THE HUNTER's new Head of Catholic Schools Steven Lemos has hit the ground running, saying his priorities include reviewing all existing programs to look for possible improvements, increasing consultation with principals, lifting students' access to technology and reducing teacher shortages.
"They're the things that are going to give us the biggest bang for our buck," said Mr Lemos, a married father of three whose career in education spans 30 years.
He joined the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle in 2020 and was most recently an assistant director supporting schools in the Manning and Lake Macquarie areas. His new role overseeing 58 schools, he said, was the logical next step.
"I could see the challenges that we were facing as a system and I thought that I had some answers or I had some solutions for what was coming up," he said.
"Currently we're doing a review of the counsellors in our schools, next we're going to look at our diverse students, particularly our gifted students, and look at what we do - 'Is this the best thing we do?' If we're not collaborating and together on a journey of continual improvement we'll go backwards."
Mr Lemos said it was more difficult than ever before to attract and retain teachers and the diocese's human resources team was investigating more incentives, flexibility and the creation of a talent pool.
He said there was a "lag" between when new technology was released to the market and arrived in schools.
"I'm really really passionate about reducing that lag time, we're going to introduce minimum standards, I'm calling it high standards, of hardware in schools," he said.
"There were a couple of our schools where kids didn't even have laptops so when it came to NAPLAN with the first time typing they didn't have the keyboard skills."
Mr Lemos said he learned "very quickly" in his most recent role the importance of listening to principals and teachers.
"They'd been through flood, fire and drought," he said.
"It was about implementing the practices, policies, procedures, the structures to get what they needed on the ground ... the teacher shortage really showed its head up [in the Manning].
"When they're telling you 'I had to go into the class again and teach' and 'This is the 23rd time we had to split classes' you listen very carefully.
"What we did was we put two permanent casuals or cluster casuals in so they were used between the five primary schools up there so they were able to float between them and fill in the gaps and we didn't have to split classes.
"The lake schools had different needs, we listened to them in different ways, it was about enrolments, staffing, facilities ... having wellbeing officers in some of our lake schools, reducing the number of students who were going to counselling.
"What I was trying to do in that role was take away some of the layers of admin and busywork that principals and schools have, farm that out to shared services but more importantly use the expertise we have in our shared services."
Mr Lemos also established monthly meetings between the principals in each area to collaborate and share successes, challenges and solutions. He said he'd like to expand this across the diocese.
"What I'd love is [to do that in] a variety of ways so we're not pulling them out of school for big meetings all the time where we hear a few voices - we want to hear everyone's voice."
Mr Lemos said even working at a system level, his heart was very much in the classroom. He said as assistant director he taught a mini lesson at every school he visited. The first thing he did when he was appointed to his new role last year - he started on January 3 - was teach a maths lesson.
"It was fun," he said. "My biggest achievement is becoming a teacher, not being the Head of Schools, that doesn't mean anything if I wasn't a teacher. That's what it's all about, the teaching and the learning."
Mr Lemos takes the helm at a time of change, following a restructure that he said had created 14 new positions in "teaching and learning and wellbeing".
He said four regional service advisors would link schools with shared services.
All Saints' College Maitland's two campuses moved to a shared timetable this year and three Newcastle high schools are preparing to start to transition to years seven to 12.
He said the diocese was "keeping a very close eye on demographics as far as the western growth corridor and the Maitland area".
