Scoring gold with Catherine!

Those of you who have been following our Gulu journey would have heard a little about Teacher Catherine. We taught together at Layibi Techo Primary School for almost two years; and throughout last year we have been training together at different schools throughout Gulu town, along with me taking teachers to observe model phonics reading lessons with her P1 class.

I had to think fast a couple of weeks ago when there was a change of head teacher at her school. She was getting a few job offers from head teachers around town, and she had also applied for a job in a district school (out of town). I have been training and mentoring Catherine for over three years – she’s brilliant! Such a humble, dedicated, hard-working and passionate teacher. I knew she would be accepted for a job in the district (higher pay) but I didn’t want to lose her. So what do I do? Offer her a job myself 🙂

I am so excited to announce that Catherine is working alongside me full-time now: her main role is to train local teachers in better methods of teaching reading and writing, and carry out follow-up visits to schools. Layibi Techo Primary will certainly miss Catherine. But hundreds of local teachers across Gulu municipality will now gain from her expertise, passion and leadership. Catherine has only been on the job for a week and already she has co-trained with me at two schools; conducted model phonics lessons at two schools and helped with observation lessons at three schools. It is way more powerful when Catherine stands in front of a class and demonstrates a lesson than if I do. And now teachers are asking Catherine for her number (not me) and asking Catherine to come back and help them. Awesome!

Together, we have conducted training at more than 20 primary schools in the Gulu municipal (and a few more just out of that boundary). Now the real work starts when we go to follow-up those schools.