Unlocking the potential within
Participating in a coaching process is really powerful and consistently leads to greater professional satisfaction. It consistently supports you in finding solutions to challenges and questions, and to identify actions that will take you closer to achieving your goals.
Great organisations believe in the power of coaching and intentionally invest in building the right culture.
More than a decade of experience
I bring more than a decade of experience of coaching within education to the table. When you work with me, you can be sure of having someone who is able to listen to your thinking and to ask you the questions that will challenge your thinking, and is able to support you in identifying the solutions you need.
My coaching has been honed and refined through engaging with individuals and leadership teams in more than a hundred schools, providing a safe space for colleagues to explore professional challenges.
Embedding a coaching in your school
There are a number of ways that I can support you to grow, develop and embed a coaching culture in your school. Explore the options below.
Embedding a Coaching Culture in your school
The development of a coaching culture and ethos is fundamental in empowering your team to take ownership of their own professional development decisions, which in turn raises their commitment to self-improvement, and also to take responsibility for their own accountability within the overall success of the school. It has the potential to be powerful and transformative.
I have more than a decade of coaching experience, working with individual teachers and leaders, and with leadership teams in more than a hundred schools. Whether working individually with leaders or collaboratively with leadership teams, I can support you to find solutions that will empower continuous and sustainable improvement.
I have extensive experience in providing coaching and mentoring support for leaders at all levels in school. I can work with you, and any leader in your school to get to grips with the combination of current school improvement priorities and professional development needs, identifying the actions needed to achieve success.
One to One Coaching
Developing the individual to benefit the team.
1:1 Coaching is available for any leader in school. The amount of coaching can be tailored to meet your school's needs, ranging from 1 session to as many sessions as you want and need.
Before our first formal coaching session, we would have a brief video meeting to identify the focus for the coaching session(s). I provide this free of charge!
Each coaching session will include email contact prior to the meeting, a 45 minute coaching meeting (using an online video conferencing call), and a set of follow up notes from the meeting.
Developing a Coaching Culture - Getting Started
Building an ethos and setting the environment
Adopting a Coaching culture should be the ambition of every leadership team. A coaching culture places decision making in the hands of those who have to carry out actions. They are invariably the people in an organisation who are best placed to make the decisions. The role of the Leadership Team shifts from delivering top down edicts, to providing support, encouragement and advice to enable the rest of the team to take ownership of their individual actions, and also to take increasing responsibility for their own accountability.
I can support your Leadership Team to evaluate the current coaching environment, how it connects with professional development processes and how it underpins monitoring and evaluation activity. Typically, I provide this support with a series of three or four sessions across a term. You make a decision about who attends, and there is no limit on the number of leaders from your school who can join the sessions.
Moving from Feedback to Dialogue
Professional Conversations that have sustained impact
"Doing the same thing and expecting different results" Apparently Einstein once said something like this.
For years, we have had a nagging feeling that the feedback we've been providing has ticked a box in our monitoring and evaluation processes, but doesn't always result in sustained change.
I can work with your team to transform professional dialogue based on a three-part model that underpins any professional development conversation. The effect of this is that the teachers in your school feel like they are valued professionals, and they recognise that they have a level of expertise that enables them to identify the next steps needed to achieve the best possible outcomes for the children in their class!
I can help you achieve this by providing training for leaders at all levels on how to conduct these three part-conversations, and by modelling the process with colleagues. The initial development work will take about 6 weeks, including at least 4 hours of face to face support and email support in between. It works well as a remote support plan, but can be delivered across two half days of in school support.
Virtual Team Member Support
Ongoing and regular support to develop your team
By providing support over an extended period of time, I am able to provide the coaching and mentoring to enable you to build momentum in a school improvement priority, identifying actions and signposting to useful resources and research. Through regular follow up conversations, I am able to help you maintain the focus an momentum necessary to see the development through, including holding coaching conversations jointly with you and colleagues whose practice is developing, or by providing key people with coaching support so that they can do what is necessary to achieve the intended outcome.
Virtual Team Member Support is delivered in either 4 week, 8 week, or 12 week blocks, and includes:
- access to a weekly coaching session (via online video conferencing)
- unlimited email support for identified members of the team
- bespoke documents to precisely meet the needs of the development priority.