Welcome to Term 2 2024

With Term 2 firmly upon us, our children are hopefully settled in their school routines with the older students working well towards their goals and the early years children finding their feet in their new learning environments and gaining good traction in the classroom and playground.

We remain in the season of Easter which means many of our upper primary students are currently being prepared to receive the strengthening and beautiful Sacrament of Confirmation. This is such a special time in the children’s lives, even though many of them may not appreciate it, they will be well equipped for the many challenges ahead in their faith life.  It would be especially lovely to remember these children and their families, parish priests and teachers in our prayers during this blessed time. 

As we are headed for both a Federal Election (sometime before September 2025) and State Election (8 March 2025), members of CSPWA are currently meeting with as many politicians as we can to ascertain how they intend to support families who choose a Catholic Education for their children.  We have not only put forward our requests to the politicians, but importantly, ensured they are aware of the contribution that parents and families make to the economies of both the state and nation by choosing a Catholic education for our children.  Whilst we continue to be grateful for the financial assistance currently received from both Federal and State governments, it is important that all are aware of the very real benefits that choosing a Catholic Education brings to the state and national economies.  It is important that as parents we are aware of the funding arrangements for our schools, which enable us to have meaningful and relevant conversations with our elected representatives. As always, if you need any assistance with this, please don’t hesitate to contact the office. 

During May we will be celebrating National Volunteers Week.  As CSPWA celebrates it's 70th Anniversary, I am sure that our Catholic Schools would not have prospered the way they have had it not been for the enormous efforts of all those parents, caregivers and friends who built, maintained, and coordinated fundraising efforts for all of our schools harking back to the 1840s.  I personally thank each and every one of you for what you do in our schools to benefit many children, not just your own.  We know that our children (sometimes secretly) love it when we parents are involved in their schools, whether it be listening to reading, attending busy bees, participate in committees, assist with sports days, cover books, sell tickets in the music or sports departments raffles and so on, our children know that we care and are INTERESTED in them!  Throughout the 23 years I had children in the Catholic education system, I know my children benefitted not just from our family’s voluntary efforts but enormously from the collective efforts of so many others – many known to us, some who have become long-term friends, but so many who have gone before as well.

I wish you well as the year progresses, and I hope that Term 2 is a very productive one for all of our P&Fs and Friends groups.  Please remember that the office staff is only an email or phone call away for helpful suggestions, a listening ear or indeed some advice to help you prosper as a group and school community.

As this is my final newsletter as president of CSPWA and indeed it is my final few weeks as a councillor, it would be remiss of me to not thank the very many people who have made my time as part of this organization a very happy and productive 13 years of my life.  I have learnt so much more than I ever expected to and hopefully have contributed to the betterment of the relationships of parents within the school community.  To the many councillors who have served with me, and the office staff; Jonelle, Jennifer, Nicole and especially Siobhan … “Thank you for all you have done, are currently doing, and will do in the future to further the cause of assisting parents of children in Catholic Schools”.  To the Catholic School communities my children have belonged to:  Mater Christi Catholic Primary School, Trinity College and Mercedes College, I thank you for the opportunities you have afforded my children and our family.  My time of involvement in the P&Fs of each of these schools has been so wonderfully fruitful – from attending my first P&F meeting to ask some questions of the school leadership when my eldest son was in Kindy in 2001, to my final P&F meeting Term 4 2023, I have loved the involvement and the opportunity to be fully engaged in my four children’s education.

I look forward to meeting many of you at the CSPWA Awards of Excellence and Conference dinner on the 7th of June and the Conference itself on the 8th.

God bless.

Marina

The Catholic School Parents WA 70th Anniversary Conference will take place on Saturday 8^th June at Ursula Frayne Catholic College in Victoria Park. The theme of the conference this year is ‘Communication for Connection’, and will focus on how we can all utilise good communication skills in schools to build connections that lead to positive and vibrant communities.

