St Joseph's Coraki

2023 Roger O’Sullivan Award for Family, School and Community Partnerships for Learning

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS AWARD CLOSED ON 11 OCTOBER 2023 AT 3PM

Building partnerships between home and school to enhance the learning outcomes of students

The Roger O’Sullivan Award for Family, School and Community Partnership is an annual grant for a school community that demonstrates exemplary practice bridging the gap between home and school to enhance the faith development, learning and wellbeing of students through family, school and community partnerships.

Parent bodies and leaders from eligible Catholic school communities are invited to apply for the Roger O’Sullivan Award by demonstrating how a partnership-focused initiative has enhanced student learning outcomes. The initiative must be an authentic parent engagement project. Ideally, it will have been parent-initiated, but this is not essential so long as parents have been collaborative partners and authentically engaged throughout the life of the project.

The award is named in honour of Roger O’Sullivan, who was the first executive officer of the Council of Catholic School Parents (CCSP) in NSW and who made an extraordinary contribution to education in NSW and nationally throughout his career.

Download the ROS 2023 A4 flyer here.

The First Place award recipient will receive:

  • $5000 to support the further development of an existing initiative which aims to build parent and community engagement through collaborative partnerships

  • a framed award

  • promotion in CCSP’s quarterly enewsletter, Parent Talk (which is distributed widely to school boards, parent groups, principals, state and federal politicians, journalists, Catholic Church officials, Catholic Education Offices and other state and national parent associations), on CCSP's website and in the CCSP Annual Report.

Note: The independent judging panel may use their discretion to give additional awards and prize money.

Eligibility 

This award is open to all NSW/ACT Catholic schools that are affiliated with CCSP.  If you are unsure, please contact CCSP on 02 9287 1514 or office@ccsp.catholic.edu.au

The initiative may have commenced before or in 2023.

The following entities are eligible to apply:

  • P&F Associations of Catholic schools (or similar body; for example, a school board or council)
  • Catholic schools in NSW and the ACT
  • Cluster of Catholic schools where all are affiliated with CCSP.

Judging Criteria for the Award

All applicants will be considered by the independent judging panel on the basis of how well their initiative meets the ROS Award’s judging criteria.

In the 2023 ROS Award Submission Form Template applicants will be asked to answer the following questions using up to 200 words to demonstrate how their initiative/project meets the six judging criteria.

  1. How the project is a genuinely collaborative partnership between families, the school and, if applicable, the broader community.
  2. How the project demonstrates authentic parent engagement.
  3. How the project has enhanced student learning and outcomes.
  4. How the project is resourced in a sustainable way, including the likelihood of the initiative being able to be replicated in other Catholic school communities.
  5. How effective the project has proven to be, with supporting evidence such as testimonials from parents, teachers, students or others.
  6. How the $5000 award money would be spent to continue your initiative should your school community be the recipient of the 2023 Roger O’Sullivan Award.

Application Guidelines

  1. Applications open on 24 July 2023.
  2. Applications must be received by CCSP by Wednesday 11 October at 3pm.
  3. Judging of the Roger O’Sullivan Award will be the responsibility of a panel to be convened by CCSP.
  4. The decision of the judging panel will be final. The panel reserves the right to award additional prizes as they determine appropriate.
  5. The judging criteria will be applied by the members of the judging panel.
  6. The award recipient will be asked to work with a videographer organised by CCSP to produce a short 2–3-minute video to showcase their project.
  7. All applications must be endorsed by both the school principal and the president/chair of the school's parent body (P&F/Advisory Council/Board).
  8. Where the applicant is more than one school community the school principal and president/chair of each school community must endorse the application.
  9. CCSP will acknowledge receipt of all applications by way of automated email response.
  10. The principal(s) of the successful school(s) will be contacted by the CCSP Executive Director advising them of the outcome.
  11. The successful applicant and the CCSP Secretariat will arrange for the CCSP Executive Director to visit the school to present the award. It is expected that some of the parents who have been integral to the success of the initiative will attend the presentation.

Submissions to be received by: 11 October 2023