At Making Stuff Better, we use the term ‘regenerative spaces’ to capture what we believe is possible if we consciously tend to our own being, thinking and doing, in service of ourselves, our relationships with others and the many systems we inhabit. 

We also believe that the principles of coaching are a reliable and flexible way to create regenerative spaces. 

We hope that the regenerative spaces we create in partnership with you, are spaces where you experience:

• Slowing down, rest and renewal
• Being seen, heard and valued 
• Compassionate challenge
• Steps towards individual and collective purpose
• Connection to internal and external resources

We hope as you read these qualities, you are struck by the potential for bringing your whole self to the work that matters to you. To expand a little:

Slowing down, rest and renewal

It can feel radical to slow down in a school. They are busy places and you can get used to rushing, governed by a timetable and a bell. In a regenerative space, the simple act of pausing can change the possibility for what comes next. Simply taking a few breaths serves to expand your capacity as you are more likely to connect to your emotional world, physical sensations and intuition – all essential to the bandwidth we need for enhanced communication, creativity and strategy. 

Being seen, heard and valued for who we are

In our one to one coaching and training programmes, we place significant emphasis on listening. This is essential if you are to see, hear and value each others’ unique gifts and lived experience. Being empathetic, letting go of assumptions and biases as a listener takes practice, and is essential in building true connection and relationship.

Compassionate challenge

Once trust is built through listening, it’s right that we offer challenge. We do this with compassion, in other words, everything we offer is accompanied by our very best intentions for another person’s growth. 

Steps towards individual and collective purpose

A brilliant and underused way of amplifying capacity within an organisation is to be curious about purpose. When was the last time you asked or were asked questions like:

• What are you great at?
• What do you love about your role?
• What brings you joy?
• Tell me about a time when you had an impact on someone that matters to you?
• In your day, when do you feel most alive?
• What are you longing for?

In our training, we dive into these questions so that you can articulate and access your purpose, then take steps to do the work you are longing to do and that the world needs. We invite you to view others with this lens, to be curious about who they are, what their gifts are and whether they are being well used. Then you can explore how individual purpose aligns with and amplifies organisational purpose. 

Connection to internal and external resources

For a role in education to be sustainable, we must take responsibility for staying in contact with our resources. Our internal resources are our values, purpose, strengths – what can you do to make these resources more conscious and core to your every day? Equally, we must be in touch with our external resources: our friendships, networks, mentors, coaches, interests, the natural world and more. 

To create regenerative spaces with these qualities is our purpose and aspiration. Our hypothesis is that by creating regenerative spaces in partnership with you, we are better able to meet the pressing demands and challenges of the present and future world – remaining well and connected to each other in the process.

To close, a poem that acknowledges the difficulties that we face, and how a regenerative space can bring us back to ourselves and possibilities for revitalised being, thinking and doing. 

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.