to join us to provide their perspective on Catholic education as well as an update on the intitiatives of their Diocese.

We welcomed Tony Farley, Executive Director of Sydney Catholic Schools, who passionately spoke about the role of Catholic schools and the importance of a faith community in all its forms.

Tony's vision for Sydney Catholic schools is to continue building a strong and vibrant system through streamlining and refing their structure to be more connected and collaborative.

ACPPA continues to strengthen our relationship with the National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC) through representation on the Catholic Education Stakeholders Forum which also includes the NCEC, Catholic Secondary Principals (CaSPA) and Catholic School Parents (CSPA).

As part of this relationship, it was a privilege to hear from Jacinta Collins, NCEC Executive Director, who joined the Board for an informal conversation and some Q&A.

Jacinta spoke of the role of the NCEC in supporting schools in these changing times, especially around funding and enrolments. Jacinta also spoke of her role in working closely with the Bishops to develop the scope and breadth of the NCEC as it liaises with Governments to strengthen Catholic education.

Thanks to Tyson and Josephine Brennan from Brennan Law Partners, who met with the Board this week to speak of practical ways they can support our Association.

ACPPA has partnered with Brennan Law to utilise their services from a national perspective to assist us with legal services around development and refinenment of Constitutions, policy and procedures, by-laws etc

In 2020 we will share further initiatives from Brennan Law which may be of assistance to Catholic Primary Principals. 

ACPPA has been busy working on your behalf:

• Attended the CSPA Parent Engagement Toolkit Launch at Parliament House
• Participated in School Stakeholder Forum and Capacity to Contribute workshop in Canberra
• Prepared submission for comment on the exposure draft of the Review of the Melbourne Declaration
• Attended Parliamentary Friends of Catholic Education function at Parliament House
• Articles published in Education journals.
• Continuing planning for the 2020 ACPPA Research project into Initial Teacher Education
• Presented the work of ACPPA to Principals in the Wagga Diocese

At this final meeting in Sydney, we thanked and farewelled Toni Kalat, our representative from Western Austrlia.

Toni has been a thoughful and committed member of the Board for a number of years, providing both challenge and insight from a WA perspective.

We wish Toni well as she continues her work in Catholic Education.

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! 

2020 NCEC conference Melbourne – 6^th-9^th September 2020

Trans-Tasman Conference Melbourne 15^th-18^th September 2020