Message from the Acting Director of Schools
Dear Colleagues,
Welcome back to Term 2, 2025.
I hope the break offered you a valuable chance to rest, connect with loved ones, and reflect on the Easter message. Our Director of Schools, Peter Hill, is currently undertaking a period of renewal leave overseas until 23 May and we wish him well for this formative experience.
As a Catholic community, we continue to deeply feel the passing of Pope Francis as we mourn the loss of a true servant of God, while giving thanks for all he did for our world, and rejoicing that he is now enjoying his eternal reward with Jesus, Mary, and the saints. During his funeral Mass on Saturday, Pope Francis was recognised as a leader who was, like Jesus, out amongst his people with an ‘open heart to everyone’.
Despite the sadness we feel, we should be deeply encouraged by Francis’ constant message to continue looking forward with anticipation to what God will accomplish with us and through us, particularly in this Jubilee Year of Hope. With this as inspiration, I am pleased to share with you the progress we are making as we work together to realise the mission of the Church through our Catholic schools.
We're progressing Lighting The Way, our strategic plan centred on the concept of Connected Autonomy. Ultimately, it's about empowering your school to lead improvement based on your unique context and helping all of us to achieve student faith, learning, and wellbeing outcomes more effectively and sustainably than we could on our own, as one united community of schools.
Our main CEO objectives this year are designed to make Connected Autonomy real and meaningful:
- Making data useful: We're refining data systems so they are genuinely user-friendly and provide valuable insights to support school and student improvement.
- More relevant support: We're re-imagining how schools access support from the CEO or other schools. This means resources going where they’re needed most, and ensuring professional learning is practical, relevant to school goals, and directly applicable to your work in faith, learning, and wellbeing.
- Ensuring thriving schools: By focusing on enrolment growth and workforce planning, we're working to ensure all our schools remain vibrant, well-resourced places with the staff needed to serve our communities now and into the future.
Of course, everything the CEO team does should ultimately support your work in schools. The upcoming 2025 CEDoW Employee Engagement Survey is a direct way to share feedback on how each of our schools, the CEO, and the system as a whole can keep improving. Please be frank and fearless—your insights genuinely shape our priorities and help us understand what you need.
Thank you for your professionalism, your passion for the faith, learning and wellbeing of students, and the hopeful spirit you bring to our Catholic school communities every day. Your work is foundational to our Catholic mission in action.
Tim Gilmour
Acting Director of Schools