President's Message

Dear Colleagues,

The Australian Catholic Education Conference was held in Cairns in late August. The tropical climate was a welcome relief from the storms ravaging NSW and other parts of southern Australia. It provided a welcome opportunity to gather with delegates from all segments of our Catholic Education sector to share, learn and celebrate around the theme of Hope, Anchored in Faith. The conference Mass was a highlight with the 1400+ delegates joined by more than a thousand students from Cairns diocese schools, many in a choir that joined the local musicians to raise the roof of the stadium with uplifting liturgical music.

Later in the first day I was delighted to be able to be part of a concurrent session from the Leadership and Wellbeing Strand entitled:

Sustaining Hope: personal and collaborative approaches to school leader health and wellbeing.

Presenting with Dr Paul Kidson from ACU, Mick Egan our Executive Officer, Phil Schultz and Gez Mulvahil from ACPPA, we were able to share some insights from the data and report some next steps on action to address our shared concerns arising from this, in too many places alarming, data. I share below a few of the slides used. Further information is featured later in this Newsletter.

The Survey for 2025 has just been sent out to all registered participants across all sectors of education. I encourage and request all Principals to register both themselves and their Assistant Principals if you have not already done so. It is important that we continue to support and advocate for this most important work. We all know that if school leaders are not well then schools are more likely not to function well.

Best wishes

Dr Stephen Kennaugh GAICD

CaSPA President