Newly appointed director of Catholic schools, Gerard Mowbray, who has been acting in the role since October 2018, said the diocese was the only one out of 11 in NSW that had seen its schools experience sustained enrolment growth over the past 10 to 15 years.

"We're growing annually by 1.5 per cent and that is projected to continue for the foreseeable future," Mr Mowbray said, adding that 30 per cent of students were not of Catholic background.

"We've got a pretty aggressive strategic vision for developing and expanding Catholic schools.

"We have a 15 year capital works program."

Mr Mowbray said the diocese currently had around 20,000 students enrolled across its 58 schools and had identified the Port Stephens and Maitland local government areas as patches of "significant demographic need".

The diocese has already in the past five years opened new schools St Bede's Catholic College and St Aloysius Primary, both in Chisholm, plus expanded St Mary's Catholic College at Gateshead and St Joseph's College at Lochinvar to years 11 and 12.

He said Catherine McAuley Catholic College at Medowie would open next year and would be followed by a primary school on the site.

"Gillieston Heights is also flagged for future development for primary schooling and Cessnock longer term is flagged for potential development for secondary schooling."

He said the diocese had already purchased land in Redwood Drive in Gillieston Heights and in Cessnock.

"The other area of potential interest would be the Minmi and Fletcher area," Mr Mowbray said.

"We don't have land in that region at the moment, but we're actively exploring options in that area."

He said the diocese was also seeing growth in the number of school-aged children in the inner city, "between Mayfield across to Honeysuckle through Maryville, Wickham to The Junction".

"It's an untapped area of development," he said.

"We are seeing significant growth at Kotara South, New Lambton and The Junction.

"There is a need there, in that inner city region, for some potential further investigation.

"The current level of schooling is meeting the current enrolment growth, but that would be something we would need to keep our eye on in the future."

The diocese is set to make a record infrastructure spend of more than $92 million on capital works developments this year alone, at Catherine McAuley at Medowie, as well as on the "renewal" of at least 12 existing schools.

"We're probably playing a fair bit of a catch up," he said.

"For many years we weren't attending to new school growth and we weren't regularising the cycle of renewal for current sites."

Mr Mowbray points to his familiarity with the range of the region's schools as one of the reasons he was appointed to the role.

He began his teaching career in 1977 at St Mary's Gateshead, before moving on to the now-closed St Anne's High Adamstown.

He was assistant principal at St Joseph's Aberdeen, St Clare's Taree and San Clemente High before being appointed principal at St Paul's Booragul where he oversaw its expansion to years 11 and 12, and All Saints College St Mary's Campus.

"There's no greater privilege than to support the development of a young person," he said.

"Education is way too complex and what I'm trying to do is actually keep it very simple. Every bit of our energy is focused on the formation, the learning and wellbeing of every child in our care."

Mr Mowbray is the diocese's third director of schools in five years, after the 2016 resignation of Ray Collins and 2018 resignation of Michael Slattery.

"While I was in the acting role I guess there was a little bit of an air of uncertainty about moving forward," he said.

"School systems really thrive on stability. I'm really relieved and really excited about the fact that we can now really look to our next three to five years with a lot of confidence and gusto."

Mr Mowbray has stepped into the chair at a significant point in the diocese's history.

While previous directors have worked relatively independently and answered to Bishop Bill Wright, Mr Mowbray also works with chief executive Sean Scanlon.

The diocese is controversially expanding its presence in early childhood education by transitioning all out of school hours (OOSH) care centres at its schools to its own brand, St Nicholas OOSH.

It's also yet to finalise an enterprise agreement with staff who had concerns following a 2018 restructure.

Mr Mowbray said working with a chief executive "has not in effect changed my role".

"I'm still very much the director of Catholic schools," he said.

"Really the only significant change is that my direct reporting is through a CEO.

"I guess what's happened - and I think it's actually a good thing - is that Catholic schooling sort of stood quite alone, but it's now sitting very much within a diocesan framework.

"That hasn't limited my role or autonomy to lead Catholic schooling, it created a greater cohesion between Catholic schooling and the diocesan operations as a whole."

Mr Mowbray said the OOSH takeover had "obviously been something of an issue".

"We're learning from some of the bumps we've experienced," he said.

"The thing we've really tried to work on is 'Let's get planning, let's get timelines and communication happening', so our communities are well aware well beforehand and we won't have the concerns raised by a lack of appropriate communication."

Mr Mowbray said the enterprise agreement was in its "final stages of negotiations".

The Independent Education Union (IEU) wanted a coverage clause to ensure all members were covered, even if they were moved into shared services.

"There's been quite an active dialogue between the IEU and Catholic schools and probably in the last four weeks they've been the most productive that I've seen in the last 15 months."

He said the final agreement had been drafted and was with the union.

He said he hoped to see a conclusion in the next few months.

"We have at a diocesan level some restructuring in the area of legal, governance and risk, but beyond that there are no other planned structural changes and certainly none that will impact on schools office staff."

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