Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Primary School in Forestville and St Martin’s Catholic Primary School in Davidson are set to share a principal under a Catholic Schools Broken Bay leadership restructure affecting 14 primary schools across the Northern Beaches and North Shore. The two Frenchs Forest Parish schools are among seven pairs moving to a model in which a principal will divide their time between two campuses.
Our Lady of Good Counsel is located on Currie Road, Forestville, while St Martin’s operates from Prahran Avenue, Davidson. CSBB has not publicly specified who will take the shared Forestville-Davidson principal role, when the arrangement will begin, or how the principal’s time will be divided between the two schools.
Parish schools already operate in a shared local network
Our Lady of Good Counsel and St Martin’s already sit within Frenchs Forest Catholic Parish. Parish material identifies Our Lady of Good Counsel Church at Forestville and St Martin de Porres Church at Davidson among its worship communities, while St Martin’s school describes its ties to the parish through sacramental programs, family Masses and other activities.
Our Lady of Good Counsel is a co-educational Kindergarten to Year 6 school and has long been associated with St Martin’s as its neighbouring Catholic primary school. St Martin’s also serves Kindergarten to Year 6 and currently hosts Eileen O’Connor Catholic School support classes as part of its staffing structure.
The Forestville-Davidson pairing forms part of the same CSBB plan linking Maria Regina Avalon with Sacred Heart Mona Vale, St Joseph’s Narrabeen with St Rose Collaroy, St John the Apostle Narraweena with St Kevin’s Dee Why, and St Mary’s Manly with St John the Baptist Freshwater. Four North Shore schools at Asquith, Berowra, Carlingford and Epping are also included.
Union challenges consultation process
The Independent Education Union of Australia NSW/ACT Branch lodged a dispute with the Fair Work Commission on 2 September following CSBB’s announcement. The union alleges the employer failed to meet consultation requirements applying to a major workplace change under relevant enterprise agreements.
Union representatives have questioned how principals will manage responsibilities across two school communities and whether staffing will be increased when each principal divides their time between campuses. The IEU has described the model as leaving individual schools with principals who are present only part of the time.
CSBB disputes the union’s position and says it complied with its obligations under the enterprise agreement. The dispute remains unresolved.
Funding pressure cited for leadership changes
CSBB has linked the restructure to funding pressure affecting Catholic schools in Sydney’s north. Director of Schools Danny Casey has said the diocese has experienced an annual funding reduction of about $90 million and has argued that reducing leadership costs would allow more resources to be directed towards students. The $90 million figure is CSBB’s estimate.
Commonwealth funding for most non-government schools includes a Capacity to Contribute assessment. The Australian Government says the measure affects a school’s base recurrent funding and is based on the median family income of parents or guardians through the Direct Measure of Income system, which replaced the previous area-based SES measure and applied to all relevant schools from 2022.
CSBB has argued that shared principals can help contain leadership costs while preserving spending on students. Detailed public calculations supporting the diocese-wide $90 million reduction were not available in the material reviewed for this report.
Parent petition calls for pause
A parent-led petition is calling on CSBB to pause the shared-principal rollout until the Fair Work Commission dispute is resolved and further consultation is conducted with families, staff and school communities. Our Lady of Good Counsel and St Martin’s are among the 10 Northern Beaches schools named in the petition.
The petition raises concerns about transparency, consultation and school stability. Questions remain for Forestville and Davidson families about who will lead the two schools, how time will be divided between campuses and what senior leadership will be available when the principal is based at the other school.
CSBB has said the shared-leadership model is intended to strengthen collaboration, build leadership capacity and allow expertise to be shared across school communities. The system has also cited existing multi-campus arrangements elsewhere in its network when defending the model.
Published 8-Sept-2026
