It is that time of the year when most of us have to play a part in the return of students to school. So today, I have my 5 top tips to help facilitate the smooth transition back to school. No, let's make it 6 then we can have 2 for each of the shareholders, students, teachers, and parents.

I love the quote for this week it sums up exactly how schools can create success for all their shareholders, it goes like this;

"Unity is strength... when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved". Mattie Stepanek

As a former teacher and pastoral lead, I would go on and on about working together for the betterment of -mainly-the students, but in all fairness, when it worked all parties felt the benefit. I would talk in assemblies, at parent evenings, and at team meetings about the tripod of Students, Parents, and teachers all working together. 

My philosophy was always that students spend six hours a day, some 1,200 hours a year, in a classroom with their teacher each year. When parents and teachers work together, students will have a positive and successful school experience — educationally and socially. It takes effort, but make sure you establish a cooperative relationship.

Here were my main points.
For parents
Whether you are talking on the phone, emailing, or sitting face-to-face with your child’s teacher, make sure communication is positive and upbeat. Negativity helps no one. Even if you are not getting what you think you or your child deserves, negotiate positively.
When communicating with your child about school matters, keep them positive, if a child thinks you don't agree with something at school, they will share it at school and that may lead to further challenges. with this. 
This would be part of creating boundaries with your children, which we all know can be difficult at times. If you would like a template to support you with this, I have linked one for you free of charge here Setting boundaries with your teen
For teachers
As early as possible do a get-to-know-you exercise with your form class. This is so simple but effective' Create a template with 5 questions for the students to answer about themselves. I used questions that included, "Whom they would like to make most proud?" and "My perfect career would be" etc. This information I and my tutors then used to support their progress during the year as well as share this with other teachers that may find them a little challenging. Here is a link to a template here. Simple "getting to know you" template
Please be careful when asking students to talk about their holidays, where they went and what they did. Not all students will have had the luxury of a nice holiday in a faraway country. There will be those who either went without or stayed local. For them, they may see it as an embarrassment, this would not be the best way to start the school year. We all know how cruel kids can be.
For students
Plan carefully and set routines, put space aside in your room for your study resources, and create a homework timetable., This allows you to make time for computer games and other hobbies. If you learn to create boundaries now, it will be a lifelong skill. As would, create routines for getting up, having a good breakfast, leaving on time, completing homework, and of course a consistent bedtime for the well-needed rest. 
Make friends with a variety of people, the more personalities you know, the more you will learn from them. Do this by joining different study clubs, representing the school with sports, or joining the student voice committee. This will also help you build the soft skills needed to prepare for the working environment, in time.

I hope you find value in these tips for the return to school period, I am sure there will be a time when you may need to refer to them.

So, as you can tell the key word here is Communication. Parent-teacher relationships only work well if a teacher not only puts in the effort to respond to your concerns and questions but also reaches out to share concerns and compliments with you.
With this, I would like to share my "tip of the week" which is 
"Teacher or parent, make contact and introduce yourself, start right"

This week I have a small number of quick questions for you to consider.

1. What can I help you with?
2. What would you like to work on?
3. How will this be of benefit to you?
4. How committed are you to doing it?
5. How proud will you be to achieve it?

Remember this African Proverb from Martha Goedert. “If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together”.  You will know it was about the family business, and how it is more about “together” and “far”, not so much about “alone” and “fast”.
 
This week I would like you to consider two things:
Whom can you help to go further?
Whom do you need to help you go further?
We all need support at times, there are not many people who can say they made it to their version of 'success" all by themself.
 
This week's Tip of the week is, "Don't be afraid to ask for support"
 
Think of how you can maximize your potential and that of those around you.

I hope you had a restful weekend.
When was the best time to make that critical decision that would have an impact on your life prospects? Some would answer back when deciding which subjects to study at school. Some would say the time when I had to decide which college or university to go to or whether to go at all. Still, others may say it waited until the day they knew where their passion lay. All this tells us that it was always, yesteryear. that time back in the day when they really wished they made that decision that would have improved their prospects.
Just last week, I had three different people say three different things that made me promise myself to share this thought in my tip of the week.
The first one was, "I wish I had started coaching earlier in my career". The second was "I know I have to invest in myself but, I am not sure if I can afford to do this right now", and the third was. "I want to do this but finding the time will be an issue".
Decisions are part of everyday life and we as a people build our levels of success by these decisions that impact our lives. 
George Herbert the great Welsh poet once said, 

"Do not wait; the time will never be 'just right.' Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along".

