Meet the Team
Our Sports Hub team is dedicated to improving the quality of Physical Education for children across the Trust and beyond. Find out more about them below
Paul Belcher - Sports Hub Director
Paul has worked within Sports Development / School Sports for more than 15 years. Since 2012, as P.E subject leader at Curwen Primary School where he led a P.E Team that achieved the YST Gold Quality Mark becoming one of just 104 schools nationwide to achieve the School Games Platinum Mark.
Paul was instrumental in developing a broad and varied curriculum which included offering swimming to the whole school via the ‘Make a Splash’ pop up pool programme, working with NGB’s including NFL, Rugby League, Chance 2 Shine Cricket, The FA and piloted initiatives such as SchoolsRun and UK Wallball. More recently Paul has been working closely with BSUK / MLB delivering the 'First Pitch' programme.
Before working at Curwen Paul was the School Sports Competition Manager in Havering responsible for delivering the primary and secondary school sport competitions and as part of the East London Competition Managers Team delivering cross borough competitions.
Before this Paul was the Healthy Living and Sport Project Manager for West Ham and Plaistow NDC responsible for delivering a physical activity programme to all the E13 schools.
Qualified to teach / coach a variety of sports, Paul has a Level 5 Certificate in Primary School Physical Education Specialism and is also a FA Level 3 (UEFA B) Licenced Coach, Academy Scout at a Premier League Club and was Essex FA Coach of the Year in 2012 and Newham Community Sports Coach of the Year in 2010.
Paul also manages the Newham Schools Primary District Boys Football Team. His team won the ESFA National Finals in 2018 and they represented England in 2019 at the Danone World Finals in Barcelona.
More recently Paul was invited to join the YST Primary PE CatalYST Team to help shape future initiatives and was the Active School Hero Borough Winner for Newham 2020 and was nominated for the Alliance Award for Excellence in Education in 2023.
Catherine Slater
Catherine has a vast experience of teaching PE across the primary phase. Since graduating in 2000 with a BA (QTS) in PE Catherine has held the positions of class teacher, Assistant Headteacher, subject specialist PE teacher teaching EYFS – Year 6 and a local authority PE Adviser where she helped schools to raise standards of PE and Sport across more than 80 ethnically diverse primary and secondary schools.
Catherine is currently the subject leader at Curwen Primary School and works across Tapscott Learning Trust supporting children from Early Years to Year 6. Catherine has a Master of Science in PE and is a Specialist Leader of Education, supporting leaders to improve practice in their own schools.
As a PE specialist Catherine has led the subject to ensure that children make accelerated progress and are physically literate by the time they leave year 6. Catherine has been responsible for planning, delivering and assessing units of work, written subject action plans, delivered on the school sport premium grant, developed PE delivery through a broad and balanced curriculum and introduced new areas of activity such as archery, tri golf and orienteering. Catherine’s practice has been graded outstanding by Ofsted.
As a PE Advisor Catherine has supported both primary and secondary schools with changes to the national curriculum, assisted in PE subject Ofsted inspections, provided guidance on writing actions plans and SEFs, carried out lesson observations, delivered bespoke individual and whole staff professional development and aided subject leaders in planning and writing schemes of work.
Catherine continues to engage in professional development having attended national training on assessment, identifying gifted and talented, Safer Recruitment and other bespoke training through various National Governing Bodies in sport. Catherine is also trained in first aid.
