Headteacher Darryl Wideman, of independent school Radnor House in Twickenham, was keen to introduce a coaching culture into his school, from the senior and middle leadership through to all staff and older pupils.
Following two courses with Synergia, Cranbrook School now recognises the value of identifying different characteristics and personalities within its team which has helped to create a new sense of understanding among staff.
Cranbrook School is a co-educational, selective, boarding and day school which restructured in 2015/2016.
Following the restructure, Synergia came in to help senior staff members with coaching and mentoring techniques. The success of this session led to the Headmaster John Weeds and Director of Boarding Alex Crews to enrol on to the ILM Level 7 Coaching and Mentoring Course.
John Weeds said: “Clare from Synergia originally came to Cranbrook to hold a coaching session for all staff. She demonstrated the Zoo coaching exercise which we found very interesting and useful. It helped us understand that there are different learner types, so not everyone will come to the job with the same approach.
“Through the ILM Level 7 course with Synergia, I have been able to put what I’ve learned about different character types into practice.
“Following our first course with Synergia we did further work with the management group for the boarding facilities. Since then, we have received “outstanding” in our recent boarding inspection and I think the coaching and training from Synergia has helped us in achieving that.”
John added: “I have always been interested in keeping up to speed with my professional development as much as possible and found practical application is a great advantage. The face-to-face sessions and the course materials that went with them were superbly helpful and have really helped shape how we do coaching in our school.
“The coaching from Synergia has been very beneficial and we have started implementing some of the styles of coaching we have learned in to our management delivery. We’ve adopted the coaching approach in our management of groups and individual staff We are consciously engaging in more collaborative conversations. Even better, we are now working with other schools on developing coaching as a key strand in leadership development in schools in our area.”
To see if you or your team could benefit from a course with Synergia visit our courses page or call the team on 01785 711 593.