Welcome to the first issue of Parent Talk for 2021. I hope the first four weeks of the school year have been an enjoyable experience for you and your children.

During 2020, we all faced unprecedented challenges caused by the global pandemic. On behalf of the Council of Catholic School Parents NSW/ACT (CCSP), I would like to again thank principals, teachers and support staff for providing continuity of learning for students while also prioritising the health and wellbeing of students and their families.

The NSW government is continually updating guidelines regarding parents and carers visiting school premises. Our website has links to government guidelines here.  For school specific information, contact your school.

At the beginning of the school year, it may take a few weeks for families to settle into new routines. Included in this newsletter are some links to videos that may be helpful for families to support children commencing Kindergarten.

2021 is the first year of CSSP’s new Strategic Plan  2021-2023. The planning process has enabled us to reflect, discern and prioritise our projects to bring us closer to attaining our vision of Achieving Communities of Hope and Love. More about the strategic plan later in this newsletter.

Our plan aligns with the announcement from Pope Francis for 2021 to be a year to focus on the family. In December, he declared 2021 to be the year of St Joseph the Patriarch of the Universal Church.

I am pleased to introduce our new Chair, Wayne Davie, from the Parents Representative Council, Diocese of Parramatta. Wayne has four children attending schools in the Diocese of Parramatta. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank Narelle Burke, from the Diocese of Armidale, for her leadership and guidance as CCSP Chair for the past 3 years.

We extend a warm welcome to the new representatives joining the Council and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Committee in 2021. Very importantly we thank the existing Council members and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Committee members for their continuing commitment to serve and represent parents and carers of students in NSW Catholic schools.

The first Council meeting for 2021 will take place in Sydney on 5 March. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Committee will meet on 18 March. I will report on these meetings in the March issue of Parent Talk.

2021 marks 200 years of Catholic Education in Australia, a remarkable achievement and well worth celebrating. Different communities will celebrate this in their own way.  More about this later in the newsletter.

We extend our congratulations to Elizabeth O'Carrigan, Director of Catholic Education, Diocese of Wagga Wagga, who received a Medal of the Oder of Australia (OAM) in the 2021 Australia Day honours for service to education in New South Wales.

From the Secretariat

In December, I visited Mother Teresa Primary Westmead to meet with Veronica Ishak, the recipient of the 2020 Council of Catholic School Parents NSW/ACT Pre-service Teacher Scholarship Australian Catholic University. More about this in the newsletter.

In February, we posted a hard copy of the resource, Supporting Diverse Learning Needs in Catholic Schools: A Guide by Parents for Parents, to every Catholic school in NSW and the ACT. The booklet can be viewed and downloaded from the new CCSP website. We included our new one page leaflet about CCSP in the mail out, which briefly explains what CCSP is all about.

We are continually adding content to our new website, which went live in December 2020.  One example is the expanded section on Catholic Social Teaching. We thank the Justice and Peace Office of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney for resources on Catholic Social Teaching. You can view the page here.

If there are additional subject areas you think we should cover or if you have feedback about the site, please contact clare.dunstan@ccsp.catholic.edu.au.

CCSP will be making a submission on the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 (The NSW Legislative Council's Portfolio Committee No. 3-Education).

You may have already read some articles on this in the Catholic Weekly on February 4 2021. This is the link to the article.

In conjunction with the Office of the eSafety Commissioner, CCSP will be hosting two webinars on eSafety. More details appear later in this newsletter.

In March, Wayne Davie and I will travel to Hay to attend the Isolated Children’s Parents Association Conference. I look forward to meeting parents and carers from remote areas of NSW.

I hope you and your family have the opportunity to pause, reflect and prepare in this Holy Season of Lent.

Kind regards,

Peter Grace | Executive Director