My role as a coach is to support my clients and give them the very best service as and when they need it, at their pace and with the focus purely on their needs and wants. Each one of us has a default future that will occur on its own if our life does not change. When they come to me they are wanting their life to change.
We all have it within us to make our personal situation better than it is, it is about making that change now and not wishing we had made better decisions back in the day. It is about being decisive today. You know what you are thinking so.

• What are you going to do?
• How are you going to do it?
• How will you make the time?
• How will you make it work?
• When will you go?
• When will you apply?  
• Whom will you call?
• When will you tell them?

Create an answer and go for it.
My "Tip of the Week" this week is 
"Be more decisive to improve your prospects now"
Just remember this
​"The best time to plant a tree, was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.

Remember the first time THAT person said "I believe in you" remember how it felt?   I imagine as you remember, a little smile appears, and so it should, it made you feel good. So my question is "what are your beliefs about yourself? How are you making yourself feel good?

Today I want to very quickly talk about unwanted self-beliefs and how you can change any disempowering beliefs, that have stuck with you over the years. There's a big difference between simple beliefs like, "life is a struggle" and life is what you make it" or "I'm not good enough" and "I can do it if I try hard enough".

Tony Robbins once said "all personal breakthroughs begin with a change in beliefs" and this I genuinely believe in. 

As a coach, I ask my clients to get clear about their beliefs,  remembering they won't all be negative. They will have hundreds of them swirling around, but only a few of them will be shaping the way they live their life.

So to keep this brief here is a little exercise I would love you to find the time to do this week. Now please have fun with it, it is not often we sit and reflect on such things.

1. Take 10/20 minutes to brainstorm all the beliefs you have about everything
2. Write down every belief you can think of no matter how big or how small 
3. Now make two separate lists one for empowering beliefs and one for disempowering beliefs. 
   • The empowering ones are the ones that fuel your life the ones that galvanized you and make things possible 
   • the disempowering ones curtail and restrict you 
4. Underline the three most powerful beliefs in each list. 
   • Notice how much they have affected you in your life and how the negative or disempowering ones have held you back or made you unhappy 
5. Of the 3 negative beliefs ask yourself these questions for each one;
   1. How is this belief ridiculous?
   2. Who did I pick this up from and do I still revere this person as I once did?
   3. What does this belief cost me on a daily basis? (Think what could you have done if this was not swirling around in your head)
   4. What will be the long-term cost if you do not let go of this belief?

Asking these questions will begin to weaken these beliefs. I want to try to get my clients to feel the impact these beliefs have and weaken them even further. From this point I want them to decide to rid themselves of them forever. 

As a coach, these are the ones that I would work with the ones I'll help you to eliminate while strengthening and reinforcing the empowering beliefs and adding fresh ones that support you in your goals

They do this by taking each belief and replacing it with the opposite belief but this is just the start of the process. For example, "I'm too old to get promoted" could be changed to "I have enough experience to do a good job"

This exercise is a great start to changing your beliefs, but as I always say, each journey needs a first step.

This week's tip of the week is as follows: Try to catch any negative beliefs about yourself and repeatedly tell yourself the opposite.

If you can start this process, your world will start to have a brighter outlook.
​Let me know if you need any support.

We all know that things are tough at the moment, the petrol prices, the utility bills, what to do with the kids during holidays, even what the hell are our politicians doing?
However, I would always encourage my clients to remember this lovely quote from Philip Reiter
"A positive mindset brings positive things"
So this week I am happy to share something I found whilst doing a little research for one of my "Student Coach" courses, that fits beautifully into what I try to infuse into your week.
Here are 10 ways to make a real difference to your outlook

1. Pace yourself; Rushing tasks will create errors that inevitably you will have to redo
2. Support; Share your achievements with others and support the results of colleagues and friends
3. Collaboration; Never be afraid to ask for help and collaborate with other others to achieve mutual goals
4. Boring jobs; Bite the bullet and face  mind-numbing tasks head on
5. On vacation days; Try different activities on your day off. Variety is the spice of life and leaves you in a more positive mood
6. Be positive; Infuse positive emotions into your work and colleagues and enjoy the contagious nature
7. Compassion; Remain compassionate to negative colleagues. People are usually negative for a reason
8. Office politics; Don't get bogged down in office politics focus on what is needed to move forward
9. Criticisms; Understand any criticism aimed at you and used the feedback to improve your work
10. Adapt; Business changes to survive. Make sure you are open and adaptable rather than resisting change

If you can integrate some of the above into your week, I can guarantee, it'll make you or someone around you feel a little better.

​This week my EDGE Coaching tip is to "Share a positive outlook"

If you do nothing else this week, it'll always be nice to, “Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.” – Maya Angelou.

Have a great week