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Coaching

Quiet, focused support for school leaders

Leading a school is highly challenging work. The expectations are endless, the responsibility is heavy, and the role is isolating.

Coaching provides an opportunity to think clearly with someone who understands the job and what you are going through.

Helen Kelly portrait

Two ways I coach

Support for individuals and leadership teams

One-to-one coaching

Confidential leadership support

Confidential conversations, usually monthly, focused on what is most pressing for you: staff issues, leadership challenges, your own wellbeing, and answering the questions you can’t ask anywhere else. There’s no fixed agenda. Whatever you bring is where we start.

Team coaching

Support for senior teams

For senior leadership teams who want to work better together, especially when wellbeing, culture or workload is putting the team under strain. I work with you as individuals and a group, to help you to build trust, communicate better and gain clarity.

Person resting on grass with a book

Who I coach

Space to think clearly about leadership

The leaders I work with may be new to the role or more experienced. They are usually senior leaders, but I also coach those in middle leader roles. Clients are sometimes in crisis, but not always.

I bring fifteen years of experience leading in schools, a research background in school leader wellbeing, and hundreds of hours of coaching experience with me.

  • Sessions are online, usually an hour
  • Most leaders work with me monthly, across 9 months of the school year
  • Shorter, more focused work is possible, say three or four sessions around a specific challenge
  • Everything we discuss is completely confidential

What leaders say

What leaders say about coaching with me

“It has been an absolute pleasure to be coached by Helen over the last 2 years. Helen has greatly supported in my development as a middle leader transitioning into senior leadership in a multitude of ways. Collaborating with Helen enabled me to reflect on my current leadership style, explore ways of being an effective leader in a wide range of scenarios and maximise my personal characteristics within a leadership setting. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Helen, and it has been an important process ahead of the next phase of my career in education.”

PHSE Leader Secondary School, London

“Helen has been a great help to me professionally. She creates the perfect balance between being empathetic but also holding me to account which I have appreciated immensely. Each session has helped bring focus to previously hazy elements of my day-to-day work.”

Director of Learning, international school, Europe

If coaching sounds useful

Start with a short conversation

Send me a message. We can have a short conversation first to see whether it’s a good fit. There’s no obligation either way.