The School Photographer is delighted to have been successful in our recent tender to become a National Partner with CaSPA.  As a business, we currently produce packages for some 450,000 students throughout Australia whilst working with more than 1200 schools, since our 1986 beginning.

The School Photographer has always prided ourselves on a high quality product produced at competitive prices.  We have always backed this up with a very high standard of both school and parent service.  Consistency is the key to our success in becoming a market leader in our industry.

Innovation too, has been a major key to our success and we hope that should you allow us the opportunity to work with you, The School Photographer would become "Your own One Stop Shop!"  Some our products ranges include: -

• Our unique 360 Virtual School Tours.  Feel free to look at sites like St. Gregory's Campbelltown, St. Mary's Star of the sea in Wollongong, Holy Cross College Ryde, (NSW) Mary McKillop College, Kensington (SA).
• Our unique Photos2Life app available to all parents/students to see images such as whole school photographs, year 12 groups and much more come to life!
• Yearbook production backed up by our superb software to make your job easier.  Give us a call to see how competitive we can be compared to your current supplier.
• Pull-up banners, Tear Drop Banners, Fence Banners and unique Corridor and Window Imagery to enhance the look of your school.
• All kinds of personalised stationery including letterheads, report folders and envelopes, prospectus creation and any other marketing aids you may require.
• A wide and diverse range of photographic package presentations to cater for student/parent needs.

An additional benefit of our successful tender to become a National Partner of CaSPA is also our funding of $5000.00 Towards the Professional Development of a Principal of the Board's choice.

Finally, as a SPECIAL OFFER we will create and provide our unique 360 Virtual School Tour (10 locations) for the first 8 new schools that employ The School Photographer's Services for 2019. 

This offer is available to schools throughout Australia but will be first in first served. Please use this email to register your interest: garrick@theschoolphotographer.com.au

We look forward to our new National Partnership being a great success and are hopeful to catch up in the near future.

 

Garrick Dostine
Owner Director
The School Photographer

There have been two high profile themes in recent political debate:

• Transparent and genuine needs based funding for all school sectors
• Over crowding in our major populations centers and the related theme of providing adequate services for Regional and Remote areas

The following data is very interesting in terms of these two issues. As you are possibly aware, the ABS and others utilise a Remoteness Areas Index to divide Australia into 5 classes of remoteness on the basis of a measure of relative access to services. Remoteness Areas are intended for the purpose of releasing and analysing statistical data to inform research and policy development in Australia. Based on the 2018 Census of Australian Schools we see that Catholic Secondary schools are:

• under represented in the major cities giving the lie to the characterization of the typical Catholic School having over abundant resources and catering for those in the most affluent areas of the country
• CaSPA schools have a significantly HIGHER presence than the general population in the most needy and challenging areas of the country
  • Remote areas [100% higher than general population]
  • Very Remote areas [50% higher than general population]
  • In fact CaSPA schools are the only providers of education in a number of these remote/very remote settings.

Above: Michael Dahl, the new EO for APCSS.

Following the retirement of Lou Flint earlier in the year, the APCSS has appointed a new Executive Officer to support the work of the Association from the beginning of 2019.

The new EO is Michael Dahl, the current Director of the Nazareth Catholic Community - a leadership position he commenced in 2006. Michael will retire from this position to take up his new role early next year.

Michael has had a long career in South Australian Catholic Education. Amongst other appointments over the years, he was principal of the following CaSPA Colleges:

1997-2000 St John's Whyalla

2000  - 2004 Cardjin College

We congratulate Michael on his appointment and look forward to maintaining the close bonds between APCSS and CaSPA.

The recent August 2018 Census of School Enrolments conducted by the Australia Government, confirms the fact that Catholic Secondary Schools do not fit into the category of "one size fits all". On the contrary, our 500 schools across the country are as divergent in terms of student numbers as they are in their geographical location.

Having said that, as the accompanying chart reveals, the schools broadly come in four categories with a quarter of CaSPA schools fitting into each category:

1. Schools with less than 406 students.
   • Clearly these schools are mainly in the more remote locations and often serve large geographic areas
   • The juirisdiction with the largest number of schools of this size is Queensland partly due to there being a sigficant number of smaller regional that can support a Catholic Secondary school, but also the high number of Flexi Learning Centres in Queensland - 12 in all
2. The next size category is 406 - 746 students
   • NSW clearly has the largest number of schools of this size
   • Of the jurisdictions with reasonably large populations, it is significant that WA has a very small proportion of schools in this category - only 4
   • SA on the other hand sees this category as accomodating a large proportion of its students
3. The third category is schools from 747 - 1011 students
   • Again NSW is very well represented in this category, and in fact it is the category with the most number of its schools
4. The final category are the large school with enrolments of 1012 or more
   • Victoria figures very prominently in this category. Not only does it have more schools of this size than any other jurisdiction, around 40% of its schools have these large student populations
     • This is perhaps due to the relatively small physical footprint of the state compared with its significant [and quickly growing] population
     • As a state with a long history of religious order founded schools, many of the current schools are in fact amalgamation of single sex smaller schools that now operate as larger co-educational schools
   • WA is well represented in this group as is ACT

