CSM Directory

Biography:

I am a part time Headteacher at a two form entry Primary school stand alone academy in East Devon with 10 years headship experience and 15 years senior leadership experience.
I am also an ILM level 5 qualified coach/mentor and work part time as a self employed school leadership coach.

I have the NPQH
I also work via secondment from my school on a flexi basis as a professional partner for the Devon aHead programme. This is a coaching provision via the Devon School Leadership Service which sees me coach a range of Headteachers across Devon once a term.

I believe coaching is a superpower in unlocking self awareness and that once we have self awareness we are unstoppable. I am on a mission to make coaching a part of every school leader's support infrastructure as is the culture in other professions in my business as 'the school leadership coach'.

In sessions I tend to loosely use the GROW model for coaching sessions ensuring that the client finds a way to identifying genuine and authentic next steps which they are motivated to take.

I really enjoy using a range of tools in order to embellish my coaching - including personality and styles diagnostics such as Honey and Mumford learning styles and DISC assessments as these act as great vehicles for rich dialogue around self awareness.

I also enjoy conducting exercises such as using coaching picture cards and perspective positioning in order to ensure clients explore contexts in a range of ways from a range of perspectives.
I believe the quality of questioning around ascertaining the reality of a situation is crucial in order to get to meaningful actions and ways forward. I like to use techniques such as scaling and metaphor that can then be referred back to establish movement from previous baselines.

When considering and exploring options and actions I like to use future focussing to evaluate the impacts, intended and unintended, of the various steps. I also like to explore the energy and emotions observed in clients during the consideration of next steps.

I tailor my coaching to become bespoke to individual clients which tends to happen via feedback and reflection as I move through a series of sessions with a client.