P&F Induction Evening - 21st February

A huge thank you to all of you who took time to attend the P&F Induction evening at our office on Feb 21. We were delighted to welcome representatives from 22 schools, and your attendance helped contribute to lots of fruitful discussion.

The intent of the evening is to introduce those of you who have taken on office bearer roles within your P&F, to the Terms of Reference for P&Fs. To assist with this CSPWA have developed an on-line induction resource which parents can do in their own time and which helps to familiarise themselves with the goals and objectives of the Catholic school P&F. Introduction to the online resource also forms part of the agenda for the evening. It should also be noted that attendance at the induction evening or completion of the online induction ensures that you are meeting the requirement as noted in the TOR section 7 below...

"7. P&F COMMITTEE MEMBER TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

7.5 P&F Committee members should participate in a CEWA approved information session in their initial year of membership (e.g. CSPWA online induction)."

We also acknowledge those of you who were unable to attend due to the date falling on that of your own P&F meeting at your childs school. However we encourage you to access the online resource at https://www.parentassociation.com.au/login The resource includes 27 modules which provide information for your P&F but also about Catholic education more broadly. Nicole has also made a recording of the presentation which can be accessed through https://www.csp.wa.edu.au/parent-groups/2024-Parent-Induction-Presentation. If you have any difficulties with any of this information please call Nicole in our office.

As an organisation we take the work we do in representing parents very seriously. One of the ways we can capture what parents are thinking is through surveys. Although many of us may be a little 'surveyed out' over the past couple of years, we urge you to engage with them wherever you can as this is where your valuable perspective can be heard. One of the more important surveys for those of us with children in Catholic schools is the 'school climate survey' which comes out on a cyclical basis from our children's school.

We were delighted to welcome Dan Wood, Team Leader - School Improvement, CEWA on the evening to speak a little about the importance of parent feedback within the area of school improvement. Dan spoke about how our schools are consistently focussed on improvement. This includes looking at what is currently working well in our system as well as looking at what the challenges may be. Dan spoke about how our system recognises the important role that parents play in this space both as the first educators of their children but also as key stakeholders in Catholic education.

However, as parents, it seems we are not great at engaging with the school climate surveys, therefore not providing the feedback that our schools are keen to hear. This year will see additional conversation about how we might encourage more parents to engage. As this work progresses we look forward to being in touch and continuing this discussion.

We would also like to thank Dan for giving up his time to be with us on the evening and ensuring we are aware how important our voice is to CEWA!