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28th January 2019 - Meet the Trainer! – Kath John

Kath John

At Catch Up®, we feel very lucky to have such an enthusiastic team of Accredited Trainers who deliver our courses across the UK, Ireland and Australia!

Kath John has been a member of the team since 2009, delivering training for both Catch Up® Literacy and Catch Up® Numeracy.

Before working for Catch Up®, Kath enjoyed a very successful career as a teacher in primary schools. She taught across the age ranges from 5 to 11, having responsibility for many different curriculum areas over the years, including music, history, geography and maths! We always knew Kath was multi-talented!

She went on to work as Associate Advisor for Numeracy with a local authority in South Wales, and as a Numeracy Specialist with a Regional Consortium. Kath told us, ‘During my time in these roles, I gained great satisfaction from supporting TAs delivering Catch Up® Numeracy in schools and seeing them grow in confidence and skill as they made such a difference to their struggling learners.’ Kath was also a trained Catch Up® deliverer in her own right, and told us how she has seen the benefits, first hand, for struggling learners, in terms of academic achievement and personal growth. She said, ‘It was delightful to see the children bouncing excitedly down the corridor to see if they were having Catch Up® that day.’

After her very successful time at the local authority and consortium, Kath then became an independent consultant, which led her to complete the training to be a Catch Up® Accredited Trainer – and we were delighted to have her on board! Talking of being ‘on board’, in her spare time Kath also managed to become a senior dinghy sailing instructor and is qualified in power boat rescue! She used her teaching experience to excellent use, enabling many young (and older) people to learn how to sail.

Kath is based in South Wales, but travels far and wide with her Catch Up® hat on! Over the last few months she has delivered training in her home patch, but also Scotland, Northern Ireland, Nottingham and Bedfordshire. This has made Kath an expert packer, but even she had some stories to tell us about the dangers of being on the road! ‘After travelling 150 miles on a Sunday afternoon, with still another 70 to go, I realised that I couldn’t find my reading glasses! A quick call home confirmed they were on the bathroom windowsill. I was in the services, so dashed to a shop and had to laugh at the bemused face of the man when I said, “I think you’ve saved my life,” as I spotted the reading glasses hanging behind him!’

Kath has been made very welcome at different venues during 2018, including a number of schools and at our own Regional Training Centres. She thoroughly enjoys delivering the Catch Up® training for both interventions, and seeing trainees leave the training room fired up to get started and support their struggling learners!

Kath particularly enjoys sharing with trainees the positive outcomes she has seen with her own learners, and hearing about the trainees’ own circumstances. She told us, ‘During training, it is great to see the trainees’ passion for helping their struggling learners, and their eagerness to get started.’

The feedback we have from trainees in our training rooms is very positive, and Kath has been so pleased to see deliverers growing in confidence over the course and discussing the practical issues of setting up an intervention with gusto and enthusiasm. She can often be heard sharing her main top tip for Catch Up® delivery – ‘Keep it simple and make it fun!’ We couldn’t agree more!

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