May 2023 Newsletter
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President's Message
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Box Of Books - Platinum Partner
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CaSPA Latest News
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PSW - Platinum Partner
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CaSPA Board Update
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CaSPA National Conference 2024 – SAVE THE DATE!
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NGS Super - Platinum Partner
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Meet Our New Principals
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The School Photographer - Platinum Partner
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Professional Learning Scholarship Awardees
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Rory's - Gold Partner
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Call for private schools to be publicly funded and free, ending inequity.
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Atomi - Gold Partner
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Social Action Awardee 2023
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Woods Furniture - Gold Partner
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Mothers Day
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ACPConnect
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INSTALLING THE SZAPP
Dear Colleagues
It is my pleasure to write to you on behalf of our CaSPA President, Ann Rebgetz, who is currently on sabbatical leave in Ireland. I hope you and your communities had a wonderful and celebratory Easter. After the challenges that many of us are facing in terms of employment issues, staff and student wellbeing, and the subsequent impact on learning and teaching, it was timely that we had some time to rest and recover. Last week it was fitting that as Australians we commemorated the lives and service of all of our Defence Force personnel past and present. It is heartening to see an increase in participation and interest in our ANZAC Day remembrance ceremonies.
Thank you to all the Principals who took the time to nominate for the recent CaSPA Scholarship and Funding initiatives. On behalf of the CaSPA Board I would like to congratulate Principals Corey Tavella (Thomas More College, SA) and Bradley Hall (John Paul College, WA) for being awarded the CaSPA Professional Learning Scholarship to attend the ICP Convention in Finland this year. Similarly, congratulations to Marlene Jorgensen and the St Francis Catholic College, Melton, Victoria for being awarded the CaSPA Social Action Funding for 2023. I wish them well in delivering their project to the community.
It was a great pleasure to meet with the CaSPA Tasmania Principals in Launceston last month. The CaSPA Board and the Tasmanian Principals discussed a number of current issues in education in Tasmania and Australia. Some of the key Issues included: Teacher shortages, Leadership shortages, Initial teacher Education, mental health of both staff and students, and the need for Limited Authority to Teach (LAT) provisions to assist with the teacher shortage. Thank you to Liz Illingworth for the wonderful hospitality at St Patrick’s College.
Recently, CaSPA attended an Equity, Funding & Achievement symposium hosted by the University of Melbourne. The article in this Newsletter provides a general summary of the discussions at the Symposium. CaSPA will be meeting soon with ACPPA and NCEC to discuss the Catholic Schools perspective on the upcoming National School Reform Agreement for 2024.
This month CaSPA has also received an AITSL invitation to attend the HALT Summit in Melbourne. This is one of many important ways that CaSPA has committed in its Strategic Plan to the promotion of the status of Teaching.
Blessings to All
Dr Stephen Kennaugh
CaSPA Treasurer
- CaSPA has received the first release of data in the Australian Teacher Workforce Data (ATWD) Data Explorer. Please use this link to access the 2023 data: https://www.aitsl.edu.au/research/australian-teacher-workforce-data/data-explorer/
- CaSPA representative attended the Equity, Funding & Achievement Symposium at University of Melbourne.
- Australian Catholic University 2022 Principal Well-being Report was distributed to the State and Territory Secondary Principals Associations.
- Finalising guest speakers Jacinta Collins (NCEC) and David de Carvahlo for May Board Meeting in Sydney.
- Preparations for meeting with the ACSP (NSW) Executive at the May Board Meeting.
- Meeting in Melbourne with Athas Concepts to scope rebranding of the CaSPA website.
- Data Project for 2023 has been completed and infographics being developed by Athas Concepts.

- Next CaSPA Board Meeting to be held in Sydney 14 – 16 May. The CaSPA Board looks forward to meeting with ACSP (NSW).
- CaSPA Directors decided on the CaSPA Awards for 2023 at the Launceston Meeting.
- CaSPA representative to attend the AITSL HALT Summit and Consultation in Melbourne in May 2023.
- CaSPA has decided to be a funding partner for 3 years with Queensland University of Technology to research inclusivity issues in Australian Schools.
- CaSPA Board members to attend the ACSP (NSW) conference in Wollongong (17-19 May).
- Board Meeting with Higher Education Division of the Australian Government Department of Education to discuss admission practices.
Profiles of all the CaSPA Board are available on the CaSPA Website: https://caspa.schoolzineplus.com/current-and-past-board-members
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This year there are almost 50 Beginning Principals in Catholic Secondary Schools. Over the next few CaSPA Newsletters some of our new colleagues will be sharing their profile.
