national hub for supervision in education

The Hub aims to improve children and young people’s educational experience by helping schools and educational providers embed an improved culture of support and resilience within their staff community. The Hub offers a range of professional learning programmes to help senior leaders to establish and develop a culture of supervision for teaching and pastoral staff. The Hub seeks to address the increasing demands being placed on all staff members within educational settings. This comes at a time when other services that have traditionally supported schools are being reduced. Supervision holds the child/ young person at the centre of the supervision working alliance but meets the support needs of the educator too, through a boundaried, confidential, regular supervision space for reflection, enquiry and challenge.  

What is Supervision?  

Supervision is a safe place to explore together within a confidential and professional conversation, the impact of the work that the educator is experiencing within the job role and the impact of the work on the professional. It helps educators remain accountable within the boundaries of your organisation and job role, so you can be the best you can be, for the children and young people. It may include:  

• Talking about a specific piece of work with a child or several children. Supervision supports reflection on areas of practice that have gone well as well as the parts that feel difficult for whatever reasons. 
• Any safeguarding issues in relation to Child Protection, Safeguarding, SEN needs.  
• Ethical dilemmas around decisions made at school that impact on children or around decisions made/needing to be made about children at school.  
• It may be about the impact of personal life at work and the capacity to manage. Life happens to all of us. Critical illness for ourselves or family members, relationship breakdown, bereavement, for example.  
• It may be about relationships to do with governors or other external pressures/influences/expectations, e.g Ofsted.  
• The impact of multi-disciplinary working and work with external agencies and systems.  
• It may include thinking about interpersonal dynamics, including allegations or difficult investigations. Sessions are likely, particularly following on from the experiences of Covid-19, to need to be trauma-informed and to be able to support the supervisee in their own regulation so they can regulate other educators and staff around them. It is a confidential space which occurs with the same person, in the same place and repeatedly for the purpose of thinking about how you are undertaking your role in school. Its role is deeply connected to ethics and accountability and whilst its function is supportive and rooted in connection and relationship, its fundamental purpose is about keeping children and young people safe.  

Please email edusupervsion@leedsbeckett.ac.uk for more details

We offer an external supervision service delivered by our professionally trained associates who are all registered with industry bodies such as the Health Care Professions Council, UKCP, BPS and BACP.  All of our associate supervisors are in regular supervision themselves and are DBS checked. Our services include:

• Consultancy process supervision to Headteachers, senior leadership teams and supervision leads in schools.
• Supervision to teachers, pastoral staff, school counsellors and teaching assistants through one to one and group supervision.
• We offer supervision that is trauma-informed and supports in-class teacher-child relationships – for example where a teacher is struggling with class dynamics which might be connected to the levels of distress among children in a class. We can also offer shorter-term interventions supporting a member of staff in a return to work process or where a complex situation has occurred which has been highly impactful but is no longer in crisis. Our services can also be delivered alongside and support with counselling.

Use our enquiry form to request an external supervision session. Our handy FAQs will help you learn more about supervision.

We offer a suite of professional learning programmes for schools and educational providers which are designed to help senior leaders to develop and embed a culture of supervision within their organisation. Courses can be bespoke to meet the particular needs of an organisation or we offer scheduled sessions across the UK. We welcome working with Local Authorities, MATs, TSAs, individual schools and clusters.

Find out more about our Professional Learning Programmes.

Gaining the Supervision in Education Award will allow your school to be recognised as an educational provider who understands the impact of supporting children’s increasing mental health needs by creating a culture of supervision across your organisation. Developing an environment where staff are supported with maintaining their emotional well-being, enabling them to provide a supportive learning experience for the children and young people they educate. 

Schools undertaking the award will be expected to follow an evidence informed framework which will support with the development of a culture of supervision. The framework looks at how supervision might be implemented throughout the school from the needs of Teaching Assistants to Senior Leadership Teams.

Find out how to qualify for the Supervision in Education Award.

To book your place please complete this form here.

The National Hub for Supervision in Education values the opportunity of working together. Our aim is to collaborate with other organisations to develop new projects and initiatives, shape and inform policies, share ideas and knowledge and signpost outstanding provision. Our vision is to be stronger together. If you are offer supervision to educational providers you may wish to join our National Network of Supervisors - just get in touch using the contact details below.