Council member spotlight: Kate Fogarty

Kate Fogarty is the VIT Council Deputy Chairperson and Executive Director of Catholic Education Sandhurst Ltd. We spoke to Kate about how she came to join the VIT Council, her work in the Catholic education system and the teacher who inspired her when she was a student.

What sparked your interest in becoming a Council member?

I was invited by the Victorian Catholic Education Authority to nominate to represent Catholic education on the VIT Council and it was a privilege to be accepted by the Minister for Education to step onto the Council. As a teacher and principal for twenty-six years prior to my current role, I have seen the importance of the VIT from numerous perspectives and am rapt to be able to support its work through the Council and the Professional Conduct Committee, which I Chair.

What is your role outside your work on the VIT Council? 

I’m the Executive Director of Catholic Education Sandhurst Ltd (‘Sandhurst’ is the goldfields-era name for Bendigo). CESL is the owner/governing body of 51 Catholic schools (primary, secondary and specialist settings) and six ELCs across north-central Victoria – think of a triangle from Corryong across to Kerang and then south to Heathcote. We’re the third biggest of the 30 Catholic school employers with around 2700 staff and 16,000 students. My role is organisation-wide (our central office is in Bendigo, and we also have offices in Tatura and Wangaratta), but I'm still very much connected at the school level, engaging closely with our Principals and school communities. I miss teaching, but having grown up in country Victoria, leading improvement in regional and rural education means a lot to me. Rural kids have significantly lower attainment scores than their metropolitan cousins – and that’s not OK.  We’re working hard to turn it around and become the strongest improving school system in Australia.

What extracurricular activities do you enjoy doing? 

I enjoy weight training and walking (I’m just back from doing the Jatbula Track in the Northern Territory). I’m also an avid reader and big Jane Austen devotee. I enjoy study and usually have some sort of course/learning on the go. #Collingwoodforever.

What part of your work do you find most rewarding?

We’re working hard with our schools and teachers to lift outcomes for our students, and that work has really come to life through Magnify Sandhurst, our evidence-informed, system-wide approach to teaching and learning. We have already significantly improved the percentage of kids in our schools that are able to read and perform at standard relative to their metropolitan peers. There’s strong evidence that if students are behind by the end of Grade 3, there’s a less than 30% chance of them catching up by Year 9(!), so any time our numbers show that another child has achieved that goal, I can’t help but feel incredibly proud of our amazing teachers and the teams who sit behind them. We’re playing a long game on this – it’ll take years before we’re comfortable that we’ve pulled every lever in positive interventions, but the momentum is real.

Was there a teacher who really made a difference in your life or education? What was it about them that made such an impact?

So many. I had a history teacher in Year 11 and 12 who opened my head and heart to the perspectives and experiences of those whose stories are not usually told – the poor, the disenfranchised and minorities. While he wasn’t explicitly teaching social justice principles, that’s what I came away with. I’ll always be grateful to him for broadening my worldview and helping me to see and understand the biases that appear not just in historical record, but in the world around us.