The Smith Family

The Fogarty Foundation has partnered with The Smith Family for 20 years, providing opportunities for talented and gifted students from disadvantaged backgrounds. 

The Learning for Life Fogarty Fund provides financial support for students to further develop special talents through a variety of activities, including sports and innovation programs. This helps the students gain the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to thrive in the 21st century. 

The benefits of a child’s participation in these kinds of activities are enormous. They include learning social skills such as team work, communication and confidence building, while ensuring students are engaged in positive recreational activities and social connection – all of which are transferable to school and contribute to improving educational outcomes.

Over the past 19 years the Foundation has supported 123 opportunities!

Thank you so much. This really helps with Mystique’s education. Especially this year with her being in Year 6. This enables her to do her homework and be able to research for school and help her participate in the reading program.

Tamika (Mystique’s mum) Learning fo Life Fogarty Fund recipient

Addressing digital inequity

The Smith Family’s Digital Inclusion Program is a tailored approach to creating digital equity, specifically targeting students from low SES localities that are at risk of disengagement from their studies due to digital exclusion.
Being digitally included means that students will be able to fully participate in an education system that is increasingly reliant on digital learning and be better equipped for the world of work.
Over the coming 12 months, the Fogarty Foundation has agreed to provide funding for 50 digital inclusion
packs for WA students who are completely digitally excluded – students that don’t have access to a device connected to the internet for educational purposes. This is part of an Australian-wide pilot program to address equity issues between school children that have been highlighted during the COVID pandemic.

The Smith Family

Over the years the Fogarty Foundation has supported The Smith Family in a number of initiatives including The Swan Extended Schools Hub. This brought together a cluster of four schools in the City of Swan to improve educational and employment outcomes for young people in the area through a collective K-12 holistic approach and developing school partnerships.

The Smith Family Community Engagement Workshop Series worked with three schools in the Dianella Education Precinct. The workshops focussed on Reshaping, Reforming and Rewriting student learning with family engagement as a key strategy. Through this the schools learnt how to support parents as first educators and to engage in their children’s learning at school and at home.

For more information visit The Smith Family website.

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