Filter Content
- President Update
- Renew now for 2023
- Professional Learning Opportunities
- 2022 Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey
- Australian Government Primary Principals Association (AGPPA) Update
- ASPA Board Meeting February
- Funding Reform for the NT
- National Public Education Wellbeing Summit
- CHAT GPT – the power of AI
- Links to other Professional Learning Opportunities, Publications, and Professional Reading
- Facebook page - Follow us

Dear Members
Once again, our NT school leaders have demonstrated their extraordinary leadership, resilience and agility during challenging times. We would like to acknowledge the efforts of our colleagues in the Central Region for managing the impact of increasing crime and violence in their communities, lack of staffing and high rentals and poor media attention.
We would also like to acknowledge the amazing leadership of our Katherine Region principals, especially Anne Saunders and Anne Pollock, who have had to manage flooding, school closures, evacuations and the turmoil which accompanies that. Thank you as well to all those school leaders who have provided support to their colleagues.
It is with great admiration that we recognise the leadership skills, flexibility and innovation of our school leaders during critical events, and applied in any situation to ensure the safety, well-being and support for our students, staff and wider community.
NTPA is known as the collective voice for school leaders throughout the NT at both a Territory and National level. It is a key stakeholder and advisory body to the Department, the Chief Executive and Minister of Education, and influences through strong partnerships, advocacy and representation on committees and groups.
Thank you for your ongoing support and feedback in relation to system changes, policies and practices. Through your feedback this term, we have been advocating and providing feedback in (just to name a few) areas:
- Implementation of additional PL Days and impact for contract principals (last day)
- Implementation of the Government Employee Housing policy and issues
- Staffing and teacher shortages
- Budget errors and impact of adjustments
- Lack of support and advice from DCDD for HR, recruitment, performance matters
- Infrastructure issues, wait times and transparency of processes
- Changes to NAPLAN -connectivity issues, devices issues and concern that the new level ‘needs additional support’ will place additional expectations on schools from parents.
- Violence in schools and follow up and appropriate responses to critical incidents
- Vaping in schools- the need for a wide community education campaign
- NTG Essential Training Compliance and additional burden to principal and teacher workload
- Improving Central Communication on matters affecting all schools across the NT, including transparency of processes
- Increasing number of new enrolments in schools of students who are disengaged and the challenge of providing flexible options for quality education.
NTPA Member Feedback Survey
NTPA are providing you an opportunity to provide feedback to the Exec on what’s working well, what isn’t and what professional learning support you would like for 2023.
Chapter News
Congratulations to our new Chapter Office Bearers. The following school leaders were recently elected to roles in their Chapter.
Top End Chapter
Chair: Jackie Roberts
Vice Chair: Petrina Hayward
Secretary: Cindy McLaren
Treasurer: Erin Ranie
Darwin Chapter
Chair: Leah Crockford
Secretary Noella Goveas
Treasuer: Maria Albion
Arnhem Chapter
Chair: Joe Hewett
Please note the following Chapters are yet to have their AGM meetings: Big Rivers, Central, Barkley
Your Chapter President represents your views and feedback to the NTPA Exec. Chapter meetings are a great way to connect with colleagues for support, advice and collegial learning.
Membership
Reminder to pay your annual fees - Here
Professional Learning Opportunities
NTPA is committed to developing our aspiring and new and current Principals. We have been able to support professional learning for our members in a variety of ways this term. Please keep reading to see all the details and some exciting oppotunites to come.
Thank you to those that joined in the networking session for Top End after the collaboration day on Tuesday 7th March. We look forward to hosting more of these events in the near future.






Keep well,
Robyn
Robyn Thorpe
President Email: ntpa.admin@education.nt.gov.au or ntpa.president@education.nt.gov.au
Remember memebrships are for a calendar year so now is is the time to renew or join for 2023. Click on this link to complete the form.
Professional Learning Opportunities

NTPA is committed to developing our aspiring and new and current Principals. We have been able to support professional learning for our members in a variety of ways this term.
Recently in partnership with BTS SPARKS an Aspiring Leadership Program was held in Alice Springs. This consists of a full day of face to face workshop followed up by 2 X 90 minute online coaching sessions. This workshop was also held for the Casuarina Education Precinct and was well received as per the feedback below.
‘I don’t feel so alone with my leadership challenges, that other people are in similar situations and I have others that I can relate to.”
‘I feel really confident now. The strategies taught today are really useful and I can use them straight away’






Top End Aspiring Leadership Program
We are also offering this program for any Top End participants on Monday 22nd May. The face to face workshop will be held at Rydges Palmerston at a cost of $450 per participant. Please register your interest via this link
Difficult Conversations Workshop
This workshop gave participants the chance to develop skills and confidence to hold difficult conversations that you need to have with both rigor and sensitivity. Feedback was that this was a very practical workshop which provided tools to navigate the challenges in this space.











