Simon Horleston

Who am I?

Establishing and maintaining rapport is important in life coaching so let me tell you a little bit about myself. I’m married and I have 3 children. I go running three times and I support Tottenham (don’t judge me - not being judgemental is important in life coaching). My background is in teaching and I’ve been in education for 20 years. I’ve been a headteacher for the last 8 years and I have experience in Special Educational Needs and Computing.

Why am I a life-coach?

I qualified as a life coach as I witnessed first hand the impact that this has had on myself and my colleagues. For me life coaching has helped me to understand myself better and how I work best, as well as well as supporting me to reflect and plan so that I am proactive instead of reactive. As a leader I’ve used coaching to empower colleagues to trust their own judgement, to grow in confidence and to find their own solutions.

Who do I work with?

Through my company, Rise and Thrive Coaching Ltd, I am able to offer bespoke coaching opportunities to individuals and organisations.  I'm able to work with both children and adults.  Although my experience is in education, special educational needs and leadership, I'm able to work across all sectors as you are the expert of you and you are the one with the solutions...I'm the person who is able to unlock your potential, which will help you be the best version of yourself.

How coaching can help

If you decide to embark on a coaching journey with myself as your life coach then you’ll find a safe space where you can talk openly and without judgement.  This is a process where talk leads to positive actions that are meaningful and practical for you.  Through our time together you will set the goals that are important to you and together we will create a vision map that will act as your guide.  Coaching provides an opportunity for you to invest in yourself, to momentarily press pause on a fast paced world and to organise your thinking through strategic planning and reflecting.  By doing this, you will be less reactive, more forward thinking and in control of the actions and decisions that you make.  Through my careful listening and high-level questioning skills, you will discover your own solutions, which will see your confidence increase as you develop greater self-awareness and grow as a person.

What to expect from our first coaching session

We would have met (online or in person) before our first session and so there will already be a sense of familiarity, rapport and purpose.  I will check in with you that you are ready and comfortable e.g. you might want a notepad and you might want a hot drink to hand.  Then I will share with you that our focus is on being resourceful and moving forward and that there might be times where we need to pause our conversation so that we move from a state of unresourceful to resourceful or it might be to ensure that we remain focused on your goal so to maximise what you get out of our session.  You will then share with me a little bit about yourself and what is important to you.  There will also be an opportunity for you to be able to ask any further questions about life-coaching that you might have.   This will be followed by you sharing with me what your overall goal is that you are looking to achieve.  For clarity, we will then unpick when you want to achieve that goal and what steps you will need to take.  This will support the development of your vision map.  By going through these steps and using a variety of different strategies, our future sessions will then be guided by your vision map.

Next steps

Should you decide to embark on a life-coaching journey then you will find this to be an excellent solution for personal growth and/or professional development. All you need to do is to send me a text message or WhatsApp on 07708076034 or send an email if you prefer to rise_and_thrive_coaching@outlook.com to request a 'discovery call'.  I look forward to hearing from you and joining you on your exciting journey.

To begin with I encourage a pay as you go approach. After you feel comfortable and confident in myself as a Coach, you may want to explore booking 6 sessions in advance whilst only paying for 5 sessions. As the coachee, it is for you to decide how you would like to space these sessions out e.g. weekly, fortnightly, monthly or every 6 weeks etc.  Payments are made by BACS before the session takes place, these details will be shared with you directly. All booked sessions will be confirmed with an invoice. 

Ways of working

If you are looking at life-coaching for yourself as an individual then these sessions will take place online.  My preferred platforms are MS Teams or Zoom, but I'm happy to explore other tools if it makes it easier for you.

If you are looking at life coaching for yourself and this is being paid for by your employer then these sessions could potentially take place in your workplace.  This depends on distance and would require your employers permission.  Otherwise, we would work online  in the same way that we would if this was for you as an individual.

Schools - if you work in a school and have the go ahead to organise life-coaching then not only can we do this in person or virtually, but I'm happy to work in a consultant capacity.  The coaching principles remain as I'm not here to tell you what to do or to make judgements.  However, I can read school documents and carry out monitoring activities with you, which would then be followed up with a coaching session that will add significant value.