School Leaders Edition, Week 7, Term 3, 2025

Catholic Education Diocese of Wollongong joins the Catholic education sector in remembering Greg Whitby, who sadly passed away over the weekend.

For close to 50 years—including a period as Director of Schools in the Diocese of Wollongong (1999 to 2006)—Greg devoted his life to Catholic education. He left a profound impact on those he worked alongside and will be remembered as a leader committed to innovation, inclusion, and the faith, learning, and wellbeing of the communities he served.

The Mass of Christian Burial for Greg will be celebrated by Bishop Vincent Long OFM Conv, Bishop of Parramatta, at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Parramatta, on Monday 8 September 2025 at 10.00 am.

The family is deeply grateful for the outpouring of respect and the high regard in which Greg is held. As you can appreciate, the funeral is expected to be very well attended. Please be mindful that there are many family members and close friends who would like to pay their respects, and for that reason, there is the opportunity for those who wish to pay their respects to join via a livestream of the service at https://www.youtube.com/@DioceseofParramatta/streams in lieu of attending in person.

Please keep Greg and his family in your prayers during this very challenging time.

Eternal rest grant unto Greg, O Lord. May perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.

Bishop Vincent Long of the Diocese of Parramatta has shared a moving tribute to Greg in Catholic Outlook.

Photo credit: Catholic Outlook

On behalf of the Executive Director of Schools, I wish to announce the following:

Following a recruitment and discernment process, I am pleased to announce that Karen Holland has been appointed to the substantive position of Assistant Principal at Ss Peter and Paul Catholic Parish Primary School, Kiama. As Karen is currently performing the position of Acting Assistant Principal, she will commence in the role immediately.

Karen has worked as part of the leadership team at Ss Peter and Paul since 2018, having performed the roles of Acting Assistant Principal (August 2023 – current), and Middle Leader and Instructional Coach (2018 – August 2023).

Karen is currently studying a Master of Educational Leadership (ACU) and has successfully acquired qualifications, including a Graduate Certificate of Educational Leadership (ACU), a Bachelor of Education (Southern Cross University), a Bachelor of Teaching (UOW), and a Certificate of Religious Education.

Please join me in congratulating Karen on her appointment to this position.

Lillian Del Giudice has relinquished the Assistant Principal position at Mary Immaculate Catholic Parish Primary School, Eagle Vale. I extend my sincere gratitude for her contributions made to the Diocese of Wollongong and to the community of Mary Immaculate.

The substantive Assistant Principal role will be advertised shortly, with a commencement date of January 2026.

Amanda Wilson, Principal at St Joseph's Catholic High School, Albion Park, will be taking a period of extended leave.

During this time, Christopher Shelton will perform the role of Acting Principal, and Cameron Dribbus will perform the role of Acting Assistant Principal.

Natasha O’Donoghue
Director – People and Culture

This week, the following leadership vacancies are available:

Catholic Education Office, Wollongong
Director ICLT

Contact Paul Phillips at Hays Executive to discuss this opportunity.
Phone: +61 (02) 8226 9699
Email: paul.phillips@hays.com.au

Mary Immaculate Catholic Parish Primary School, Eagle Vale
Assistant Principal 

Magdalene Catholic College, Narellan
Religious Education Coordinator – (Re-advertised)

2026 School Professional Development Days 

For: Principals 
Due: Now
Contact: Nicole Ryan (ryann03@dow.catholic.edu.au)
First notice

To assist in your planning for the 2026 school year, we've compiled the schedule of gazetted school term dates, and the allocation of professional development days for 2026. This document provides information regarding pupil-free days, including the flexibility for converting one Professional Development Day into twilight sessions, and outlines the required processes for planning and communicating these dates. 

Action: Please read the 2026 School Professional Development Days communication here.

Fostering Respectful Workplaces: Leaders’ Positive Duty Obligations

For: Principals and CEO leaders
Due: Now
Contact: Nicole Ryan (ryann03@dow.catholic.edu.au)
First notice

As we continue the conversation around fostering respectful workplaces, we want to reinforce our shared responsibility to take meaningful steps to eliminate or reduce sexual harassment, sex-based discrimination, and other unlawful conduct within our workplace.

Legislative changes at both the federal and state levels established a positive duty on employers to take proactive measures to prevent these behaviours. Key developments include:

• The Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth), which places a positive duty on organisations to eliminate, as far as possible, unlawful conduct such as discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual harassment, sex-based harassment, and victimisation.
• Amendments to the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) in March 2023, which explicitly prohibit sexual harassment in the workplace.
• Reinforcement under Work Health and Safety (WHS) legislation, which requires all employers to provide a work environment that is safe and free from harm, including psychological harm.

