A small group of CSPWA Councillors and staff recently attended the National Catholic Education Conference in Melbourne which took place between 4th-7th September. Over the three days of the program the delegates from WA spread ourselves across as many sessions as possible to ensure we got the best possible value out of the welcome opportunity to attend. 

Members of CSPWA were naturally very interested in the sessions regarding the positive outcomes from parent engagement in learning, student engagement and wellbeing, family engagement, numeracy and parent engagement, reading improvement strategies, learning from lockdown, and engagement with Aboriginal families as first educators to name but a few. CSPWA will look to integrate our learnings from the conference into our parent resources which we update on a regular basis.

Across the three days of the conference members of CSPWA attended between them 65 sessions! Where all of the presentations were of a very high calibre, some of the standout speakers according to the team included Prof Donna Cross OAM, Fr Anthony Gittens CSSp PhD co-presenting with Madeline Forde, Australian Representative International Youth Advisory Body, Vatican's Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, Prof Janet Goodall from Swansea University-Wales, Dr Simon Breakspear from the Gonski Institute for Education and Dr Jordan Nguyen, futurist.

A key benefit to attending conferences such as this one, beyond the opportunity to hear speakers that we would not normally have access to, is the chance to network with, and learn from other peak parent bodies across the country. All states in addition to the ACT had parent representatives present.

We attach here for your interest a link to the conference program.

Please don't hestitate to get in contact if you would like to know more about any of the sessions.