October 2025 Newsletter

Dear Colleagues,

The most notable Education news this month came from Federal Education Minister Jason Clare who, in a speech on Tuesday September 9, flagged a radical shake-up of four major federal education agencies to create a new Teaching and Learning Commission.

Minister Clare wrote to state and territory education ministers asking them to consider his plan for pulling the four agencies “under one roof” into the Teaching and Learning Commission, which would act as a single mega-agency to support reforms under new school funding agreements.

The super-agency would bring together Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) and Education Services Australia (ESA) into a single education bureaucracy. The merger would mark one of the biggest overhauls to the sector in 17 years.

Minister Clare said the new commission would support reforms contained in the recent $16 billion school funding deals which tie extra money with lifting the proportion of school-leavers finishing year 12 and reducing the number of students failing to achieve minimum NAPLAN standards.

The agency would also analyse workforce data, advise on how to attract and retain teachers and strengthen “evidence-based teaching” methods, including explicit teaching and classroom management resources.

“We have got to reform the entire education system. And this is the big one,” Minister Clare said. “If we want more Australians to take on a university degree, we need more to finish school.”

The move has been welcomed by the NCEC and the major Principal Associations are mostly supportive. Some unions have expressed reservations about the need to preserve the nature of teaching, specifically around the independence of curriculum and the role of teachers in lesson preparation.

On the CaSPA front I was delighted to launch our next Strategic Plan: Shaping Our Future 2026-2028 Strategic Plan - Catholic Secondary Principals Australia (CaSPA). The launch was conducted at our September Meeting in Melbourne in the presence of our Board and Association Chairs and executive Officers. My thanks to Dr Neil Carrington for once again guiding our Board through the planning process.

Dr Stephen Kennaugh GAICD

CaSPA President

The Board met in Melbourne at the start of the month and had our annual combined meeting with the State and Territory Association Chairs and Executive officers and their alternates. A full agenda began with the launch of our next Strategic Plan Strategic Plan - Catholic Secondary Principals Australia (CaSPA) . An update on CaSPA finances was presented along with a detailed look at CaSPA activities over the last 12 months. It became clear that CaSPA is increasingly involved in Advocacy and being invited to more and more peak discussions. The combined group were joined by telephone mid morning with Jacinta Collins for an NCEC briefing and to cover next steps in our efforts to promote Principal Wellbeing.

The 2025 CaSPA Data Project was presented to the group, it covers trends in Schools, numbers and principal tenure. Each State and Territory gave a report concerning their jurisdiction and as always the sharing of these reports gave a rich blend of commonalities as well as the challenges specific to each place.

Profiles of all the CaSPA Board are available on the CaSPA Website: https://caspa.schoolzineplus.com/current-and-past-board-members

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CaSPA holds an annual meeting where the Chairs and Executive Officers of the State and Territory Associations are invited to come in person to a daylong meeting with the CaSPA Directors, this year held at Melbourne Airport and included:

• CaSPA activity, updates from key agencies and reports from jurisdictions to shape our efforts in the coming year. Highlights of CaSPA Activity included the Perth Conference last July and the new AI Seminar this June in Canberra, the seminar was well received, and we hope to run others on a variety of topics going forward.

• This Year our meeting included the launch of a new Strategic Plan 2026-28: Shaping our Future. It renews our commitment to Unity, Advocacy and Service.

• Reports from the different Jurisdictions raised a number of common themes the two most noteworthy being the common experience of "red flag" issues being identified in Principal wellbeing and the downward trends that continue to worsen and secondly the alarming upward trend in the numbers being employed in central offices in the wake of corporatisation. Contrary to what one should expect, increases in numbers of central office employees is sadly increasing workload on Principals rather than reducing it.
• Jacinta Collins from the NCEC joined us for an update on NCEC activity and a conversation around Principal Wellbeing, premised with our position paper and focussing on possible next steps.
• During a working lunch our CaSPA National Business Partners also joined us to be thanked for their ongoing support so vital to funding our work and to brief us on how their businesses can support our schools and Principals.

• A CaSPA Data project presentation allowed us to compare data on Principal tenure and gender balance trends, and trends in enrolment and school type.

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At the 2024 July Conference Principals generously agreed to be filmed to give us a snapshot of profiles across the nation. In the coming newsletters we will share links to these.

