Supervision for Headteachers and Senior Leaders

Eve Warren sitting at a desk in an office, with a stack of books, a glass of water, and a computer keyboard on the desk.

Your leadership role demands much of you, as you combine strategic vision, leadership skills, multiple relationships, emotional connections, operational complexity and the energetic challenges of the academic cycle.

There are connections between coaching and supervision, and in reality some clients will experience elements of both, possibly in the same session.

Generally coaching is forward focused, supporting strategic thinking and development goals. Supervision is more wholistic: a dedicated space to reflect on the emotional, relational, and ethical aspects of your role, in a way that sustains your professional clarity, confidence and wellbeing. It’s a place where you can balance the care you offer to others with care for yourself.

As a qualified supervisor with extensive experience coaching senior education leaders, I offer reflective supervision that may focus on:

  • Processing the emotional impact of your experience as a leader, and giving space to your own reactions

  • Leadership decisions and the values that underpin them

  • Exploring complex dynamics with staff, governors, and stakeholders

  • Maintaining professional boundaries and healthy resilience

  • Staying connected to your values and purpose, despite relentless pressures

  • Strengthening your self-awareness, integrity, and confidence

My approach is grounded in principles of learning, wellbeing and positivity and draws on humanist and narrative traditions.

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Given the direct support that schools offer to their pupils and communities, and the complex, emotionally demanding contexts in which Headteachers lead, it’s an omission that access to one-to-one support is not the norm across the sector. Often supervision is specifically related to safeguarding; seen as a place for offloading, containing distress and maintaining quality and ethical standards.

Supervision for education leaders is much broader than this. It supports your professional effectiveness, and your understanding of what the role requires of you as a person. It helps you reconnect with yourself and your guiding principles and why you do the job, reinforcing service, meaning and purpose. It shines a light on what you need to be well in the work, so that you can lead sustainably.