We're a couple with decades of teaching experience & we want our new business to transform lives

The headteacher of Tarleton Primary School, Chris Upton OBE, and his wife Lucy who was a teacher for twenty years, have set up an educational business in Lancashire which they hope will both transform people’s lives and the workings of schools.

Launched in September, ‘Education Unplugged’ has two parts to it: a life coaching side led by Lucy, whose previous schools include Kincraig Primary in Blackpool and Penwortham Primary School, and a supply agency led by Chris, who was granted an OBE in 2023 for his work leading his school community after the loss of pupil Saffie-Rose Roussos in the Manchester Arena Attack .

Explaining why they set the business up, Lucy, who shares four kids with Chris, said: “I had a bereavement at the beginning of the year, and it changed my perspective. I was teaching at the time, and feeling quite stuck in that because you get to a certain point in your career where it becomes very difficult to leave if it doesn't fit anymore. I still loved teaching, but the pressures of all of the other work that was needed in the job were just too much to have a happy home life as well. So I talked to Chris about it, and said… I'd really love to do life coaching. Coaching was something that I'd felt passionately about for a long time because I'd used it in education, I could really see the benefits and I knew that there must be lots of women like me that felt quite stuck in their life and coaching could really support them.”

Aware that building up clientele takes time, Lucy suggested she worked as a supply teacher to help bring money in which is when her headteacher husband suggested he set up a supply agency alongside the coaching.

Chris explained: “As a head teacher, I’ve got lots of experience and chatting to colleagues at my school, at times we were struggling with the quality of supply, and we were struggling with some agencies in the way they work. I’ve thought for some time that we could do it better ourselves.

“Teachers work incredibly hard. They do a lot of planning. There's nothing worse than, from a school viewpoint, spending lots of money on a supply teacher for the day, them coming in, they're not teaching what they need to teach. they’re not managing behavior, they're not marking books, and then paying for that and it not being followed up by some agencies. So we decided that if we were going to do it, we would only take experienced staff, people who really understood the primary curriculum and people who would give really good value to schools, because at the end of the day, we've worked in lots of different areas but we've always both been very focused on getting kids a good deal, and that hasn't changed.

“So we recruit teachers. They're confident classroom practitioners. They teach the planned curriculum - too often, I've seen people coming in as a supply teacher with a guitar on their back, and they want to sing songs all day- we're not like that. And then obviously, every school has a marking feedback policy, so marking and giving that feedback to staff. And I think an advantage of being a serving head is I know all the heads, I know all the schools so what we're able to do differently to other supply agencies is link up the teachers before the supply teacher comes in so there's a discussion about the learning meaning there's no mistake, it gets well taught, and the children have a seamless day. The supply teacher knows about the systems, they know who to speak to from a safeguarding viewpoint and whilst we’re small at the moment, that makes us stand out.”

Currently Supply Unplugged has seven supply staff working across a number of schools in West Lancashire and South Ribble, although they are looking at expanding into the Preston area in due course.

One of their newest recruits is even a learning mentor so Education Unplugged is able to offer schools, who can’t usually afford a learning mentor, the chance to benefit from their work.

On the coaching side, Lucy says she has worked with eight clients so far, totalling 30 hours of coaching a week with the former teacher commenting: “this is a huge learning curve for me. I've worked all my life in public sector, so to suddenly be working for myself is quite terrifying but it's all really good fun and really interesting, and I’m now hoping to build on the client base that I've had so far.”

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Encouraging the people of Lancashire to get involved with Education Unplugged, Lucy said : “Supply Unplugged is an opportunity for you to take back choice to yourself. You get to do the best parts of the job - be in front of the children and work with children- but you can, if you want to, at half past three, go home and and not have to worry about sorting all those other jobs with your own children, putting them to bed and then getting your laptop out again to prepare for the next day. We're very personable people and I'd say that each of our employees now that work with us would say that we're very approachable, we're very accommodating, we listen to their needs, and it's almost like a dating service because we know everybody so well, we can marry up the schools with the teachers.

“But also from a coaching perspective, I can't tell you how enlightening coaching is and how empowering it is because it's really just giving you that time and that space to go through your own thought process and have somebody just to listen, just to challenge but also to be non judgmental. The power of being able to say whatever you want to say, and the things that you've come up with in those moments, it's just a great thing to do. So I would really encourage anybody to try coaching.”

In a final message to Lancashire schools, Chris added: “We obviously have that local knowledge and you've got someone overseeing it that is a head teacher, that knows the issues. There may be a school that I might be thinking ‘oh we're not going to put that person there because of that reason’, or vice versa. It's very much about finding that right fit, and we're reputable. We're not trying to take money off of teachers or mess with holiday pay, we pay all our taxes properly and the connections that we're building between our supply teachers and the school staff, I don't know any other supply agency that does that to be honest with you. But as we continue to grow, it's about looking after people, and it's about keeping great teachers in front of children. It's that local knowledge combined with passion. I'm not going to rip children off. If I rip schools off, I rip children off. So we take small overheads, it's one price, we don't mess around, and we do it with a smile on our faces as well, we build those relationships.”

To find out more about Education Unplugged, whether it’s for their supply agency or life coaching, visit its website here.