Under the Sex Discrimination Act, employers must take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate, as far as possible:

• Discrimination on the grounds of sex
• Sexual harassment
• Sex-based harassment
• Conduct that creates a hostile workplace environment on the grounds of sex
• Acts of victimisation relating to any of the above

To support a consistent understanding of these obligations in practice, People and Culture has developed an information article for school leaders. This resource builds on the content presented at the Principals Training Day on 8 May 2025 and complements existing CEDoW policies in this area, which are currently under review.

Action: Please read the information article, Fostering Respectful Workplaces: Leaders’ Positive Duty Obligations, here.

Important compliance information for school P&Fs

For: Principals 
Due: Now
Contact: Mark Rix (pandf@dow.catholic.edu.au)
Second notice

As advised in the Gateway News message (Term 2, Week 9 – 24 June 2025), a new item has been added to the CEDoW assurance testing program in 2026: Parent and Friends (P&F) financial accounts. Ensuring each P&F fund has had its annual accounts audited and submitted to the CEO will be one of the key areas covered as part of this testing.

Actions: There are a number of other compliance requirements for school P&Fs that will be components of the 2026 assurance testing program. These requirements are:

• Each school P&F needs to have its own Australian Business Number (ABN).
• If it hasn't already done so, each school P&F is required to register with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC). Registering with the ACNC means that P&Fs will not need to self-assess for income tax exemption purposes, and ACNC-registered charities are automatically eligible for an authority to fundraise in NSW. Also, P&Fs that are registered with the ACNC do not have to report to NSW Fair Trading.

If your school’s P&F has not been registered with the ACNC, it can be done here. Once registered, the school P&F is required to lodge its most recent Annual Information Statement to the ACNC.

• The names and contact details for each school’s P&F office holders need to be provided. This can be done via this Google Form. The form includes a section to upload the school’s P&F Constitution.
• As mentioned in the June Gateway News message, at the end of each year, each school is required to share with the CEO its P&F audited accounts from that school year (e.g., the 2025 audited accounts are due in December 2025). Thank you to the schools who responded to the request for copies of their school’s P&F's financial audits. If your school’s P&F audited report has not yet been submitted, please send it to pandf@dow.catholic.edu.au, ‘Attention Mark Rix’. If your school’s P&F is finding it challenging to locate an auditor to undertake a financial audit, please email ‘Attention Mark Rix’ at pandf@dow.catholic.edu.au. 
• School P&Fs are required to keep accounting records relating to fundraising for at least seven years.

We understand that it can be difficult to stay up-to-date with the compliance obligations of P&Fs. To help, some opt-in Zoom Q&A sessions will be provided during Term 3 and Term 4 for any principals, SSSOs, or school P&F office holders who would like to learn more about P&F governance. Dates for these sessions will be advertised in upcoming Gateway News messages.

We are also building a ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ page which will be loaded in Gateway. In the meantime, this simple Compliance Checklist might be helpful.

These links might also be useful:

• ABN Look up
• Applying for a charity registration
• Changes to charitable fundraising laws
• ACNC website
• Video (and transcript): Helping P&Fs with ACNC requirements

Thanks so much for your support. If you need help, please contact Mark Rix at pandf@dow.catholic.edu.au or mobile 0417 442 018.

AWE HUNTERS 2025: A Faith Encounter in Nature

For: Secondary Principals, RECs/Leaders of Mission, Year 10 Coordinators 
Due: Now
Contact: David Gearin (gearind01@dow.catholic.edu.au)
Third notice

Year 10 Immersion | AWE HUNTERS: A Faith Encounter in Nature | 14–15 October 2025 – The Tops, Stanwell Park.

Action: Principals and RECs/Leaders of Mission – please ensure this information is shared and discussed with your Year 10 Coordinators.

Secondary schools are invited to nominate up to four male Year 10 students to participate in this year’s Awe Hunters Immersion.

For further details, please refer to the letter here from Jo Kenny, which outlines how to identify and register suitable students. The letter also includes draft communications and permission notes for parents and guardians.

To gain an insight into the experience, we encourage you to watch the promotional video created from last year’s immersion.

A direct link for parents/guardians to register students can be found here.

A direct link to draft comms/permission notes for parents/guardians is here.

Action: Please email Helen Moon at moonh01@dow.catholic.edu.au by Friday 5 September 2025, providing the name and email address of the teacher who will be responsible for selecting students from your school.