Please click here to view the agenda for the day.

If you are a parent from a regional or remote part of the state, we are pleased to be able to assist you with your travel and accommodation costs through a generous grant from Lotterywest. For more information about this grant please see the fact sheet or contact the CSPWA Liaison Officer Nicole on 9338 9987 for more information. 

It is a prerequisite that all rural delegates accessing Lotterywest funding attend both the dinner on the Friday evening and the conference on Saturday. (The cost of the dinner and the conference is the responsibility of the individual delegate or their school P&F). 

Our booking link for the conference and dinner is now open: https://events.humanitix.com/70th-anniversary-dinner-and-conference. Please also see our flyer for more information.

Nominations for the 2024 Awards of Excellence are now open. The awards ceremony will take place at the CSPWA 70th Anniversary Conference dinner on Friday 7th June in the Rooftop Ballroom of the Aloft Hotel Perth.  To purchase tickets to the event, please click here. To view the agenda for the evening, please click here.

The awards are an integral part of work that CSPWA does in acknowledging and celebrating the amazing work that is carried out within our Catholic school communities. The awards celebrate those within our school communities who demonstrate positive outcomes for students, families, and the wider school community.

Nomination forms are available below for all 5 categories; Parent, Parent Group, Principal, Parish and the Agnes Weymouth award. For a summary of all 5 award categories, please see our Awards of Excellence flyer.

Parent Nomination Form

Parent Group Nomination Form

Principal Nomination Form

Parish Nomination Form

Agnes Weymouth Nomination Form

As Marina has mentioned in her welcoming letter, staff and members of Council continue to regularly meet with our local politicians, both to ensure that they are aware of the challenges that face parents today but also to hear about the positive stories that abound in our system.  Whilst not denying that teachers are having to deal with more and more negative behaviour from children and sadly from their parents, it is not all bad news. Many parents take their responsibility to engage in a positive way with their child’s school seriously, knowing that this will in fact lead to better outcomes for all. We need to pay attention to this and promote the positives as well as addressing the negatives.

CSPWA also take seriously our role in advocating for families who choose a Catholic education for their children in this state and so seek to bring to the attention of our elected members, the challenges that exist.

In recent weeks we have met with amongst others, Hon Tony Buti MLA, Minister for Education and had a very open and frank conversation. We questioned the Minister as to why WA is the only state in Australia which does not provide capital grants for Catholic schools? Capital grants are vital to ensure that not only can we build new schools where they are needed, but also to assist in maintaining and upgrading the schools already part of our system. The only way this can currently be achieved is to levy parents over and above what they already pay in school fees. You will all be familiar with the ‘building levy’ as a line item on your school fee schedule.

In an effort to assist you in having a say around some of the issues you may feel government should support us with, we are arranging a ‘Political Forum’ as part of our 70^th Anniversary Conference on Saturday 8^th June. We have invited politicians from the Labor, Liberal and National parties to participate both State and Federal. You will no doubt be aware that we are entering into election mode for both State and Federal governments and so it is vitally important that we ascertain from our elected representatives how they will continue to support Catholic education in Western Australian.

Whilst we should remember that we are indeed fortunate to live in a country will allows parents to have a choice in selecting the education which best meets their children’s needs, we also request that we are able to access a fair share of the taxpayers (which includes parents!) dollar to enable us to provide the best that we can for our children.

Lastly, we were delighted to receive from the Minister when we met, confirmation of our successful Lotterywest grant application. Nicole Beresford, CSPWA Liaison Officer did a fantastic job in writing the grant and we are grateful that we can once again, offer financial assistance to parents in schools outside the metro area to attend the conference weekend. To find out more about this please don’t hesitate to call us in the office.

As mentioned above it is so important that we take the time to celebrate our achievements both at state level but importantly within our school communities. We look forward to welcoming you all to our conference events and in particular to the Awards of Excellence in Building Positive School Communities for which nominations are now open.