HISTORY
An informal meeting of Catholic Primary School Principals in 1979 was the catalyst for a more formal meeting which was arranged, for Catholic Principals enroute to the 1982 APPA Conference in Tasmania. The major outcome from this meeting was a decision to meet prior to the 1983 APPA Conference in Sydney to decide if Catholic primary school principals would form an association.
Sister Marlene Monahan, from Victoria, chaired this meeting. It was decided to form an association to be called the Australian Catholic Primary Principals’ Association (ACPPA) and the Queensland Catholic Primary Principals’ Association was asked to organise the first ACPPA Conference in Brisbane eleven months later.
This resulted in the Inaugural Australian Catholic Primary Principals’ Conference being held 27-29 June 1984. It was attended by 109 principals representing each state and territory. The ACPPA name was formally adopted, the Constitution presented and accepted and the ACPPA badge approved. Frank Hennessy was elected the inaugural president.
From 1984 until 1992 each state and territory hosted at least one ACPPA Conference. These conferences were held prior to the APPA Conferences. In 1993 it was decided to combine the ACPPA conference with the APPA conference. In many ways this was a sound move, although the very Catholic content of the previous conferences was no longer possible. At the same time, ACPPA went through a major restructure which brought into play an elected secretariat no longer tied to the conference roster and an Executive comprising one representative from each state and territory association.
Following a constitutional review in 2013, the Association focused on the development and implementation of organisational structures and a financial model that would support the advocacy and representative work undertaken by the Association. This included meeting as a National Executive Council that included two members from every state and territory association, one of whom also represents their State Catholic Primary Principals’ Association on APPA.
In 2016, after a long period of consultation, a new governance model evolved. This model included the role of Executive Officer. This now means that in addition to a President and 16 State and Territory representatives, we also have an Operations Manager and Executive Officer as part of the Management Team, who now have greater capacity to deliver on our strategic plan.