£207per carer/parent
minimum of 5 trainees

Working with Virtual Schools

Training pack
Our bespoke 'Catch Up® Literacy – Supporting Reading’ training package is available to be booked by virtual schools to train foster carers, kinship carers or virtual school staff to support struggling learners in the home setting.

We supported over 40 carers through our project with ‘What Works for Children’s Social Care’ (WWCSC), now ‘Foundations, the What Works Centre for Children and Families’, working with five Local Authorities and one independent fostering association.

We have since been pleased to work with other virtual schools, training over 100 carers in total so far! Please read the WWCSC report here.

The Catch Up® Literacy – Supporting Reading training package

We have developed a bespoke version of our standard Catch Up® Literacy training to enable carers to support how a young person tackles a text, builds their ability to recognise and de-code words and develop their understanding of what they have read or has been read to them.

We promote a process of ‘working together’ which includes modelling by the adult and discussion of the text.

The package includes:

  • Interactive, 3-hour online training course via live webinar
  • Training pack of key documents
  • Advice on reading books
  • Support after training via drop in meetings, email or phone

There are practical activities throughout the training, examples including video clips and opportunities to engage with the trainer and ask questions via chat windows.

You can find more information about the contents of the training session here.

What have staff and carers said about the training and supporting reading?

The online session has been well received with feedback stating

the best online training that I have accessed, the delivery was varied and informed and really engaging.

Carers have fed back:

Because they were different to normal reading sessions, they felt quite special. It was our special time to go and read together. And because it was special books which I put in a special box … she thought it was quite good.

…he did get used to it and now we read to him every night. He loves the praise, he smiles. It’s the norm now

Norfolk Virtual School

We were able to refine and pilot our bespoke training with the help of Norfolk virtual school. We have been delighted to train many carers and staff from the school since the pilot stage.

The Norfolk Virtual School Inclusion and Achievement advisor provided the following feedback:

Catch Up have worked with the virtual school to tailor the intervention to the needs of its participants. Carers have commented on the positive impact that they have seen through the programme. The organisation of the programme and its resources are outstanding, with everything being delivered in a timely and professional way

We have also worked with other virtual schools, following our collaboration with Norfolk, from across the UK.

If you would like to find out more, or book an informal conversation please contact us.