The next profile is of Neil Alweyn

https://vimeo.com/1113780592/47095f4b46?share=copy

Principal Lucas Felstead from Holy Spirit College Manoora QLD recently presented on Principal Wellbeing at the Australian Catholic Education Conference.

Lucas Felstead has over 27 years of experience as an educator within the Victorian, Northern Territory and Queensland education systems. For the past 16 years, he has served an extensive apprenticeship in education Senior Leadership holding positions as an Assistant Principal Administration, Assistant Principal Religious Education, Deputy Principal and 7 years as a Principal within both the Primary and Secondary contexts. He is currently the Principal of a Special Assistance College that provides alternate educational pathways and boarding for at risk students across 3 campuses. In April 2025, Lucas was awarded the Doctor of Education degree by the Central Queensland University School of Education and the Arts.

 Summary of Research: A Salutogenic Response to Principal Wellbeing

Lucas Felstead –

My doctoral thesis investigated the occupational health, safety, and wellbeing of education leaders in Australia, with a specific focus on understanding how high-performing experienced principals within the Catholic Education Diocese of Cairns (CEDC) managed the complexities and demands of their role sustainably. The research supports the most recent recommendations within the 2024 ACU Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey (POHSWS) Report, which emphasizes the need to identify and learn from principals who are thriving despite systemic challenges (Dicke, Kidson, & Marsh, 2024).

National Context and CEDC Alignment

Since 2011, national POHSWS data has shown elevated stress, burnout, and emotional strain among the principal class. The 2024 ACU report reveals that a staggering 45% of principals triggered “red flag” alerts, indicating serious psychosocial risk. Violence against principals has escalated, with 49.6% experiencing physical violence and 54.5% facing threats, mostly from students (School News, 2025). Despite these pressures, the data also indicates many principals maintain high levels of job satisfaction and professional commitment (Marsh, 2024).

Within my local CEDC context, the POHSW data commissioned in 2017 and 2018, mirrored much of the data being reported nationally. My peer principals indicating elevated levels of work-family conflict, burnout, and sleep disturbances amongst other key indicators of low health, safety and wellbeing. Importantly, however, CEDC principals also scored highly in job satisfaction, social community at work, and recognition, suggesting a strong cultural foundation for resilience (Riley et al., 2018).

Compelled to stem the ongoing decline in Australian principal occupational health, safety, and wellbeing being reported each year, despite evidence of multiple systemic strategies adopted to address the issue, my research was dedicated towards unearthing a better new way of supporting our principal class. From my research, I quickly discovered a predominant pathogenic approach being taken when attempting to support principals, with a focus on reducing the environmental stressors and strains imposed by their environment. Seeing that this was not having the desired impact, my research embarked on testing the efficacy of adopting a salutogenic approach towards addressing the issue. This directed my research to focus on identifying and learning from those within the principal class who were thriving; exploring their adaptive coping strategies and resource usage. The Case-Study research focused on six high-performing, experienced principals (10-Years+), within the Catholic Education Diocese of Cairns (CEDC). These individuals were studied through qualitative case analysis to uncover the personal, cultural, and organizational resources required to support sustainable principal wellbeing.

Framework of Understanding 1. Salutogenic Model of Health (SMH)

Developed by Antonovsky (1996), the SMH reframes health as a continuum rather than a binary state. It emphasizes the role of General Resistance Resources (GRRs)—such as emotional intelligence, social support, and cultural stability—in fostering a Sense of Coherence (SOC). SOC comprises:

• Comprehensibility: perceiving life as structured and predictable.
• Manageability: believing one has the resources to cope.
• Meaningfulness: viewing challenges as worthy of engagement.

Figure 1: The role of culture in the Salutogenic model of health (SMH) (Benz et al., 2014)

Within the research, it was found that high performing experienced principals possessed a strong SOC, increasing their capacity to demonstrate resilience and proactive coping in their demanding and complex work environments. Their ability to draw on GRRs—such as supportive partners, community trust, and professional role models—enabled them to sustain wellbeing whilst experiencing and resisting significant work demands.

Framework of Understanding 2. JD-R Burnout Model

The Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) Model, updated by Bakker and de Vries (2021), explains how burnout arises when job demands exceed available resources. Key components include:

• Job Demands: workload, emotional labour, cognitive strain, and pressure to hide emotions.
• Job Resources: autonomy, support, development opportunities, and recovery practices.