All financial NTPA members receive complimentary access to the EC Premium PL platform.
Access to world-class professional learning for educators. Anytime, anywhere
We are very proud to be working in partnership with EC by Go 1 to provide access to quality, world class professional learning content online via a platform which can be tailored to meet the needs of your school and staff. NTPA have trialled this platform and excited about the potential it has to meet the professional learning needs of our educators and leaders across the NT. EC Premium has offered personalised, curated access to world-class professional learning for all financial NTPA members.
Please watch the following tutorial on the NTPA Learning hub which explore ways to support schools to use the full potential of this platform.
Please reach out to ntpa.admin@education.nt.gov.au with any queries regarding access.
2022 Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey
The 2022 annual Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey summary was recently released. The data this year reflected the increasing stress caused by teacher shortages. This was ranked 3rd for 2022 whilst it ranked 12th in 2021.
Heavy workloads and a lack of time to focus on the core responsibilities of teaching and learning were the top two sources of stress recorded among almost 2500 principals surveyed in 2022, according to the annual Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey.
Mental health issues among students and staff rounded out the top five sources of stress. Principals are also concerned about the welfare of staff and students, with their top five concerns for staff being burnout, stress, anxiety, depression, and alcohol and/or drug use, while anxiety, school refusal, depression, stress, and self-harm were leading causes of concern for their students.
IPPE co-lead investigator and leading school wellbeing expert Associate Professor, Theresa Dicke has stated the impact of wide-ranging stressors on school leaders, including ongoing teacher shortages, was becoming acute.
Heavy workloads and lack of time to focus on teaching and learning remained the top two sources of stress for principals in 2022. She said principals needed support to help reverse the concerning trends detected by the survey.
“The fact that these stressors remain the same as in 2021 indicates the level of importance in addressing these concerns,” she said. “We need to progress and implement effective solutions that support and empower principals in their vital roles.”
Australian Government Primary Principals Association (AGPPA) Update
Australian Government Primary Principals Association (AGPPA) Update
AGPPA met this term in Canberra and continued their work to advance the Strategic Plan as a collective national voice representing all Primary Principals across Australia.
Resourcing Portfolio
The delay in the next National School Reform Agreement has created an opportunity to strengthen the Australian Government Primary Principals Association sponsored research by Professor Pasi Sahlberg. This research will outline the critical nature of ensuring equity in funding for government primary school students.
For over 10 years, the Gonski needs based funding model has not been funded fully by every state and territory government. AGPPA once more calls on the Federal Government and all states and territories to fund all Australian government primary schools to ensure they receive a minimum of 100% of the Schooling Resource Standard per student at the commencement of, or within the next NSRA.
Pasi has been tasked with presenting a clear understanding of the complexities in public education and outlining the economic benefits for the Australian society of a fully funded government primary school education system.
Principals demand action on school funding gap











ASPA Board Meeting February Communique
South Australia
ASPA President Andrew Pierpoint was an apology due to recent accident which preventing him from travelling. Andrew did however join Board and Committee discussions for short periods of time over the two days.
Board welcomed the new Tasmanian Principals Association, President Mat Grining to his first meeting for ASPA Board & Committee.
Key items from ASPA meeting discussions:
- Current ASPA President Andrew Pierpoint has indicated his intent to take extended leave as President later this year until mid 2024. The process for selection of an incoming ASPA President was discussed and documented. The timeline allows for 3-month transition period providing support for incoming President.
- Provided feedback on AITSL Discussion paper and project overview for the Development of New National Framework for the Certification of Highly Accomplished and Lead Teachers. While ASPA Board is disappointed with the “Out of Scope” items for this project, feedback addressed concerns related to increase workload of leaders and teachers and need for more consistency in conditions and processes across states & territories.
- AI in education is evolving very quickly with significant implications for education. ASPA acknowledges the challenges and opportunities AI offers and calls for support for schools to manage in support of developing student’s skills and understanding of ethical, and appropriate use of this technology.
- ASPA strongly supports The Voice to Parliament and commits to engaging in discussions related to the implications for education policy and work for school leaders.
- ASPA worked on the final Draft of the Communication & Engagement Strategy facilitated by 89Degrees East. This will be used to support our direction in sharing ASPA’s work with key audiences and will align with the ASPA Strategic Plan 2023-2025 which is in development.
- State & Territories report on key activities and issues as a regular part of our meetings. The opportunity for this discussion provides insight into the work of our Principal Associations. Commonalities inform strategic planning and actions of ASPA Board and President. Principal selection procedures and panel composition will be carried forward for further discussion at our next meeting.
Funding reform in the NT- NTPA have been key stakeholders and members on the Effective Enrolment Review, Secondary and Preschool review and the Students with Disability funding review. These reviews will inform the overall reform of funding for students in the NT and provide a mechanism to advocate for additional federal government funding for NT students.
National School Reform Agreement – NTPA have, and will continue to advocate for, a more equitable approach to funding NT students through the National School Reform Agreement (NSRA). This underpins the bilateral funding agreement between the federal and state governments and territories. It was disappointing to hear the announcement from the Federal Education Minster, that the next NSRA would be postponed for a further 12 months (end of 24). This means funding for students in public education will still remain below the Gonski recommended Student Resourcing Standard (SRS) until a new agreement can be reached. Our Minister has been a strong advocate at Federal Minister meetings. We encourage all members to speak to their local federal member about this issue and requests to provide equitable funding for NT students.
National Public Education Wellbeing Summit

