By Riel Andaluz | Sr. Manager for Corporate Partnerships
We are pleased to share that we are helping more learners read better with the establishment of more Catch-Up Clubs by starting this program in five schools in the Municipality of Maasim, Sarangani province!
Catch-Up Club (CUC) is a play-based model designed for children in the upper primary grades (Grades 4-6), which employs the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) approach in learning.Under the CUC approach, children are grouped according to their reading level. This is essential because for children who find difficulty in catching up with the competencies they are expected to achieve in their grade levels are given the opportunity and the avenue to overcome the learning gap or learning loss.
This play-based model also highlights the importance of social and emotional learning (SEL) as well as the collaboration between learners as they experience activities that can hone not just their literacy skills but also their social, emotional, and interpersonal skills. Diverse activities included in the session plan can also explore and tap different aspects of learning and self-awareness since there are individual, by-pair, and by-group tasks that are all learner-friendly.
Additionally, the program goes beyond learning by linking children and their families to essential social services such as recognizing that various factors act as barriers to education. CuCs strives to address these obstacles head-on. The component of the CuCs which is Child Protection makes this model holistic. Through the Child Protection component, CuCs link children to social services through tapping the existing Reporting and Referral Mechanism at the community level. A new component—the Parent/Caregiver Advocates for CuCs was also added, based on the co-designing sessions conducted. Through this component, parents/caregivers of CuC-enrolled children will be organized and will attend regular weekend catch-up conversations aimed at fostering a supportive and nurturing learning environment at home.
Catch Up Club is a scalable and sustainable model of the Catch-up Clubs because it is co-designed with the Department of Education, the local government unit, youth groups, children, parents, and other stakeholders.
The first phase of co-designing the Catch-up Clubs was the “empathy phase”, where we have conducted co-designing conversations with parents and children and consultations with different stakeholders. This is done through a combination of interviews, focus group discussions, and workshops with children, parents, local government officials, public school teachers, civil service organizations (CSOs), community learning facilitators (CLFs), and youth council members.
We have also trained teachers who will be our major partner and implementer of the program and would serve as CuC coaches that shall be responsible in training volunteers and monitoring the quality of volunteers’ facilitation in their respective schools. This supports the intention to sustain CuCs in the schools where the program currently operates by having a ready pool of trainers in these schools as volunteers come and go.
We are excited to see that following this phase, we will be seeing more children increase their reading skills and comprhension, and learn better in school.
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