For any questions or further information, please contact David Gearin on 0402 018 162.

Secondary Student Round Table

Audience: Secondary 

A reminder to RSVP to the Student Round Table event by Friday 5 September 2025. This event will be an inspiring and formative experience for students to connect, collaborate and champion respectful relationships within their schools.

Please contact Liam Nicholls and Jenn Sharp with any questions: respectfulrelationships@dow.catholic.edu.au.

menALIVE Growing Good Men Weekend 2025

Audience: Principals and leaders, please share with your school community
Date: Friday 5 to Sunday 7 December 2025
Venue: The Tops Conference Centre, 51 Bendena Gardens, Stanwell Tops

A powerful weekend experience for fathers and their teenage sons (ages 12–17), supported by Bishop Brian Mascord. Strengthen your bond, explore the journey into manhood, and share in engaging activities, reflection, and a meaningful Rite of Passage.

Places are limited, so register early to secure your spot at a weekend that has been a life-changing experience for hundreds of dads and lads. The cost is $500 per father–son pair, which includes accommodation, meals, adventure activities, and resources. For more information and to register, see here.  

CatholicCare Counsellors Staff Development Day – 24 September 2025

A message from CatholicCare: CatholicCare Wollongong will be hosting our annual Staff Development Day on Wednesday 24 September 2025. All school counsellors rostered to work on this day will be attending the event, and therefore, there will be no counsellor coverage in schools on that date. We appreciate your understanding and support, and we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Contact: Tina Acevska, Manager, School, Student and Family Program (SSFP), mobile: 0419 462 621.

Positive Behaviours for Learning

Victorian Education has produced a series of Positive Classroom Management Strategies in ‘placemat’ format.

Each of the eight placemats presents evidence-informed practices that create safer, more purposeful learning environments supporting student learning, wellbeing and behaviour.

Classroom Behaviour Expectations and Rules

Help your students thrive! When students know exactly what is expected of them, they are more likely to demonstrate those behaviours. This placemat provides a simple, effective framework for creating and teaching classroom rules that are observable, measurable, positively stated, understandable, and always applicable (OMPUA). Give students the structure they need to succeed academically and behaviourally.

Classroom Procedures and Routines

Free up your students' working memory and reduce their cognitive load! Well-established routines help create predictability and structure, which is critical for the success of all students, especially those with diverse learning profiles. By clearly defining and teaching procedures, you can increase instructional time and create a positive, collaborative classroom culture.

Encouraging Expected Behaviour

Build stronger teacher-student relationships and promote student motivation. The placemat on encouraging expected behaviour provides a menu of techniques to acknowledge and reinforce positive behaviour. Learn how to use specific, positive feedback frequently and immediately, with a goal of a 4:1 ratio of positive to corrective feedback.

Discouraging Inappropriate Behaviour

Turn behaviour errors into teaching opportunities. This placemat provides a continuum of instructional responses to address inappropriate behaviour, just as you would with academic errors. The educative approach focuses on using brief, calm, and respectful corrective feedback to re-teach expectations and guide students toward the desired behaviour.

Active Supervision

Be present and purposeful in your classroom. Active supervision involves moving, scanning, and interacting with students to create opportunities for teaching, prompting, encouraging, and correcting behaviours. This simple yet powerful strategy reduces inappropriate behaviour, increases student engagement, and helps pre-empt escalations.

Opportunities to Respond (OTR)

Boost student engagement and academic outcomes! Opportunities to Respond (OTR) are instructional questions or cues designed to elicit a student response. By presenting varied OTRs at a brisk pace, you can increase on-task behaviour, make learning visible, and provide immediate feedback to students.

Activity Sequence and Choice

Empower your students and increase task completion. For students who can do a task but are reluctant to start, offering choices and strategically sequencing activities can be a game-changer. This placemat provides guidance on how to offer choices in tasks, materials, or even the order of work to build independence and create more equitable learning environments.

Task Difficulty

Ensure your work tasks are a perfect match for student skill levels. When work is too difficult, it can lead to disengagement and problem behaviour. Learn how to adjust task length, time, or response mode to ensure more students experience success and promote on-task behaviour and task completion.

Reminder: Invitation to School Leadership Retreats

School Leadership Retreats will be held this term at The Hermitage, Mittagong (843 Old South Road, Mittagong).

This year’s retreats are titled "Pilgrims of Hope" and will be facilitated by the Spiritual Formation team.

During the retreat, there will be opportunities to explore your understanding and experience of hope within our Catholic context, reflect on your life as a pilgrim through prayer and shared conversations, and consider how hope is given expression in your life.

