Retainer · thinkchat consultancy
A sustained thinking partnership for schools that are already in motion and serious about staying that way.
Why this exists
You have sat through professional development. You have had mentors. You have worked in peer groups and collaborative planning sessions. You have read the books, attended the conferences, and tried to bring what you learned back into your school.
This is why so many experienced teachers, curriculum leads, and school leaders reach a point of quiet frustration. Not because they lack knowledge. Not because they lack commitment. But because knowing the right direction and being able to move a whole system in that direction are two entirely different things. The professional development world has given them frameworks without traction. Inspiration without implementation.
They can see the better version of their school. They just cannot quite get there from where they are standing.
A retainer is for schools who know their path, are already walking on it, but need a little guidance across the bumpy patches.
Think of it this way
Not because they have a crisis. Not because something has gone wrong. Because there are questions that come up constantly in the running of a business that the people inside it are not equipped to answer alone. The lawyer does not run the company. They sit alongside it, bringing expertise and an outside perspective whenever the business needs to think something through carefully.
A retainer with me works the same way. I am not there to run your school or hand you a program to implement. I am there as a sounding board, a thinking partner, and an additional pair of eyes on what is happening inside your system.
Because I am not in the day-to-day grind of being at your school, I can often see things that the people inside it cannot. What is genuinely working but not being valued or made visible enough. Where the energy is leaking out of a process that could be tightened. Which conversations keep happening in circles and why. What the system is actually rewarding, even when it says otherwise.
That outside perspective, offered consistently and with deep knowledge of your context, is what moves the needle after everything else has stopped doing so.
Who this is for
A retainer is not one size. It scales to where your school is and what it needs right now.
This is for you if
- ✓You have begun the CARE journey and want to sustain the momentum
- ✓You are mid-implementation and need responsive support between formal visits
- ✓You are navigating complex change and want a consistent thought partner
- ✓Your team needs someone who already knows your school's story
- ✓You are planning multi-year change and want a partner for the whole arc
This is not for you if
- ×You are still exploring whether to begin the CARE journey
- ×You need a single defined deliverable like a workshop or report
- ×Your school is not yet ready for regular structured time together
- ×You need someone to manage implementation rather than walk alongside it
What this looks like in practice
A few years ago I delivered a workshop at a school that stayed with me long after I left. The team was curious, the questions were good, and when they reached out for additional consultancy support, I was glad to continue.
Their coordinator had to step away mid-year, leaving the team without the person who had been holding everything together. The school asked if I could step in as interim coordinator, and I said yes.
From wherever I was in the world, I met with each team online, reviewing units, planning together, and working through the tensions that come up when a group of people is trying to build something genuinely new. I was not in the building, but I was present every week without fail.
What struck me most during the visits was how much had already grown in the space between them. The online conversations had quietly built something real: trust, shared language, and a team that had learned how to think together even when I was not in the room.
A retainer is that kind of presence. Not a visit. A sustained partnership with someone who knows your school well enough to ask the right question at the right moment.
Ready to explore this?
See the two retainer structures, what each includes, and how to get started. Every retainer begins with a free 30-minute discovery call before anything is confirmed.