Coach in the Spotlight - Wendy Gore

What were your first thoughts after attending The Coaching Academys taster weekend?  WOW! Why did I not know about this 20 years ago! It would have been so helpful as I began and strived to become a good teacher.  What profession were you in before coaching?  Before attending my first 2-days taster weekend with The Coaching Academy I was a member of the Senior Leadership Team at an Inner-city Academy. I had worked my way up from being just a teacher of mathematics to a Head of Year and Head of Department then finally being responsible for student achievement in Year 11. A big role with a lot of responsibility and with the hopes that soon I would become a Deputy Head teacher.  What did you enjoy most about gaining your coaching qualification?

  I believe that there were two things that I enjoyed most about gaining my qualification. Firstly, making lots of new friends along the way. Secondly, the real confidence boost it gave me – I had been going through a bad time at work and this gave me the strength to carry on and look for a new direction to take.  What area of coaching do you specialize in?

  I specialise in maths! I suppose that comes as no great surprise. There are many children and adults who are frightened of this word. I work with young people to boost their confidence in their ability to understand and apply their math’s skills and with math’s teachers.   How did you make the transition to become a full time Coach?

  I was fortunate to have some redundancy money that supported me through the first year of turning coaching into a business. Within the first year I also spent a lot of time networking, finding lost friends through LinkedIn that might be able to help me with finding the right contacts, carrying on with my CPD (continuing professional development) at The Coaching Academy, as well as qualifying as an NLP practitioner. I am just coming to the end of Year 2 of running my business and am looking forward to Year 3. I feel so blessed to be doing what I love.   What difference has coaching made to your life  Coaching has made a difference in all areas of my life. For example, in what might be considered to be the small things but actually for your children and partner are massive; listening more effectively, giving them my full attention when they speak to me and asking questions that allow me to understand what they really want to achieve. It has given us all a real sense of belonging and knowing where we are going next.