My job as an Educational Consultant is to work with a school to solve issues and improve outcomes. I am experienced in working with school leaders to identify key issues, agree an action plan and evaluate its impact. One of the most powerful things I learned as a coach is that solutions that originate from the coachee (the school leader) are always more effective in achieving sustained, systematic progress.
I work with school leaders to prioritise the time and space to do the high-quality reflection that simply doesn’t happen in demanding day to day activity that is school leadership. Coaching is a tried and tested way of implementing sustained and successful change. In January 2020, Leeds Beckett University’s ‘Sustaining a vital profession’ reported on the impact of a yearlong coaching experience on Headteachers. Coaching helped Headteachers cope with their increasingly demanding roles, which were having a significant effect on their wellbeing, work-life balance, and capacity to drive school improvement.
Sardar and Galdames, (Coaching; An International Journal of Theory Research and Practice, 2018, p57) report that school leaders view coaching as beneficial to staff: “Coaching is beneficial to increase resilience and confidence, cope with stressful situations, bounce back from obstacles and emotional detachment from a practical perspective. It helps to break typical thinking patterns, broaden views, opens trainees up to receiving feedback and gives them the chance to ‘see the forest for the trees’.”
In our coaching work, we would:
- Explore your ‘why’ to re-connect you with your core purpose
- Clarify your goals and aspirations
- Identify the issue(s) that you would gain most from working on
- Articulate your aspirations and what success would ‘look like’
- Co-create a plan for you to realise your ambition
- Develop your self-awareness so that you expand your tool kit for leadership
- Understand the ways of being that can limit you
- Explore ways of working to get the best out your professional relationships
Some of my coaching relationships are time limited programme (e.g. once per half term for a year), whilst others last much longer, with the coachee ‘checking in’ occasionally as helpful, or through maintenance of a longer programme.
It would be my privilege to walk alongside you as a school leader as your coach. If you would like to explore this further, please do contact me so that we can discuss your needs.
What school leaders say about my coaching
I was sceptical about the impact that coaching could have, but I have been so pleasantly surprised at the resource you have helped me to discover in myself. I now face every day feeling confident about my ability. I am much more considered in my thinking and have stopped feeling that I need to do everything straight away.
You ask the right question at the right moment, and you always make me think so hard. I look forward to our sessions.
