How The Bridging Project’s university students benefit from group coaching sessions
Being part of The Bridging Project’s coaching programme has many benefits for our students. Not only do they get additional support through monthly coaching sessions with a dedicated and experienced professional coach, where students get to explore a range of topics including accessing support services, developing their soft skills and integrating themselves into university life; they also get the opportunity to build additional skills and networks through regular workshops with subject experts and group coaching sessions with the Lead Coach for their university.
In the past few years, we’ve seen our students really flourish and make outstanding progress, both through their individual coaching sessions and by attending these group coaching sessions too. In this blog post, we’ll discuss what group coaching is, how our students benefit from group coaching sessions and how these sessions are delivered as part of our professional coaching programme.
What is group coaching?
As with individual coaching sessions, group coaching is a powerful technique that can really help to unlock a person’s potential. The added element of the group setting enables shared topics to be explored and can increase the level of accountability. Working alongside the students, the coach leading the session will ensure that students support each other to find new ways to work towards common goals, fostering collective wisdom and providing reassurance that others are experiencing similar challenges.
Group coaching can provide an ideal setting for listening and learning, enabling both introverts and extroverts to draw upon their own key skills to provide a unique perspective that others in the group might not have considered before. In particular, introverted students may benefit from seeing other, more extroverted students take the lead, while extroverted students might benefit from seeing a more reflective approach adopted by introverted students. It is in group coaching sessions that we can also see our students develop important leadership skills that can have a huge, positive impact on the rest of their university lives.
Group coaching at The Bridging Project
Within our professional coaching programme, we deliver group coaching in two ways: in-person and online. In-person group coaching sessions enable students to build deeper connections and relationships with other students at their university and tackle university-specific issues with those who might be able to understand them the most. Our online group coaching sessions enable students from different universities to connect and learn from each other; these students might be on similar courses or share like-minded goals, interests or experiences.
By building networks and creating these stronger relationships - whether in-person or online - our students can really start to feel a sense of belonging, which is one of the key outcomes of our coaching programme. Furthermore, by building relationships over shared experiences in a safe and trusted environment, students are able to recognise that they’re not alone in the challenges they’re facing, increasing their confidence and developing soft skills in areas such as time and stress management, as well as accessing support and engaging in all aspects of university life. For first-year university students who are navigating a lot of change and new experiences, these skills and connections are essential and is exactly what our coaching programme focuses on.
Reducing university drop-out rates
Of course, the benefits that our students experience from their group coaching sessions also bring benefits for our partner universities, too. Engaged, confident and connected students are more likely to contribute to university societies, bring fresh ideas and be motivated to continue their studies. We know that one of the biggest challenges that universities face is reducing drop-out rates, and for students from underrepresented backgrounds, these figures can be staggeringly high, with research showing that 1 in 12 freshers from underrepresented backgrounds will drop out of university in their first year. Taking advantage of the benefits of coaching programmes, both in individual and group settings, can help universities to provide the support that students need and greatly complement the existing support services on offer through the university. Don’t just take our word for it - let these three students tell you about the value of their group coaching sessions this year:
“I loved the group coaching session so much and I can confidently say that the discussions will improve my ability to navigate student life! I was able to leave with practical steps to deal with my time management skills - usually such conversations only leave me with thoughts!”
“This group coaching session has shown me that it's ok to have different struggles and styles of working! Hearing everyone's distinct priorities and difficulties was amazing.”
“The group coaching session really helped me to examine my inhibiting beliefs and reframe them in a way which is true to the situation and positively framing. I learned that I am more adaptable than I thought and it was really valuable to strategise for exams and be able to adapt to what’s to come.”
If you’d like to find out more about how we integrate group coaching into our professional coaching programme and what it’s like to partner with us, please get in touch.
