Message from the Director

Dear Colleagues,

Exciting news that Armidale Catholic Schools have our first accredited lead teacher! Huge congratulations to Jacqui Wait, Co-Assistant Principal, Holy Trinity and SME: Literacy and Data. Jacqui's submission was exceptional, as was her site visit. 

The feedback emphasised the positive impact that Jacqui's leadership across several roles has had on student learning and well-being outcomes. Jacqui clearly demonstrated how she built teacher capacity in both roles and demonstrated breadth and depth across her submission. Thank you to Cherie Yates and Millie Woolaston for their continual support during this process. 

Jacqui is the first lead teacher in our system. Massive congratulations, Jacqui; this is a significant achievement, and you are so deserving of this recognition.

On Friday, I joined with women across NSW including a number of our Principals at the CSNSW International Women’s Day Breakfast. The theme was Celebrating and Highlighting Religious Women in Catholic School Education in NSW. I had the privilege of chairing the panel of four religious sisters - Sr Patty Fawkner SGS, Sisters of Good Samaritan, Sr Cecilia Joseph OP, Principal, St Peter Chanel Catholic Primary School, Sr Libby Rogerson IBVM, Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Sr Mary Walsh pbvm, Presentation Sisters Wagga Wagga Congregation. It was wonderful to hear the commitment of these women to the mission of the Church and Catholic education. 

In 2024 at the same event, Tanya Plibersek said that religious women ‘are the unsung nation builders – creating much of the Catholic education system that we take for granted today’. This is very true for the Armidale Diocese; many different orders of religious women were instrumental in setting up the first schools in our rural and remote areas. Many of our schools across the diocese were started by religious sisters including Dominican Sisters, Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of St Joseph and the Ursuline Sisters. 

The work of religious orders like the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, founded by St. Mary of the Cross MacKillop, had a profound impact on the diocese. Their focus on providing education to the poor and marginalised aligned with the needs of the rural communities within our Diocese. Mary MacKillop's vision of accessible education, coupled with the efforts of her sisters, resulted in the establishment of schools that served as places of hope. Mary MacKillop was devoted to giving people the basic skills  to overcome poverty, illiteracy and social isolation and this is epitomised in her saying:

‘Never see a need without trying to do something about it.’

The qualities of independence, resilience, dignity and respect that our religious showed in setting up our schools in remote and difficult circumstances, are ones we work strongly with our young people about so that by the time they leave our schools, they are faith-filled and with qualities that help them become strong and capable people ready to make a difference in the world truly realising a hope-filled future.