The Happy At School Project - Secondary Schools
As a secondary school headteacher, you balance the demands of educational outcomes, staff and pupils’ mental health and well-being, parental expectations and external pressures. It’s relentless. Your staff face challenges with pupils having complex needs, mental health issues, home pressures and the negative impact of social media. Many parents feel ill-equipped and turn to schools for help.
The Happy at School Project (THASP) equips staff to navigate these challenges with greater self-awareness, confidence and resilience. It provides insights, coaching tools, a common language, key visuals and resources to help staff and pupils emotionally regulate, feel empowered, take personal responsibility and improve relationships and performance. The coaching approach weaves into the fabric of your school.
THASP is structured and simple to grasp, allowing staff to feel the benefits in their classrooms from day one. It offers coaching and workshops for you, your leadership team, staff, parents, office staff and pupils. Watch the video to learn more about THASP’s benefits. For a free 30-minute call to discover how THASP can impact your school, click the button below.
"THASP started with me gaining a deeper understanding of myself and what I bring to students. This then enabled me to connect more deeply with students, helping them understand themselves better and providing them with strategies to feel more capable and empowered. Before THASP, students were more dependent on staff and lacked resilience. Now, they have greater self-awareness and a toolkit to 'fix themselves', boosting their confidence, mental well-being and ultimately their performance."
"The THASP sessions with Christina were fun and engaging and have transformed our school. Her tools and strategies have significantly improved staff and student positivity, creating a deeper connection and understanding. By weaving in our School Values and a coaching approach, Christina’s methods resonated with everyone. From learning walks, we found that staff felt more empowered to handle challenging conversations with students independently, as well as using coaching tools to motivate students in the classroom, proving the effectiveness of the THASP approach."
"I’ll be the first to admit I was very sceptical about THASP. However, I attended the 'Be You' THASP session, and it really resonated. It really struck a chord, like a light had turned back on. I felt for the first time that my experiences and feelings would only make me stronger in my role and inspired me to try to embrace it. I found myself laughing and welling up and leaving feeling content and empowered. I've seen the biggest development in terms of how I view and treat my colleagues, the general feel in the air around school has changed."
"Through the THASP whole school training and individual leadership coaching, I have gained a deeper understanding of how I respond to students and situations emotionally. This, in turn, has been incredibly effective in helping me better support students by enabling them to understand their triggers, manage their emotions and tackle situations differently, thus becoming more resilient. As a result, students now have the skills to respond more appropriately to setbacks and challenges, allowing them to reach their potential and school and beyond."
Hi, I’m Christina, founder of The Happy at School Project (THASP). I wear many hats: mum of two boys, former teacher of 25 years, educational consultant and certified life coach. My passion for making homes happier stems from my own bumpy start in life. As a teacher and mum, I was fascinated by how we could build a child’s identity, self-esteem and self belief to fully reach their potential, while immunising them against serious mental health issues. This led me to positive psychology, neuroscience, personal development, coaching and neurodiversity research.
I created a positivity and mindset programme for staff, pupils, parents and carers at my school. Its success led to speaking at conferences, teaching universities and training other schools in the UK and abroad. During this time, I trained as a life coach and discovered my talent for coaching children, teens, parents and whole school staff. Word spread and I began working with more headteachers. Empowering key influencers, their parents, teachers and caregivers, is crucial because their words and responses have such power. By being the best versions of ourselves, we can better support and guide children to become their best selves.
If you have a passion for growth and change, please book a free discovery call. Together, we will shape the future.
THASP takes a holistic approach to elevate your school culture. It starts with a detailed analysis of your current position and goals followed by a ‘weather walk’, workshops and ongoing consultancy for maximum long-term impact. It can also include coaching sessions for pupils and staff, working with you, your SLT, pastoral teams, office staff and delivering pupil and parent workshops. It provides a common language, an easy-to-use coaching toolkit, printable display resources and a layered approach to embedding key messages and skills. THASP ensures sustained and continually developed positive change.
Staff embark on a journey of self-discovery, experiencing THASP’s benefits firsthand. They gain self-awareness and new perspectives on themselves, each other, their pupils and the power of language. This improves relationships, both personal and professional, as staff become more open, courageous and aware in how to empower themselves and pupils. THASP boosts positivity, enhances communication skills and equips staff to become more resilient. Embracing THASP coaching principles, staff gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to engage with pupils and parents in a different way, leading to lasting, positive changes throughout your school.
With an adjustment in language and approach, THASP enhances pupils’ interactions with staff and subsequent enjoyment of lessons. Staff gain a deeper understanding of pupils' needs from both a pastoral and performance perspective, making them more effective in meeting their needs and encouraging greater personal responsibility and ownership. When staff use THASP tools to improve interactions and help pupils overcome learning barriers, it leads to improved self-belief, self-esteem and performance. By using a coaching approach, staff effectively support pupils' mental health and well-being and ultimately progress.
Parents will find interactions with staff more positive and impactful, as staff will better understand their needs and provide greater support through a coaching approach. This leads to more effective phone calls, improved parent-teacher meetings, and overall enhanced interactions. Staff will be better equipped to help parents understand their children and offer useful, easy-to-use strategies for support at home. Pupils will become more resilient, intrinsically motivated and better able to emotionally regulate, making them easier to support at home.