Recently Belinda Pearson, Jane Arnott, Stephen Nimmo and myself participated in the National Public Education Wellbeing Summit which was organised by the South Australian Government Education Department. This summit brought together educators, school leaders, departmental staff, policy and data analysts and researchers across all states and territories to discuss and explore this ever-increasing concern.
It was a unique opportunity to collaborate with leaders from across education policy, school practice and the research community to consider how we address and build system capacity to enhance the wellbeing of Australia’s children in the public education system.
While the focus was on the wellbeing of young people, it was also acknowledged that it is of critical importance that the wellbeing of our school leaders and educators is a top priority also.














This week, I asked ChatGPT to write a newsletter article on school leader wellbeing and it was produced in less than 1 minute! This is a powerful tool that can be used in many ways to enhance our work. However, it will also make us think about how we teach and assess student learning, and how this can be utilised in education positively. Many states including our Territory, have restricted the use of ChatGPT in schools. Of course, you can access it at home.
School leaders are among the most crucial figures in shaping the education system. They are responsible for ensuring that their institutions provide high-quality education, fostering a positive learning environment, and supporting their staff, students, and families. However, in the midst of the challenging past few years, the well-being of school leaders has become increasingly important. In this article, we will discuss why school leader well-being matters and provide some tips to help them maintain a healthy work-life balance.
The Role of School Leaders
School leaders are the backbone of the education system. They are responsible for creating a positive learning environment and ensuring that their schools are providing high-quality education. They work long hours, manage staff, and deal with administrative tasks that can be stressful and time-consuming.
Why School Leader Well-Being Matters
School leaders are under significant pressure, particularly during the pandemic. They have to balance the needs of their staff, students, and families while dealing with the uncertainty and challenges brought on by the pandemic. This pressure can lead to burnout, exhaustion, and even mental health problems. It can also impact their ability to lead effectively and make the right decisions for their schools.
Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Work-Life Balance
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is essential for school leaders' well-being. Here are some tips to help them:
- Prioritize self-care: School leaders should make time for themselves and engage in activities that promote their well-being, such as exercise, meditation, or spending time with family and friends.
- Delegate responsibilities: School leaders should delegate tasks to their staff and empower them to take ownership of their work. This will not only reduce their workload but also help to develop their staff's skills and capabilities.
- Set boundaries: School leaders should set clear boundaries around their work and personal life. This may involve not checking emails or taking calls outside of work hours.
- Seek support: School leaders should seek support from colleagues, mentors, or professional counselors when they need it. This can help them to manage stress, develop coping strategies, and improve their well-being.
In conclusion, school leaders are critical figures in shaping the education system, and their well-being matters. By prioritizing self-care, delegating responsibilities, setting boundaries, and seeking support, school leaders can maintain a healthy work-life balance and continue to lead their schools effectively.
Sincerely, ChatGPT
Links to other Professional Learning Opportunities, Publications, and Professional Reading

High Resolves
World-class immersive learning experiences utilising cutting-edge technology, along with the expertise of global education designers and changemakers.
Videos for Change
Videos of Change is a platform where students create a one-minute video that raises awareness and inspires action on issues they feel passionately about. Though local in-school, national and global competitions, the platform amplifies the voices of young people to raise awareness of issues they feel passionately about to encourage social change. Students can participate individually, but In-school competitions are ideal in developing a range of skills for students, and teachers can now easily manage their own competition end-to-end on the platform. Get in touch via digital@highresolves.org to talk to our team about how you can host your own in-school competition.
Case study - Warruwi School
Last year Videos for Change partnered with The University of Melbourne to engage with Warruwi School (South Goulburn Islands) and enable their participation in the program. Students planned and created their film, Keep Our Island Clean and entered it into the National Competition, with the students achieving a place as a Top 10 Senior finalist. The video, along with an interview with Melissa McCartney, was showcased in the 2022 Australian Videos for Change Film Festival. Warruwi School is currently working on their new submission for this year's National Competition.




Symphony
Symphony gives teachers unlimited access to an intelligent digital platform of interactive and engaging student learning experiences, from some of the World’s leading education designers. High quality lessons that are quick and easy to allocate, save teachers time and engage students through thought-provoking online content that develops critical skills for the 21st century. Progress analytics and reporting can also be obtained quickly and easily.
We are now offering NTPA members the first 30 days FREE with expert onboarding support from our team. This ensures your classes and lessons are set up quickly and easily with the confidence to utilise the full functionality of the resources available. Click here to register your interest and watch the demo video.
Since, our original Northern Territory Principals’ Association Facebook site was hacked by a video creator group we have been rebuilding.
We recommend you block this site: Old facebook site
Then follow this one: New NTPA facebook page
Thank you!