Hilltop Coaching

Leveraging her rich experience and insights from across the business world and the education industry, Val utilizes creative problem-solving skills and design thinking to help leaders and professionals navigate challenges and uncertainties with confidence.

Coaching in Education – It’s all about the future

Having worked in an independent school in South East England for five years, supporting teaching and CPD for teaching staff and working with pupils preparing for their GCSE exams, I understand how fast-paced and overwhelming school life can be for school leaders and teaching staff.

Slowing down to move fast, that is where I see coaching can bring value to a busy school life. Providing a psychologically safe space where our school leaders and teachers can reconnect with their wholeness, where the survival brain can reconnect with the limbic brain to enable metacognition to take place. Being a model of the open and curious mindset that our pupils can follow.

In the short-term, coaching offers a resting and reflective space to gain balance and clarity, and in the long-term, coaching provides the opportunity for shifts in mindset, accelerated in the growth and the development of staff, enhanced leadership, better wellbeing and sustainable performance.

Energy Leadership

1 on 1 Executive Coaching for School Leaders

If you are a school leader, you are juggling so many balls, and none of them can drop: from your school’s strategic development, stakeholder expectations, inspection preparation and academic achievement, to staff and pupil safety, safeguarding and wellbeing, parent expectations and communication…and on top of all these, are challenges from extended two years’ fight with Covid-19 and blended learning, and your constant internal doubt, “Have I done enough as a leader? Am I a good enough leader”? You are emotionally and physically exhausted, dreaming of how can you get up and not feel tired at the beginning of a day.

In 1 on 1 Executive Coaching sessions, we work on what is most important to you. Some of the areas I have worked with school heads and deputy heads are:

• Discovering your own leadership style & leading from your core strengths
• Increasing your confidence & executive presence
• Self-care – rest, sleep, diet, exercise
• How to maximize energy in a demanding school environment
• Strategic thinking and prioritization
• Improving emotional intelligence to create better relationships with team and family
• Authentic and effective communications with stakeholders (board, staff and parents)
• Navigating through uncertainties with more ease and confidence
• Accessing business management tools & resources

Energy Teachers

1 on 1 Wellbeing Coaching for School Teachers and Staff

If you are a school teacher, everything you do is for your pupils, from planning and delivering excellent lessons, and providing thoughtful and nurturing pastoral care to marking and reporting, running duties and leading clinics, club and activities… You are running around fighting fires and experiencing the “fight, flight, freeze” response and enter survival mode. Your brain constantly has too many tabs open. Where is the energy reserve you have created during the recent half term break? where is the whole person we bring to the school at the beginning of the day? where is the space for metacognition that we advocate for our pupils to have?

Slowing down to move fast, that is where I see coaching can bring value to a busy school life. Providing a psychologically safe space where our teachers can reconnect with their wholeness, where the survival brain can reconnect with the limbic brain to enable metacognition to take place. Being a model of the open and curious mindset that our pupils can follow. Some of the areas that I have worked with teachers are:

• how to define better boundaries to prevent burn-out
• how to maximize my energy and be sustainable
• how to prevent the mid-teaching crisis
• how to build better relationships with my pupils
• how to navigate conflicts and difficult communications
• how to navigate perfectionism

Online Coaching Programmes

4-6 week long customised and action-oriented coaching programmes delivered to school staff through email or an online platform. This can be a stand-alone programme or launched together with 1-on-1 coaching for school staff.

The topic of the programme is chosen by the school around what is most needed by their staff. Popular topics are: self-care, work life balance, leadership development, emotional intelligence, and effective communication. Each week, there is a sub-theme of the week, together with video and text resources for self-paced learning, and an action that the participants need to complete.

Staff CPD Training Sessions

A 45 minute to 60 minute training session or workshop centred on leadership development and staff development. Topics can include:

• How to discover your authentic leadership style
• How to listen so that people can talk
• What are your emotions telling you
• How to empower and develop your team in coaching style
• How to navigate through conflicts and difficult conversations
• Why coaching works – insights from neuroscience & psychology