Oasis Community Learning colleagues continue to benefit from 1:1 coaching as they return from maternity, adoption and shared parental leave.
Thanks to a partnership between The MTPT Project and Oasis Community Learning, colleagues returning to work following a period of maternity, adoption or shared parental leave can enjoy four sessions of fully-funded coaching within the first year of their return with an experienced and qualified MTPT coach.
In 2024-25, eight Oasis colleagues have benefited from the programme, including Laura Evans, Assistant Principal for Culture and Safeguarding at Oasis Temple Quarter in Bristol.
She has used her coaching sessions to focus on the strategic aspects of her role as she sets up systems at a relatively new school. She wants her powerful vision for inclusion to remain a priority amidst the busy operational demands of senior leadership. In particular, she has used her coaching to design an impressive intervention offer for students for next academic year.
She says, “I find it really helpful to discuss all of the different things that are going on in my brain at any given time and then have support to reframe it into chunkable tasks that I can actually achieve.
“Coaching allows me to plan out what order I need to do things in and gives me the space and confidence to seek out what I need to achieve those things.”
As mother to two children, Laura says that this ability to prioritise at work has enabled her to “keep work at work a bit more because I’m really clear on what I’m doing rather than taking it home in the evenings.
“There are different things at home that feel overwhelming at times, and coaching has provided me with transferrable skills: what are the things I want to achieve at home? Which ones of these things am I going to do, when? I might not be able to resolve everything each half term, but during the half term breaks I can set something up that will benefit me for the next seven weeks.”
Even half-way through her four sessions of coaching, Laura says, “I’ve achieved loads! There’s lots of things that are in place now that are the “add-ons” in schools. They’re not the operational. They’re the pro-active things that are going to help our young people the most. Things like setting up the school nurse, external counsellors, or tutoring: those things are all “additional” and external, but these were the things I wasn’t getting to until I started coaching.”
If you, or your colleagues, are returning to work next academic year, or have returned within the last twelve months, explore The MTPT Project’s 1:1 coaching offer here. A block of four coaching sessions, taking place remotely with an MTPT Project coach, are fully-funded for teachers, leaders and support staff, including colleagues working in MAT central and regional teams. And yes, it’s for fathers, adopters and non-birthing partners, too!
The coaching is part of The MTPT Project’s wider Cradle to Classroom programme, which also offers state school staff access to group coaching and workshops during parental leave, and when they’re back at work. This means that Oasis colleagues can enjoy group or 1:1 coaching from the start of their leave, all the way up to when their youngest child is five years old.
You can find out more about the full offer and sign up to your chosen programme here.
Recent Comments