'Embracing the Happiness' with St John’s CE (A) Primary School

For the past few weeks I’ve being delivering my twilight sessions to teachers in Stoke-on-Trent. Head Teacher – Samantha Cooper of St. John’s Primary School asked me to pop along and help staff to ‘Embrace the Happiness.’ Sam has done a sterling job since she arrived at the school and there is a real buzz about the place. In our sessions we looked at challenging behaviours, assertiveness and how to roll with resistance.

Staff were very vocal about their enjoyment and it was lovely to be stopped by a few members of staff who said what a lovely time they’d had and how they had ‘learned something practical that they could really use.’

I asked the assembled learners what their training needs were and if they had gained from joining the classes. Feedback was uniformly 100% positive, with some particularly heartening comments.

Here is a sample:

Were your training needs met:

“I feel that I have learnt and now have a better understanding of and how to approach aggression. Loved it, thank you.”

“The best thing for me was receiving training from a teacher who has BEEN THERE and come out the other side with information, advice and guidance for us. Brilliant training.”

“Yes, I hoped to gain information and consolidate ways when speaking and listening to parents and carers.”

“Yes, very informative. I wanted to know how to deal with parents who show aggression when speaking to me.”

“It has helped me think about how I could deal with colleagues and parents who have difficult personalities.”

“It was great to learn how to deal with people in a professional and empathic way.”

“Very informative, best training yet.”

“YES! I now need to be more positive about how other people behave.”

“Definitely, I enjoyed paraphrasing and will be using this! 😊”

“Yes. I will use paraphrasing more effectively and will definitely be more assertive.”

“I wanted to learn about strategies for dealing with difficult situations and I certainly received information on this. Thank you Steven.”

“Fab session, DESC was really interesting and paraphrasing will be useful.”

“It was good to learn strategies for dealing with a range of parent issues.”

“I think I will be better equipped to deal with conflict should it occur.”

“The training expanded my knowledge of dealing with difficult situations.”

“I had no expectations of what I would gain, however I learnt a lot that I was previously unaware of. A fab trainer! Thoroughly enjoyed it.”

“Not what I was expecting – but I enjoyed it!”

“I wasn’t sure what I was going to gain, but found it very informative and enjoyable.”

“Yes. I wanted to receive information on helping the work environment to be more co-operative.”

“I wanted to find out ways I could be more assertive in my role and I have developed skills to achieve this.”

“Yes, I wanted to gain strategies to implement when dealing with parent issues.”