The model incorporates self-regulatory behaviours:

• Adaptive: recovery, job crafting, emotional intelligence, proactive personality.

Maladaptive: coping inflexibility, self-undermining, avoidance.

Figure 2: Burnout as a function of job demands, resources, and self-regulation.

Note: A = Maladaptive regulation feedback loop; B = Adaptive regulation feedback loop.

(Bakker & de Vries, 2021, p.6)

Utilising this framework of understanding, the research was able to ascertain that high-performing experienced principals were more readily able to engage in adaptive behaviours such as boundary setting, mentoring, and proactive communication. These strategies buffered job strain and prevented burnout. Several system and personal leadership and HR practices were also shown to moderate stress responses, reinforcing the need for systemic support.

Wise Principal Model (WPM)

The two frameworks enabled the research to engage in an extensive assessment of the personal and organisational resources utilised by the high performing experienced principals to withstand the strain of their highly complex and demanding work within the CEDC context. This nuanced understanding led to the development of the Wise Principal Model (WPM), a holistic framework for understanding sustainable education leadership. The WPM illustrates how principals can create resource gain spirals by leveraging three interconnected domains:

1. Personal Cultural Resources: upbringing, professional influences, supportive partners.
2. Work Cultural Resources: relationships with staff, community, peers, and system leaders.
3. Personal Physical/Psychological Resources: routines, recovery, boundaries, and disconnection.

At the heart of the WPM is the Wise Mindset, a cognitive-emotional state developed through experience and resource accumulation; a process that was acknowledged as taking between 6-8 years within the role to acquire. It includes principled decision-making, meaningfulness, resilience, self-reflection, humility, and healthy rebellion. This mindset enables principals to optimize resource use, reduce strain, and engage in personal restorative practices.

Figure 3: Wise Principal Model – A resource acquisition, utilisation and conservation model.

Conclusion

It is with great excitement that I can share this modest snapshot of my extensive research findings and insights with the CaSPA community. This research represents many years of dedication towards a noble cause, whilst simultaneously continuing to walk the challenging and rewarding path of principalship. I am excited by the potential inherent within this novel approach and what it offers in advancing an understanding of our dedicated education leaders along with additional avenues to more effectively support them. I hold the greatest hope in the agency of sharing the wisdom of the high performing experienced principal mindset, presented within the Wise Principal Model, with aspiring, novice or struggling leaders. This I hope, will equip them with the knowledge of the optimal personal and organisational resources required to better withstand the complexities and demands of their role, enabling them to move towards greater health and wellbeing. Finally, I am buoyed that this research complements the latest recommendations coming out of the 2024 ACU POHSWS Report, supporting the potential of exploring a salutogenic, culturally adaptive strengths-based approach towards improving principal wellbeing. We have much to learn from the wisdom of our elders.

References (APA Style)

• Antonovsky, A. (1996). The salutogenic model as a theory to guide health promotion. Health Promotion International, 11(1), 11–18.
• Bakker, A. B., & de Vries, J. D. (2021). Job Demands–Resources theory and self-regulation: New explanations and remedies for job burnout. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 34(1), 1–21.
• Dicke, T., Kidson, P., & Marsh, H. (2024). ACU Principal Health and Wellbeing Survey: 2024 Summary Report. Australian Catholic University.
• Felstead, L. (2025). A Case Study Approach Towards a Salutogenic JD-R Understanding and Response to Poor Principal Class Occupational Health Safety and Wellbeing in the Diocese of Cairns [Doctoral dissertation, CQUniversity].
• Marsh, H. (2024). Violence escalates and mental health suffers but principals remain resilient. ACU Institute for Positive Psychology and Education.
• Riley, P., et al. (2018). CEDC Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey Report. Australian Catholic University.
• School News. (2025). Alarming findings in ACU’s principals’ wellbeing survey. Retrieved from school-news.com.au

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Don’t be shy,if you are new or yet to be featured please complete the information below and forward this information to: admin@caspa.edu.au

Photo: Please provide a photo of quality

Name:

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First Year as a Principal:

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My big picture for my current school is:

The Joy of becoming a Principal is:

Favourite Book:

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Interests / Hobbies:

My Favourite Well-Being Strategy:

Advice for an Aspiring Leader:

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If you have yet to feature in our Principal Profiles you are welcome to do so, simply send me an email at admin@caspa.edu.au with your answers and a picture.