ABOUT

Welcome to Potentia Mentis

A coaching and consultancy resource dedicated to

the science of cognitive performance and academic potential

the best of both worlds

I am privileged to be able to combine my work as a cognitive coach/consultant with a wonderful role in an academically high performing school - these are not mutually exclusive vocations.

Being immersed in the day to day teaching and learning of a busy school provides critical reference points for cognitive performance and academic potential. In fact it’s probably a prerequisite - I’m not going to give superfluous advice or make suggestions that are impossible to action.

Nor am I going to back away from the reality that every learner has the capacity to optimise their cognitive performance and that doing so will result in improved academic results, wellbeing and reduced stress.

The ability to think with clarity and purpose is a life skill that extends well beyond exam performance.

career

I began my teaching career 25 years ago at a school for students with autism. From there I moved into various executive and consultancy roles supporting hundreds of students, parents and schools around a wide range of issues including: ADHD, Specific Learning Disorders, Autism, emotional/behavioural disturbance, anxiety and more.

Although they all presented differently, each of these students had something in common: They were experiencing some sort of barrier to their learning. As a special educator I was hardwired to look at each of these barriers through a ‘medical’ lens - define the ‘problem’ and ‘fix’ the problem. This was effective inasmuch as the student was now performing at a ‘baseline’ level consistent with their same age peers, but the subtext was that they were somehow deficient.

And the potential was there for much more than baseline performance.

A few years earlier Martin Seligman had founded the Positive Psychology movement and flipped the paradigm for many educators and allied health professionals. Rather than working retroactively to address problems, the most relevant question for me now became ‘what would happen if we maximised all of the factors that enabled optimal cognitive functioning’.

Through this lens, terms such as ‘gifted’ or ‘high potential’ learner become irrelevant because every student is a high potential learner. And even the most ‘successful’ learners haven’t even begun to realise their full potential.

I began to research the factors that enable optimal cognitive performance and work with leaders in the fields of cognitive neuroscience and coaching.

‘knowing’ v ‘doing’

Understanding the theory behind optimal learning would probably have been enough, if I was a university lecturer. Teaching students how to apply these understandings and skills in context however, is a very different process.

As a special educator I understood the efficacy of a direct instruct pedagogy. As a teacher and parent I knew that this had to be built on a strong relational foundation.

It was also clear that many of these skills had to be taught alongside rather than to students - it’s hard to teach motivation to an unmotivated student. It’s not hard to work alongside them to understand why they’re feeling unmotivated and to show them how this could look different.

This led to more research into organisational psychology, the fast growing field of coaching and specific coaching models.

context is everything

After many years working with hundreds of diverse students and schools I also understood the importance of context.

The ‘landscape’ of every school is different. To realise their cognitive potential students must navigate social relationships, academic pressure, extra-curricular commitments, family expectations, different teaching styles and more. All within the unique demographic, geographic, religious (or not), single sex or co-educational context of their school.

For school aged students, these contextual elements are the ‘framework’ through which cognitive performance is best understood and optimised.

mission

The common thread running through all of the above is simple: Every student (of every age) has enormous untapped cognitive potential and every student has the right for this potential to be realised. The logical starting point for this is not more subject content.

It is optimising the tools of cognitive functioning and maximising the factors that inform optimal cognitive performance.

Some of the outcomes of this process for a school aged student include improved academic performance and motivation, reduced stress, an increased ability to organise their thinking and regulate their emotional states.

Providing students, along with their parents and schools, the knowledge and skills to enable these outcomes is the most important job in the world.

contact me to learn more or book a coaching session