Victory College’s Cathy Cody named Gympie’s favourite prep teacher | 2024

A freshly graduated teacher with more than two decades in the childcare industry has been named Gympie’s favourite prep teacher of 2024.

A freshly graduated teacher with more than two decades in the childcare industry up her sleeve has been named Gympie’s favourite prep teacher of 2024.

Victory College’s Mrs Cathy Cody received the most votes in a recent Gympie Times poll, from among 23 of the region’s prep teachers.

Originally hailing from Bega, a rural town in New South Wales, Cathy decided to move to the Gympie region after falling in love with a rental property in the Mary Valley.

More than 20 years on, Cathy and her family have stayed put and are now the proud owners of the home.

Growing up, Cathy always loved to be around children, and would often put her hand up to babysit, but never really had any interest of becoming a teacher until making a spur of the moment decision while chatting to a friend.

“I had a friend who said, ‘I’m going to study my teaching degree’, and I had no interest but I said to her on the spot, ‘I’ll do it with you’,” she said.

Cathy freshly graduated her teaching degree a year and a half ago, and has taught at Victory College ever since.

Teaching a year 6 class for three terms beforehand, this is Cathy’s first year as a prep teacher.

“It has took a long time to get me to where I am.”

While Cathy hasn’t been a teacher for long, but worked as a teaching aide at Victory College for around 10 years prior (working majority of that time in prep classrooms), and was an early childcare educator for a decade beforehand.

“I’m very blessed with all the people I’ve worked with at Victory College, including the teachers and teacher’s aides — there’s so many — that have always supported me,” Cathy said.

“I’m especially thankful for the support from leadership, as I was getting through my studies.”

“Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Ecstatic to hear the news of her win, Cathy Cody is pictured here alongside Victory College’s Head of Primary, Mrs Sarah Wilson at the time she was told of her victory. Photo: Contributed

A community close to her heart, Cathy’s three children (now 15, 16 and 18) have all attended Victory College throughout their school, with her eldest child graduating this year.

Whether it be getting dinner or cleaning the house while Cathy spent the weekend studying away, Cathy’s husband and children have also been a great support system for her, especially during her studies.

“Studying full time and working full time was a very big task.”

In her career as a childcare educator, Cathy spent three years working at the Smarty Pants Childcare Centre in Cooroy (now known Dulili Learning Haven Cooroy), and seven years at the Mary Valley Early Learning Centre for 7 years before that.

“Having many years working in the early childhood sector, I got to see how kids develop and what sort of things they were capable of,” she said.

“Because of this, when I started at the primary school, I just had that understanding of where they came from and what milestones they have met and building on from that.”

Cathy’s favourite part of being a prep teacher is that “the children have so much love and they want to please you.”

“You use that as an advantage to help them try that bit more and get them to their end goal,” she said.

“To see children start from not being able to write their name, and writing full words together, reading and understanding better by the end of the year, getting to experience all that happen is beautiful feeling and thing to watch as well.”

Pictured with her class, Prep G, and her lovely teacher’s aide Miss Cherise Kern in the top two photos, Cathy Cody has shared with us her welcoming display for her classroom, whose words reflect the learning journey that she loves about prep.

Pushing to be the best teacher she can be, Cathy said the biggest thing she tried to do was to always reflecting what she was doing, and looking at if it was working and how to make it better.

“To spark that interest that helps motivate a child to try and do well.”

“I think the secret to great teaching is having a lot of love and compassion for them and letting them know that ‘no matter what you do I’m still proud of you, and if you make a mistake it’s okay.’

“Being loving, firm, fair, restorative and letting them know it’s all going to be okay.”

Working in the prep environment for more than decade collectively, Cathy has been able to cultivate lasting relationships with families before even becoming a teacher.

“I think all prep teachers — and all teachers in general — are deserving of recognition and awards like this,” she said.

“They’re amazing at what they do and you’ve got to love the job to do it well.”

Cathy claimed the title of Gympie’s favourite prep teacher of 2024, finishing the poll with 15 per cent, just seven votes ahead of the runner up, Robert Andrews: Widgee State School.

See how each of the amazing teachers nominated for the title ranked in the voting: