Howdy Chris!
It’s nice to meet you. I am happy to help get your questions answered.
1) Can I assign colours to different categories to highlight the box for each day on the monthly view dependant on the event category?
Oh most definitely. You should take a look at the free addon The Events Calendar Category Colors. It adds some coloring to the categories.
2) It looks as though the calendar is displayed beneath a category. I would like to add the calendar to a page to allow additional content to be added above and below it, is this possible?
Again, this is totally possible. The Pro plugin adds two fields to the Settings area, which allows you to add HTML above and below the calendar. Further, if you are interested in customizing the look more than just content above/below, you can do so with a theme override which allows full control of what you see and where you see it.
Does that all make sense? Will that work for you? Please let us know.
Cheers!
– Brook