As the second school term draws to a close this June, mid-year reports are landing on kitchen tables across South Africa, and many parents are reading them with a mix of pride and worry. For families whose children are finding the foundation years harder than expected, this moment in the calendar often raises the same question: is my child simply behind, or are there gaps in the underlying skills that everything else depends on. Catch Up Kids works with exactly these families, offering specialised one-on-one tutoring for children with ADHD, learning difficulties and developmental delays.
The mid-year point is significant because it gives parents and schools their first full picture of how a child has settled into the year. By June, the early excitement of a new grade has passed and the demands of the curriculum have become clear. A report that shows a child struggling with reading, writing or number work is not only a snapshot of marks. It is often a sign that a foundational skill was never fully secured, and that the child has been working twice as hard to keep pace with classmates. Catch Up Kids was built to find and address those missing pieces rather than simply drilling a child harder on work they are not yet ready for.
What Catch Up Kids does
Catch Up Kids provides individual tutoring for children who learn differently. The focus is on identifying the foundational skills a child may have missed and bridging those developmental gaps, rather than treating symptoms in isolation. Much of the work is built around a child's own homework, which keeps the support directly connected to what is happening in the classroom and reduces the sense that tutoring is yet another separate task piled on top of an already full day.
The service is aimed primarily at foundation phase learners, from the pre-Grade R years through to Grade 3, although the approach extends to older children who are struggling academically. For parents weighing up whether their child should repeat a year, Catch Up Kids offers a route that looks first at why a child is falling behind and what can be done to close the gap. As Remedial Tutors, the team concentrates on the building blocks that classroom teaching assumes are already in place, so that a child can rejoin the pace of the curriculum with more confidence.
Who it serves
The children who come to Catch Up Kids are varied. Some have a formal diagnosis of ADHD and find sustained attention and organised work difficult. Others have learning difficulties that make reading, spelling or maths feel disproportionately hard. Some have developmental delays that mean the usual classroom timeline does not match how they are growing and learning. What they share is a need for patient, individual attention from someone who understands how these challenges show up in everyday schoolwork.
For families navigating an ADHD diagnosis, the practical support of dedicated ADHD Tutors can make a meaningful difference to how a child experiences school. Rather than asking a child to sit still and concentrate in ways that may not come naturally, the tutoring is shaped around the individual, breaking work into manageable steps and building the habits and skills that help a child cope with classroom demands over time.
How the tutoring is delivered
Catch Up Kids meets families where it suits them. Sessions can take place in the comfort of a child's own home, at one of the company's academies, or remotely over Zoom for families who prefer or need online support. This flexibility matters for children who are easily overwhelmed by new environments, and for parents juggling work, travel and the logistics of getting a child to and from extra lessons during the cooler, busier winter months.
The company operates six centres across South Africa, with locations in Johannesburg at Waverley, Highlands North and Douglasdale, as well as Durban North, Pretoria and Sea Point in Cape Town. That spread means families in several of the country's major centres can reach in-person support, while the remote option widens access for those who live further afield.
What makes the approach credible
One of the defining features of Catch Up Kids is that it positions itself alongside a child's existing support network rather than in competition with it. The company emphasises collaboration with the school team, including the teacher, heads of department, the speech therapist and the occupational therapist. The stated aim is to complement and not substitute these therapies, so that everyone working with a child is pulling in the same direction.
This matters because children with complex learning needs are often supported by several professionals at once, and mixed messages or duplicated effort can slow progress. By treating the tutoring as one part of a wider plan, and by beginning with an initial consultation with a developmental expert to assess individual needs, Catch Up Kids tries to make sure its work fits the child rather than the other way round. For parents seeking Special Needs Tutors who will coordinate with the people already involved in their child's education, that collaborative stance is central to how the service operates.
Industry context this winter
The need for individualised learning support has become more visible in recent years as schools and families pay closer attention to neurodiversity and to the wide range of ways children develop. Large classes make it difficult for even the most committed teachers to give every child the sustained one-on-one attention that a struggling learner sometimes needs, and the foundation phase is precisely where small gaps can quietly widen into larger ones. Catching difficulties early, before a child has spent years feeling that school is something they are not good at, is widely understood to be one of the most effective ways to change a learning trajectory.
June is a natural point for families to take stock. The winter holidays offer a pause in the school routine, a chance to reflect on the first half of the year and, for some families, time to put extra support in place before the third term begins. For children who have spent two terms feeling behind, a break that includes focused, encouraging help can be the difference between returning to school discouraged or returning with a sense that progress is possible.
Looking ahead
Catch Up Kids continues to work, child by child, on the unglamorous but important task of building the foundations that confident learning depends on. The company's message to parents reading a difficult mid-year report is a steady one: a report that is not what you hoped for is information, not a verdict, and the gaps it points to can often be addressed with the right kind of patient, individual support.
Families who would like to understand more about how the assessments, tutoring options and centre locations work can arrange an initial consultation to discuss their child's needs.
To learn more about Catch Up Kids, visit the Catch Up Kids website at https://catchupkids.co.za/.
Media Contact
Catch Up Kids
Email: info@catchupkids.co.za
Phone: +27 11 440 1666
Website: https://catchupkids.co.za/
