May 2022 Newsletter

Dear Colleagues

I hope you have all had a wonderful Easter with your families and a well-deserved Term 1 break. Please continue to look after yourselves in Term 2.

It is my pleasure, as President, to welcome our two new CaSPA Partners – Atomi (https://getatomi.com/au) and Box Of Books (http://www.boxofbooks.com.au). Both partners’ products offer increased agency for students in their own learning.  Please keep a look out for some special offers for Catholic Principals. Please support all of our Valued Partners – they all appreciate an opportunity to provide a quote.

There has been much happening in April but of major importance has been CaSPA’s contribution to AITSL’s Initial Teacher Education (ITE) review.

In supporting the ITE Report recommendations, the CaSPA Board has provided the following feedback as areas of importance:

• Raising the Status of Profession – Incentives are needed to sustain and attract good teaching candidates especially to the rural and remote areas. Bonded style Scholarships could be offered for University.
• HALT Strategy – The philosophy is good but too difficult to complete and has a time-consuming process. The strategy needs review and future system support with significant salary incentives. Compare other countries with what they have done to achieve high status and pay for teachers.
• Explore Education Support Workers' pathways into teaching.
• Need to target more Maths, Science and Industrial Technology teachers. These learning areas are experiencing a shortage across all regions at present. In terms of Maths/Science /Trades there is a drain to other careers as wages higher in other areas.
• Consider fast tracking programs needed to address teaching gaps – make it really worthwhile to attract mid career applicants into teaching. Teach for Australia needs to be nationally recognised and similar schemes introduced to facilitate the attraction of teaching as a career. Alternative pathways into teaching and much higher recognition of previous achievements in pay scale
• VET is a massive problem – Universities need to equip graduates with TAE. Alternative registration and training should be recognised for teachers.
• National Teacher Registration would help recruitment to Rural and Remote areas.
• Centre for Excellence in Teaching – good idea. Also reference to Finnish model of teacher training and expert Centre supervision where high quality teachers overseeing practical training of student teachers.

CaSPA will continue to collaborate with Government agencies to provide practitioner input and advocating on behalf of Catholic Principals.

I hope you will be able to take some time in the coming weeks to register for the 2022 CaSPA Conference. I look forward to meeting you and your team at our collegial event in Canberra. https://consec.eventsair.com/caspa-2022/registration

Blessings to All

Ann Rebgetz

CaSPA President

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Profiles of all the CaSPA Board are available on the CaSPA Website: https://caspa.schoolzineplus.com/current-and-past-board-members

CaSPA is delighted to announce a partnership with ACPPA to launch the Principal Well-being App - ACPConnect. You will have received an invitation to login to the App. Please check your Inbox and Junk Box for the invitation.

With the concerning statistics that have come to light since the Principal Occupational Health and Wellbeing Survey began 11 years ago, it is vital that we work together to provide action and practical tools about principal well-being.

This free health and wellbeing portal is for all Catholic Primary and Secondary Principals across Australia.

Every Principal should have received a personal login to begin accessing resources relevant to them.

Check out the ACPConnect homepage: https://acpconnect.com.au/

Brief Executive Summary

The Catholic Secondary Principals Australia (CaSPA), in partnership with Pivot Professional Learning, designed and conducted a survey to investigate challenges and enablers for principals, in order to understand how CaSPA can best provide support for regional and remote school leaders.

• Key findings by the Satisfaction Domain: 161 respondents noted that they were somewhat satisfied or very satisfied with their current job. One notable difference between the metro and non-metro respondents was in the positive domain, where although most reported being satisfied, the degree to which that was the case varied. School leaders in major cities were more likely to report being ‘very satisfied’. Consistently, and across all geographical cohorts, three factors appeared to be influential. These were: - Planning the vision for the school’s future - Making an impact on future generations, and - The challenge of leadership.
• All responses and questions targeting workload highlighted a major challenge for the school leaders. Almost 70% of the respondents noted that on average they were working more than 55 hours per week, with 35% working over 60 hours on a consistent basis.
• Generally, school leaders felt recognised for their work by their employers, however fewer thought that their contract reflected the extent of their work.
• Recruitment and retention of staff were also more challenging in rural and remote locations. For example, retaining staff was very challenging for remote schools (75%), whereas only 2% of leaders in major cities and 4% in outer regional areas shared this experience.
• Metro and outer regional school leaders felt ‘a great deal of control’ over staffing decisions (81% and 71% respectively), whereas their remote colleagues experienced this in much smaller numbers (38%).

CaSPA acknowledges and supports the release of the 2021 Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey. The survey shows that the ongoing impact of COVID-19 on schools has worsened the risks of long-term damage to principals’ health and wellbeing. The Survey again confirms that principals work longer hours, suffer far higher levels of work-related stress and are at greater risk of physical violence and threats of violence than the general population. In 2021 the further uncertainty and distress of Covid issues saw one in three principals receive a ‘red flag’ notification. In 2022 CaSPA will continue to sponsor and support the work of ACU and Deakin University in this important research for all Principals around Australia. Dr Paul Kidson

Watch Video - Ann Rebgetz, CaSPA President - IPPE Principal Survey 2022