How do you know you are having an impact? What does your data tell you about what is working or not?
What else should you know?
I can help you answer those questions and more.
Are your messages reaching your audience? Do they understand what they are reading?
I can rewrite your communications to ensure they meet your needs.
Is your workplace welcoming to everyone? Do your products and services cater to the widest possible audience? How inclusive are your communication practices?
I can support you to do better for all.
I'm Kathryn Carter, founder of Cottage Science Consulting.
With a diverse work history and broad interests, the unifying theme is my deep desire to help others improve and succeed.
I do this by:
pinpointing the core challenges, questions or needs
harnessing robust data and evidence
crafting creative, pragmatic solutions with the latest in best-practice tools and approaches
delivering clear, compelling communications and striking visuals.
Moving from the early childhood policy work in Australia, including working on the Indigenous Early Development Framework, to the New Zealand Ministry of Education was eye-opening and humbling.
I was honoured to coordinate the Research-Policy forum and discuss curriculum implementation with world-leading academics, including those responsible for Te Whāriki. It informed my work supporting the New Zealand representative of the OECD Early Childhood and Care working group, which at the time was looking at how you might evaluate and compare early childhood education systems in different countries.
I organised a conference for the OECD group in New Zealand on the implementation of Te Whāriki. Being world leaders in the development of such a curriculum means that New Zealand is also well placed to critically reflect on implementation to support other countries.
I joined PrimaryConnections as a project officer in 2007. Working closely with highly experienced teachers like Julie Smith (founder of Sprouting Science), and under the tutelage of Shelley Peers, I learned to write units of work to support primary school teachers in Australia to teach science.
I then started consulting as I worked and lived in different countries, writing units of work and advising on curriculum. Eventually, I fulfilled the role of Curriculum Director and oversaw the publication of new units and award-winning supporting resources.
When the Curriculum team was disbanded in 2018, my team made me the centre image as part of my parting gift. They used an image from the Women in Science book and modified it to reflect me.
I was a leader and then Vice-Director of educational holiday camps, in charge of staff development and activity oversight.
I developed new products, including language camps and Harry Potter-themed camps that continue to this day.
After almost a decade, I took the plunge and directed my first camp. It was themed around rockets - I even had a NASA scientist on staff!
I lived and worked in Kathmandu. I conducted a number of evaluation projects for Save the Children in Nepal and their partner organisation NNDSWO, including disaster preparedness projects and a long-running scholarship program.
Here I am pictured running a focus group for a baseline assessment for a new project on foster care and orphanages in rural Nepal. The qualitative data helped us intepret the numbers and plan.
After almost two decades of writing and trialling units of primary science for others, I wanted to use what I learned to create my own modules, drawing on the strengths of an online delivery model.
I found amazing teachers to work with, but our first product didn't hit the mark. Undaunted, we went back to the drawing board and managed to create something better. Getting this positive feedback was a real red-letter day.
Writing Easy Read and Plain English documents for the Easy Read Toolbox was a natural fit for my skillset. Co-presenting a workshop meant dusting off my presentation skills.
It was wonderful to discover that I could manage online presenting. Not only that, I was part of championing inclusive practice in action and met incredible people doing important work across the health sector in the ACT.