CAT4 Reviewer & Academic Consultant
Lina Sabbagh Charif
CAT4 Reviewer & Academic Consultant at CAT4 Prep, with 28+ years of experience spanning classroom education, curriculum leadership, and regional educational consultancy across the UAE, GCC, and MENA region
Currently working as an independent educational consultant and academic adviser, supporting schools and organisations with assessment preparation, curriculum development, and professional learning
About Lina
Lina Sabbagh Charif is an experienced educator, curriculum leader, and regional academic consultant with 28+ years of professional experience spanning classroom teaching, middle and senior leadership, and large-scale institutional consultancy across the UAE, GCC, Levant, and MENA region.
She holds the National Professional Qualification for Senior Leadership (NPQSL) from UCL Institute of Education, a Master of Arts in Education (Curriculum and Instruction) from the University of Phoenix, and Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) awarded by the UK Teaching Regulation Agency. She is also a School Inspector Competency Certificate (SICC) holder, IB PYP accredited across Categories 1, 2, and 3, and a SIOP Certified Trainer.
At Emirates International School Jumeirah, where she worked for nine years, Lina used CAT4 and GL diagnostic data as a professional working tool — cross-referencing cognitive ability profiles against other international benchmark assessments to identify at-risk learners, inform whole-school decisions, guide lesson personalisation, and design targeted academic interventions. At OBELAS Group, she built and led an entire training function from the ground up, supporting capability-building across 115+ schools and institutions in more than 20 countries.
Bilingual in English and Arabic, Lina brings regional fluency and cultural depth that directly serves the international and Arabic-speaking families this site is designed to support. At CAT4 Prep, she contributes as a content reviewer and academic consultant, evaluating practice materials for accuracy, clarity, and genuine usefulness across all four CAT4 reasoning batteries.
Areas of Expertise
- Cognitive Assessment & Data Analysis Cross-referencing CAT4 profiles against international benchmark data to build accurate, actionable pictures of individual learner needs
- Learner Profile Interpretation Moving beyond raw scores to identify what CAT4 results mean for learning design, intervention, and academic pathway decisions
- Assessment Design & Content Review Evaluating CAT4 practice materials against assessment design principles for accuracy, clarity, and student appropriateness
- Assessment Literacy & Educator Development Equipping educators to interpret diagnostic data with confidence and close the gap between assessment results and classroom practice
- Multilingual & EAL Assessment Contexts Practitioner insight into how language acquisition affects CAT4 verbal reasoning performance and what that means for result interpretation
- Regional Curriculum & Content Consultancy Deep working knowledge of how international schools across the MENA region use CAT4 data and what families need to understand it
- Digital Learning & EdTech Integration Designing and deploying digital learning programmes and LMS platforms across diverse educational environments
- Institutional Quality & Inspection Readiness Supporting schools with quality assurance frameworks and inspection preparation, certified at inspector competency level
Career Timeline
- –Academic Educational Consultant & Training Manager — OBELAS, Dubai, UAE
Group-level consultancy across GCC, Levant, North Africa, and LATAM. Led capability-building across 115+ schools in 20+ countries and authored curriculum content for Language Arts programmes across Grades 2–12.
- –Head of Training | Academic Consultant — Alpha Publishing & Smart Education Division (OBELAS Group), Dubai, UAE
Established and led the Training Department from the ground up, delivering regional professional development and supporting 70+ schools across GCC, Levant, Central Asia, and LATAM.
- –Head of Year | Science Curriculum Coordinator | IB PYP Educator — Emirates International School Jumeirah, Dubai, UAE
Nine years of progressive middle leadership in an IB PYP international school, including CAT4 and GL diagnostic data analysis, targeted intervention design, and teacher mentoring.
- –Academic English Instructor — American College of Dubai, Dubai, UAE
Eleven years of academic English instruction and TOEFL preparation within a UAE higher education setting, alongside curriculum redesign and student mentoring.
- –Grade 2 Homeroom Teacher — Brushy Creek Elementary School, Austin, Texas, USA
Foundational literacy and numeracy instruction within a US public school setting.
- –Grades 3–6 Homeroom Teacher — Al Ashbal Community School, Damascus, Syria
Primary classroom instruction supporting foundational literacy, numeracy, and student development.
Credentials
- National Professional Qualification for Senior Leadership (NPQSL) — UCL Institute of Education, UK
- Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) — Teaching Regulation Agency, UK Department for Education
- Master of Arts in Education (MA Ed), Curriculum and Instruction — University of Phoenix, AZ, USA
- School Inspector Competency Certificate (SICC) — Etio, UK
- Post-Baccalaureate Degree, Elementary and Middle School Education — Concordia University Texas, TX, USA
- Bachelor of Arts, English Language and Literature — Damascus University, Syria
- Texas Standard Teaching Certificate — State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC), TX, USA
- SIOP Certified Trainer (Training the Trainer) — Savvas Learning Company, USA
- IB PYP Accredited: Category 1, 2 and 3 Workshops — International Baccalaureate
- Inspire2Teach Teacher Mentoring Programme — Incyte International, UK
- How to Be an Effective Middle Leader — Infinite Learning, Dubai, UAE
- How to Be an Outstanding Head of Department — Infinite Learning, Dubai, UAE
Lina's Role at CAT4 Prep
Lina contributes to CAT4 Prep as a content reviewer and academic consultant, bringing practitioner-level expertise in cognitive assessment, curriculum design, and multilingual education to every resource she reviews.
In practice, this means evaluating CAT4-style questions and explanations for accuracy and level appropriateness, ensuring that reasoning steps in worked answers are sound, and validating that student-facing language is clear, accessible, and pedagogically reliable. Her review extends to ensuring that practice materials genuinely support preparation across all four CAT4 reasoning batteries — verbal, quantitative, non-verbal, and spatial — with particular attention to how content lands for international and Arabic-speaking learners.
Her particular value to this site lies in experience that cannot be replicated through familiarity with the test alone. She has used CAT4 and GL diagnostic data professionally within an international school setting, applied it to identify learning needs, and translated findings into targeted academic intervention. She brings that practitioner perspective directly to bear on the quality and usefulness of every page she reviews.
When a page carries the label Reviewed by Lina Sabbagh Charif, it means the content has been evaluated against rigorous standards of accuracy, clarity, and learning quality by a specialist with direct, school-level experience of the assessment it covers.
Lina does not review commercial or promotional content. Her work is focused strictly on academic quality, assessment integrity, and student-facing educational materials.
Content reviewed by Lina is clearly marked across CAT4 Prep pages where her review has been applied.
Pages Reviewed by Lina
Pages listed here have each been individually reviewed with Lina's educational input prior to publication.
Professional Profiles
Public professional links and external profile references.