Principals, RECs, and assistant RECs, please read the flyer here and register through LMS as soon as possible.

If you require further information, contact Gary Quinn at quinng01@dow.catholic.edu.au. 

Who Am I? Scriptural Foundations for Our Search for Meaning and Purpose

Audience: Secondary RECs/Leaders of Mission
Date: 19 September 2025
Venue: The Emmaus Centre, 4 Hyde Parade, Campbelltown

Secondary Religious Education Coordinators and Leaders of Mission, please share this information with your relevant staff.

Are you a Secondary RE teacher, Pastoral Care, or Wellbeing leader seeking to deepen your understanding of meaning and purpose within a scriptural framework?

This professional learning day, Who Am I? Scriptural Foundations for Our Search for Meaning and Purpose is designed specifically for you.

We'll explore how foundational scriptures can empower you to:

• Enrich your Religious Education curriculum: Discover new ways to connect biblical narratives with students' personal journeys of self-discovery.
• Enhance pastoral care and wellbeing initiatives: Equip yourself with scripturally-grounded insights to guide students through life's big questions.
• Foster a deeper sense of identity and belonging in your students: Learn how to help students explore their unique purpose through the lens of faith.

Join us for a day of insightful discussion, practical strategies, and renewed inspiration as we collectively explore the profound question, "Who am I?" and its scriptural answers.

Please register here.

K–12 NCCD 2026 Resourcing Workshop via Zoom

Audience: Principals and Leaders of Diverse Learning and Pastoral Care K–12

Two sessions will be offered in Week 7, Term 3, to unpack the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD) Resourcing Model for 2026.

Leaders are encouraged to prioritise attendance at one of these workshops to ensure a deep understanding of the model and how it can be used to effectively support students with diverse and wellbeing needs.

A calendar invitation will be sent for both sessions to provide flexibility for schools about schedules and needs.

Session Dates and Times

Option 1 – Thursday 4 September 2025 (9:30 am – 11:00 am)

Or

Option 2 – Friday 5 September 2025 (12:00 pm – 1:30 pm)

Any questions can be directed to Kerryn Barnett at BarnettK01@dow.catholic.edu.au or Katie Carroll at CarrollK02@dow.catholic.edu.au.

Connect and Collaborate: Primary Programming Workshops for Teachers

Are you a primary teacher looking for an excellent opportunity to network and collaborate with colleagues from other CEDoW schools?

The Learning K–12 team is excited to offer a series of voluntary programming workshops designed specifically for you! Imagine working alongside fellow educators to plan and refine your English and Mathematics units, sharing your best ideas, practices, pedagogy, and quality resources from across the Diocese.

Workshop Options

We've designed flexible scheduling to suit your availability, with workshops held across various dates and venues during the second half of Term 3 and throughout the September pupil vacation period.

You can choose from:

• Afternoon Workshops: Four 1.5-hour, one-off sessions available in:
  • Macarthur
  • Southern Highlands
  • Wollongong
  • Far South Coast
    
    
• Full-Day Workshop Session: Two sessions, delivered over two separate weeks (one day per week) during the September pupil vacation period.

Don't miss this chance to connect, create, and experience the power of shared expertise! 

Complete the Google Form to register your interest.

K-6 Curriculum Support

The CEDoW K-6 Curriculum Support page contains: 

• Important links to external and internal sites
• Professional learning
• Planning and programming support
• Assessment and reporting
• Professional reading

For any enquiries, please contact: learningk-12support@dow.catholic.edu.au.

Introduction to K-6 PDHPE and Science and Technology (via Zoom)

School instructional leaders and teachers are invited to engage in two professional learning opportunities: Introduction to the PDHPE syllabus and support materials (via Zoom), and Introduction to the Science and Technology syllabus and support materials (via Zoom), which will provide an introduction to each syllabus, NESA support material and CEDoW support material.

Registration for both professional learning opportunities can be accessed here.

PDHPE Date: Thursday 4 September 2025 Time: 3 pm - 5 pm Location: Zoom Registered participants will receive a calendar invite with a Zoom link prior to the day.

Science and Technology Date: Wednesday 17 September 2025 Time: 3 pm - 5 pm Location: Zoom Registered participants will receive a calendar invite with a Zoom link prior to the day.

Schools can also request in situ support in collaboration with the CEDoW - ILW Learning K-12 team in preparation for the implementation of Personal Development, Health and Physical Education and Science and Technology in 2025 and 2026.

To register your interest, please complete this form.