Dear Colleagues

As we publish this edition of eTOPICS I am very aware of the difficult circumstances relating to COVID that are present in many of our communities. Please be assured of our thoughts and prayers for each of your communities. All Principals and staff are doing an amazing job under ever changing circumstances.

Again, our Board met virtually this week to continue the work on our national agenda.

We heard from all the representatives of each State and Territory about how the current COVID situation is impacting on schools around the country. Most importantly I asked about the wellbeing of their staff, students, and communities.

Some key aspects from our meeting I wish to share with you are here below:

• We have now completed beneficial meetings with over 16 Diocesan Directors around the country to alert them to our ITE Research project and our ACPPAConnect Principal Wellbeing Portal. These have been really well received and with great interest;
• Mark Grant, CEO AITSL, joined us for an extensive discussion about AITSL priorities including teacher workforce data, initial teacher education, high quality professional learning, behaviour management, workload reduction and teacher mobility;
• The creation and presentation of tailored wellbeing webinars for Principals will be offered during October. More details to follow;
• The association has also developed compliance and risk documents to mitigate risk related to COVID19;
• It was great to be able to welcome first time Principals to ACPPA through a special Welcome Pack delivered to them. This is a new initiative of ACPPA made possible by your Diocesan Directors. If you are a new Principal and did not receive a welcome pack please contact our Executive Officer via the details below.

The development of ACPPAConnect continues to grow with over 500 sessions and 60% open rate by Principals in recent weeks.  If you have not yet had a look, I encourage you to visit our website or click the image below for access with your supplied username and password.  if you don't have this, please contact paul.colyer@acppa.catholic.edu.au

Finally, please consider making your voice count in our ACPPA Initial Teacher Education project by completing the survey and joining a focus group now being held virtually due to COVID. Register you interest now through operations.manager@acppa.catholic.edu.au

On behalf of the Board, I wish you well for the rest of Term 3 and hope that you continue to look after yourselves as you take care of others.

Regards

Brad Gaynor 

President