Therese Comfort, Head of Primary Education

Therese Comfort worked for many years as a class teacher and Special Needs Coordinator in primary schools in Hertfordshire and North Yorkshire, teaching all age groups in Key Stage 2. In addition to teaching the full range of subjects in the primary curriculum, she has taught languages since the early nineties. 

In 1999 she was asked to be involved in the DfES Good Practice Project which was set up to find out about and disseminate best practice in planning, teaching and learning of languages in the primary school. In 2000 Therese became an Advanced Skills Teacher and worked to further support and develop languages in the City of York. Since 2003 she has worked for CILT, the National Centre for Languages and is Head of Primary.

Having been involved in primary languages since the early 1970s, Therese is delighted that learning a language is now a reality for so many primary school children.

Joe Brown, Language Teaching Adviser

Joe has worked in a range of contexts where languages have been
taught in primary schools. Before joining CILT-The National Centre for Languages, he worked in a number of London schools supporting classteachers and teacher trainees implementing the languages strategy as part of a secondment with the TDA. He has also worked across the primary age-range in schools in this country and abroad, including a state bilingual school in Germany.

Joe has a Masters in Comparative Education which focused on the role of language and languages in the curriculum in a range of different countries and contexts. Joe joined CILT in September 2006.

Kati Szeless, Language Teaching Adviser

Kati has a background in primary education and taught in inner London and West Sussex schools for twelve years as a class teacher, primary languages coordinator and lead teacher for Literacy. She joined CILT in 2003 where she has co-written the Key Stage 2 Framework for Languages, the new QCA schemes of work for KS2 and the CILT Training the Trainers programme. She also leads the development and content of CILT’s primary languages website – the national gateway to advice, information and support for primary languages.

Born and raised in Brighton, Kati has been closely involved with both her local universities. She has taught language modules at Brighton University on their 4-year primary teacher programme and studied at Sussex for her Masters degree in education research focusing on the links between first and second language literacy.

Having a Hungarian father ensured that languages have always been an integral part of Kati’s life and she feels privileged to be part of a team dedicated to making language learning an essential part of the curriculum for all children.

Philip Harding, Programme Manager (Primary/Secondary)

Philip has been working for CILT since 2000 and in that time has been involved in many of the organisation’s projects including CILT courses & conferences, the CILT-NOF ICT training programme, CILT Direct, and the CILT’s regional Comenius Network until 2009. He is currently responsible for the management of the delivery of programmes in the primary and secondary teams with a particular responsibility for support for Local Authorities and related projects.

Philip was born and raised in Cambridge as a bilingual child and languages have always been a passion of his, studying French & Linguistics at St John’s College, Oxford and more recently qualifying as a translator (IoL diploma) at City University, London. He has also lived and worked in France, Germany and Gabon.

With languages becoming statutory in primary schools from 2010 and the increasing links being made between the primary and secondary languages worlds, these are very exciting times for languages in our schools and Philip is really looking forward to helping develop CILT’s crucial roles in supporting pedagogy, training, research, innovation, best practice and networks across the country.