The CaSPA Board once again wishes all of the Beginning Principals every joy and success in their new roles.
CaSPA Beginning Principal Profile
Name: Jane Egan
Current School: Emmaus College Jimboomba
Previous Position & School: Deputy Principal St. Peter Claver College
The hope for my current school is: I want to continue to build on the excellent and established foundations in Learning and Teaching at Emmaus College.
We must prepare our students for a digital age, so we need to be very aware as leaders of what that actually means. As a Principal my aim is to embrace and keep abreast of this in 2023.
The Joy of Principalship is: There simply is nothing more invigorating or humbling than to walk into school each day and be greeted by the students and staff.
There are few jobs in the world where every day you can have such an impact and influence on a person’s life.
I have a secondary background having spent my teaching career in in 7-12 schools. Emmaus being a P-12 school has added a whole new dimension to my life through the P-6 students. The sheer joy and love of learning these young students show and add the prep students into the experience this is the icing on my career.
A Book I would recommend: “Start with Why: How great leaders Inspire everyone to take Action” Simon Sinek
Fun Fact about me: I love skiing, I have skied all over the world - COVID put a hold on this however I am looking forward to getting back onto the slopes.
My valued Well-Being Strategy: Yoga and listening to audio books on the 45-minute drive to and from work.
Inspiring Leadership Quote: “when you can’t control what’s happening, challenge yourself to control the way you respond to what’s happening.”
What Title would you give to your TED Talk or Book: Leadership is about Nurturing and enhancing.
CaSPA Beginning Principal Profile
Name: Bruce McPhee
Current School: St Peter Claver College
Previous Position & School: Deputy Principal – Marist College Ashgrove
The hope for my current school is: To continue to develop a culture where students are known and where staff are passionate about making an impact on student growth.
The Joy of Principalship is: One term in, it would be the incidental conversations with students, staff and families.
A Book I would recommend: Atomic Habits by James Clear
Fun Fact about me: Every school I have taught in has been in a different system.
My valued Well-Being Strategy: Regular meetings with my leadership coach.
Advice for an aspiring Principal: Listen to those who have gone before.
Inspiring Leadership Quote: (One that I always had in my classrooms…) What is popular is not always right and what is right is not always popular.
What Title would you give to your TED Talk or Book: I do not yet have the experience or expertise to even consider a TED Talk or a book.
CaSPA Beginning Principal Profile
Current School: Guilford Young College
Previous Position & School: Deputy Principal, Guilford Young College
The hope for my current school is: To honour Archbishop Sir Guilford Young’s vision for an accessible, inclusive, Christ-centred senior secondary education for young Tasmanians.
The Joy of Principalship is: I am humbled to have been given this opportunity (albeit in an Acting capacity) to lead a community built on foundations of faith, love, inclusion, integrity and kindness.
A Book I would recommend: (how about two?) The Book Thief (Markus Zuzak), Turn the Ship Around (L. David Marquet)
Fun Fact about me: Over the years, our pets’ names (dogs and fish) have begun with ‘R’: Retro, Roxy, Ruby, Rita, Roy, Red, Renoir. And then there was Dougal…
My valued Well-Being Strategy: I live close to the College so after work, I take the long way home, turn up the volume and ‘sing it out’. I also love to cook for family and friends and try to remember to practise my ‘cello.
Advice for an aspiring Principal: Turn up, be present, work hard. Be kind and courageous, honest and humble. Embrace curiosity.
Inspiring Leadership Quote:
“The great leaders are not the strongest, they are the ones who are honest about their weaknesses. The great leaders are not the smartest; they are the ones who admit how much they don’t know. The great leaders can’t do everything; they are the ones who look to others to help them. Great leaders don’t see themselves as great; they see themselves as human”. (Simon Sinek)
What Title would you give to your TED Talk or Book:
“Close your devices and pay attention; the diminishing importance of non-verbal communication”.
CaSPA Beginning Principal Profile
Name: Elizabeth Illingworth
Current School: St Patrick’s College, Prospect, Tasmania
Previous Position & School: Principal St Finn Barr’s Catholic Primary School 2017-2022; Deputy Principal Sacred Heart Launceston 2014-2016;
The hope for my current school is: To continue to improve in creating a sense of belonging and community for all students.
The Joy of Principalship is: The opportunity for developing relationships with so many young people.
A Book I would recommend: ‘The Happiest Man on Earth’ - Eddie Jaku
My valued Well-Being Strategy: Walking my dog with my husband each evening.
Advice for an aspiring Principal: Always remember why you chose to become a teacher.
