Current Issues

The recently released 2025 ACU Principal Health, Safety, and Wellbeing Report continues to highlight a concerning trend of increasing incidents of violence and bullying towards principals, exacerbating their stress levels and impacting their mental health. Everyone deserves a safe workplace, and it is simply intolerable that 54.2% of South Australian principals are reporting threats of […]

In May 2024, SASSLA held a conference with researchers from Monash University to connect with South Australian school leaders for the research project titled Invisible Labour: Principals’ Emotional Labour in Volatile Times. This work is of specific interest to SASSLA as it is directly linked to our employment priority of reducing workload and turnover due

Phil and Mardi represented SASSLA as guest speakers at a recent SAPPA workshop. They spoke about ethical decision making to help leaders build their own knowledge and capacity for managing complex issues, identifying potential blind spots and boosting confidence in handling a variety of ethical situations. We have provided the handout Keeping Safe – Protective

SASSLA and SAPPA (South Australian Primary Principals Association)  are collaborating to review the working conditions in school-based preschools. SASSLA has previously undertaken instrumental work with the Preschool Directors Association to achieve additional funding to reduce the teaching time of Preschool Directors in stand-alone preschools. It is now time for SASSLA and SAPPA to jointly review

SASSLA is experiencing a rise in members being investigated for misconduct. It is prudent to reiterate the importance of professional conduct standards contained in the Code of Ethics for the South Australian Public Sector. These apply to all education staff and any breach of them may leave an employee open to disciplinary action. There are

SASSLA has recently developed a paper which develops a future scenario for the function of the Band A Principal and Preschool Director (PSD) labour market. The paper is available to read here. The development of a future scenario of the functioning of the Band A labour market is a valuable tool to assess future risks

SASSLA recently contributed to the Federal Government’s Review to Inform a Better and Fairer Education System in the form of a formal submission available to read here. The submission is focused on three areas we see as topical and important to future employment related education policy. These are: The Need for Improved Forecasting of Teacher

In term 3 2022, SASSLA visited 12 school sites in the Iron Triangle, Riverland, South-East, Mid-North and Kangaroo Island. The focus of our site visits was to gain an appreciation of the issues and pressures facing principals and their leadership teams. Our work with country principals has enabled us to develop a more complete picture of

SASSLA, together with the Australian Principals Federation (VIC and WA Branch), have prepared a combined submission in response to the Federal Education Minister’s plan to address workforce shortages. We commend Minister Clare on the concerted attempts to grow and strengthen the teaching profession however we are concerned that the plan fails to note and address

Several operational matters have been raised with SASSLA over the last week, beginning 27 June 2022. Three important issues of interest to our members are: Reimbursement of costs to a school where internal teaching staff are used to cover for sick leave in lieu of using a TRT. The limited capacity of the Employable Teachers