22 November 2023
Mr Chris Kellaway, Director of Coaching and Empowered Learning
Over the past two weeks, more than 30 parents joined two online introductions to Woldingham’s coaching vision I ran with my colleague – and fellow trained coach – Mme Helene Poullain.
The interactive evening sessions focused on coaching at Woldingham, including in our Empowered Learning teaching approach. The sessions also looked at ways coaching can help parents’ conversations with their daughter and how the teenage brain means that adolescents are programmed to push back. This is part of their journey towards becoming independent. If students can ‘own’ their decisions through coaching conversations with parents, they are much more likely to stick to them. Using online break out rooms, we guided parents in listening skills and effective questioning.
A key take away we offered was to try to turn a ‘why?’ into a ‘what?’ question and see what results that brings. The sessions were great fun and we hope to run more next term for those who missed them.