Those who were part of Korero 2017 will recall that we were joined for the entirety of the gathering by Bishop Charles [above at Korero 2017], who is the Pastoral Leader of the Diocese of Palmerston North in New Zealand.  He offered the following insightful reflection recently on the Diocesan website. His words resonate with many in the CaSPA community as we seek new understandings in areas such as the Governance of Catholic Education in Australia

Once every five years the priests in New Zealand meet nationally for a professional development week. This time it was in Christchurch. And the experience was seismic.

No priest or Bishop could have left that week unshaken.  The two input speakers each very different from the other shook us to the core. Take your pick of the Titanic sinking or the Bismarck rudder-less going round in circles, the images of the Church (the barque of Peter) presented to us were brutally raw.

A central thesis of one of the speakers was that the festering wound of sexual abuse of minors, points to a wider and deeper fault-line running through the Church (something which historically has been seen as a mighty force and now is experienced as a pathetic weakness): clericalism.

Clericalism is the appropriation by a clerical caste of what is proper to all the baptized. More simply put, it's a club mentality which renders the baptised subservient to preening priests.

I loathe clericalism. It makes me shudder. It's a hangover from tribal forms of priesthood where castes were set aside for temple service found in the Old testament, and which morphed into a culture of 'superiority' or entitlement, or as Jesus himself put it:  "Lording it over others" see Mathew 20:25 and 1 Peter 5:3).

Clericalism isn't an isolated phenomenon; it has close cousins. Misogyny, sexism, bullying, racism, paternalism, are also pathetic attempts to Lord it over others. Misogyny parading as theological orthodoxy is a particularly toxic example.

Of course this does not mean to say that organisations, including the Church, don't need strong leaders. Indeed, in times of crisis good leadership or governance is essential.

That's where we are stuck though, going around in circles. So much ordinary leadership as well as formal governance in the Church has been tied to ordination and thus to priests and Bishops.

So where to next? Fresh theological study of baptism as a source of or, better put, call to leadership is already underway. We do not need to wait for its conclusions before we bring about change.

Pope Francis's reform of the Church started with a bow; his is not primarily a theological reform. It is an attitudinal reform. He bowed to the world from the balcony of St Peter's on the night of his election and instead of 'telling us' he 'asked us' please bless me, bless pray for me. He spoke not 'at' but 'with' us, the baptised the universal Church indeed all humanity. This is a reform of the heart. Let us not underestimate its power for good. After all, clericalism is not a theology. It's a pathology. A pathology of arrogance and ignorance that has been a tumour in the Church for too long.

But back to governance or leadership. I like to use the metaphor of the table. Who sits at the table? This shifts discussion from laws and protocols to people and vision, from power and authority to gifts and talents, from in-groups and sycophancy to diversity and creative thinking.

In Aotearoa we can point to some good examples within the Church. For example the Finance and Management Council of the Palmy Diocese, to which I am accountable, is chaired by a woman farmer and has diverse membership. Diversity is of course not about simply ticking "difference boxes"; it is about taking seriously the recognition that any governance structure needs a range of insights and experiences and intuitions at the table.

What about our Bishops table? It too needs to be broad. Diversity at a table does not mean that any one stops being who they are. When I sit at our Bishops' table, or any other table including kitchen tables, I sit there 100% as myself and therefore 100% as one who serves as a Bishop. Someone else's presence doesn't undermine me, doesn't dampen my voice as a Bishop or belittle my contribution. The presence of others in fact enhances me and saves us (Bishops) from the high risk of group monologue.

How could it be threatening or undermining if we Bishops actually had at our table prolonged korero or discussion inching towards shared insight (Dei Verbum 8) and policy and planning with Mori, with women, with young leaders, with representatives of the tens of thousands of Catholics who in this land and Church we love, no longer sit at the table of the Lord on a Sunday?

May I conclude by recommending to you an opinion piece written by a key worker in the Palmerston North Diocesan office, Dave Mullin. It's entitled Six Men in a Leaky Boat (Split Enz fans will be smiling!) and while entirely his own article is also the fruit of chats we have had. Read it here.

With humility, may our conversations and listening across the Diocese grow, as we seek to include ourselves in Pope Francis' reform of the heart of the Church.

+Charles