Inspiring Leadership Quote: “Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage.” Brene Brown
What Title would you give to your TED Talk or Book: ‘A Day in the life of a School Principal”
By EducationHQ News Team
Published April 20, 2023
Australia’s private schools should be fully publicly funded and free, with the condition they include all students, an ambitious new proposal seeking to bring ‘choice and fairness’ to the education system has argued.
Researchers Tom Greenwell and Chris Bonnor have called for a ‘common framework’ to restore equity to the school system – one they note is now among the most inequitable across the OECD.
Fully funding private schools would go a long way towards addressing the socially segregated system we have at the moment, Greenwell told EducationHQ.
And while the proposal might be controversial on Australian terms, it’s ‘perfectly normal’ in other secular countries, he said.
“I think it's important to remember that in lots of comparable countries like New Zealand, Canada, the Netherlands and Scotland, this already happens.
“The great advantage for us from trying to learn from those examples is it could help create a more inclusive school system … we could address the social segregation that is at the heart of our educational problems at the moment.”
The duo contend that the hybrid public/private framework schools operate within at the moment is not fit for purpose and an outlier on the global stage.
For more than two decades we’ve seen a widening gap between the achievement in low socio-economic schools compared to students who live in better off postcodes, while our PISA results chart a significant decline in achievement across the board, the report noted.
Greenwell said the new framework would alleviate the worsening social stratification between schools.
“The problem facing Australian schools is, overwhelmingly, the concentration of disadvantaged students into the same schools.
“Going right back to the Gonski Review, an abundance of research has shown us that concentrating disadvantaged students together significantly harms learning outcomes.”
Poor education policies were driving the inequity across the sector, he added.
“We have essentially, very largely publicly funded non-government schools, which are able to charge fees as they please, as high as the market will bear, and pick and choose students.
“So that’s pushing disadvantaged students away from those schools. And then we have taxpayer-fuelled resource advantages, which enable some schools (to showcase themselves) when it comes to open night, or the glossy brochures where they can feature really wonderful facilities – and that pulls students in.
“And so, we're bunching the advantaged and high achieving in some schools, and the really disadvantaged students in other schools,” Greenwell said.
The funding shift would add a $2 billion annual cost to all governments, but the price of not taking action would be far more damaging when factoring in the consequences for social cohesion, social mobility and our nation’s productivity, the report said.
Greenwell said another ‘big advantage’ of fully finding the private sector was that it would change the nature of competition between schools.
“At the moment, what schools do is they really compete to cherry pick the most able and affluent students.
“And of course, once you enrol a bunch of really advantaged students, you'll have great results and you'll be able to advertise that on your website.
“It's a virtuous circle as far as a particular school is concerned…”
Under the proposal, independent and faith-based schools that continue to charge fees or reject an inclusive enrolment policy would not receive any public funding.
“If you create a level playing field, a common framework, what's really going to differentiate schools is what they do with the students that they enrol.
“It's not about cherry picking the students. It's about taking whatever students you have, and ensuring that they realise their full potential. You're shifting the locus of competition,” Greenwell said.
It’s not just disadvantaged students who miss out in our current hybrid system, the researcher noted.
“We've got another problem, which is that high achieving and advantaged students have actually been declining in their achievement when compared with their international counterparts, for over a decade. And this has been documented by research.”
‘Cruiser schools’ – a term coined by Professor John Hattie – are behind this, Greenwell warned.
“[It describes] the kind of school that successfully enrols lots of advantaged and already high achieving students, but effectively rests on its laurels.”
Many cruiser schools fail to recognise their predicament because what they do “feels like it’s working”, the researcher said.
“You've got lots of bright young students, and you're turning them into even brighter and more competent young adults.
“And that feels like it's working. But the reality is, those students are not being extended in the way that they are in comparable countries.”
Greenwell said he and Bonnor were trying to start a badly-needed conversation, the goal being to to reach community consensus on what school funding should look like in Australia.
"There's been lots of feedback. And I tell you one bit that really interested me, was the comment from the Victorian Catholic Education Commission, which was that ‘any proposal like this needs to be considered seriously’.
"[Their response] didn't shut the door. And I think there's a temptation on all sides of this schools debate to make assumptions about where the other side will come from, and to dismiss the possibility of conversation.
“And what I'm hearing is that actually, there is an openness to conversation.”
But some are not convinced the proposal as it stands will be feasible.
Writing for The Conversation, Paul Kidson from Australian Catholic University noted the complexity of governance across all three school systems would pose a practical challenge to the implementation of a common framework.
“At the simplest level, education remains a state/territory constitutional responsibility that seems unlikely to be collectively ceded back to the Federal Government any time soon,” the senior lecturer in educational leadership wrote.
(Source: EducationHQ.com)