What Purpose-Led Training Design Looks Like With Bright Leaders Founder Chris Reddy

Finding the most effective way to educate is part and parcel of all good training programmes. And the same level of educational care should be given to children as much as adults, especially at an age when they can be made to feel empowered as leaders.

Chris Reddy, founder of Bright Leaders, creates leadership programmes for primary school and secondary school children. In this interview, we discuss what good training design looks like with kids, growing trends in the education space and how to bring the best out in students.

What inspired you to set up Bright Leaders, and how has your background in education and pastoral leadership shaped the way you design your programmes, particularly going beyond traditional leadership or education in schools?

I think when anyone’s doing real, purpose-driven work, there’s usually a personal story that comes with it. For me, that story comes from both my background in education and the way I learned best at school myself.

I started out as a PE teacher and fairly quickly realised during my training, helped by a really good mentor, that the pastoral side of education was where I felt most drawn. Looking after student wellbeing, supporting academic ability, but also really thinking about what might be going on in young people’s lives outside of school.

If I look back at my own school experience, the things that brought me the most joy and learning weren’t always the classroom moments. They were the enrichment opportunities: trips, holidays, experiences like that. Those are my strongest memories, and probably where my biggest learning happened.

Growing up, I was the kind of kid who had everything he needed, but not necessarily everything he wanted. I still could have done with additional support, someone like me or my team working with me. Then, when I started working in schools, I was able to be that person who could give young people a bit more time.

As my career progressed, especially when I was supporting students with apprenticeship and university applications, both written applications and interviews, I noticed something really consistent. Young people found it incredibly hard to articulate how good they were. I don’t know if that’s a British thing, because we’re taught to be modest, but it felt like there was something deeper going on.

It made me think there’s something in the education system where young people just don’t realise how capable they are. That’s really where Bright Leaders came from. It’s the idea that we want to help young people see the strengths inside them that they don’t yet recognise.

It’s a mix of my personal experiences and a belief that if we lived in a world where people truly understood their strengths, things would be better. Leadership, for me, is just a brilliant tool for helping people step up and recognise that.

Since you started Bright Leaders, what challenges have you faced getting your programmes into primary and secondary schools? Are those challenges still the same?

The biggest challenges are probably time and funding. On a personal level, a lot of my time is taken up delivering the work, which I love. But when you’re in schools five days a week, it’s hard to find time to go out and reach new schools.

Then there’s the wider education landscape. Funding is incredibly tight, and things are being cut year on year. Schools have to be very mindful about where they spend money, and unfortunately, some really good services are being reduced or removed altogether. Schools are even looking at redundancies in some cases.

So I’d say the combination of funding pressures and my own time constraints are the main barriers to getting into new schools. Once we’re in, schools relove what we do. It’’s just that initial access that’s tricky.

When you run workshops and start interacting with students, have you found any challenges with implementing the skills afterwards?

Once we’re in, things generally go very well. That said, something we’d really like to develop over time is a “train the trainers” approach i.e. training teachers and teaching assistants, so they have the tools and skills to carry things forward when we’re not there.

When we’re in school, the momentum is strong, and we’d love to help schools sustain that momentum. We’re lucky that the schools we work with really understand our ethos and philosophy, so there’s good alignment and synergy. But in the future, offering a course that builds staff capacity would be a great next step.

More generally, what do you believe are the characteristics of an effective training programme?

For me, it has to be engaging. It doesn’t have to be fun all the time, but it does have to be engaging.

You’ve got to be able to read the room and understand who you’re working with. Whether it’s adults or young people, things can change very quickly, even within a single session. That’s just the nature of working with human beings.

You need to understand your audience and tap into different personalities. The content has to be appropriate, but you also need to be flexible, meaning you’re able to adapt as you go and weave your way through what’s happening in the room.

I genuinely believe people like learning. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like learning. It’s often the way things are taught that creates barriers. We try to make learning engaging through practical activities that young people can relate to their own lives.

Have you noticed major differences between working with primary and secondary school students?

I wouldn’t say the learning curve is massively different, but the environments definitely are.

Primary and secondary schools have very different cultures. In secondary schools, you’ve got hormones, teenage energy, and peer pressure playing a much bigger role. In primary schools, children tend to be a bit more sponge-like. They’re more open to ideas.

With secondary students, sometimes you have to chisel away a little before you get there. That’s just part of growing up. But what we’ve noticed across the board is that young people want help, and all they want is the right kind of help. 

Educators often don’t have the time to give young people extended one-to-one attention because of timetables and pressures. We’re fortunate in that we can sit down and have a 20- or 30-minute conversation that’s directly linked to a young person’s needs. That time makes a huge difference.

Walk me through a case study of a school you’ve worked with and the impact of the programme.

One that really stands out is a young lad called Logan in a primary school in Bolton. I was initially asked to work with him around confidence. Very quickly, it became clear he was a bright lad who understood leadership concepts well. But when we dug a bit deeper, we noticed his attendance was very low, around 64%.

When we unpicked that, we found out one of the main reasons was that his younger brother was disabled. When his brother was off school, Logan wanted to stay home to look after him. It was actually a very sweet and caring reason.

Once we reframed that, helping him see that his low attendance wasn’t because he was failing, but because he was kind, loving, and family-focused, his perspective shifted. He was in Year 4 at the time. By the end of that year, his attendance was in the low 70s. In Year 5, with lighter-touch support, he finished on 89%. By the end of Year 6, he was close to 99%.

He left primary school as a confident young lad and even went on the school residential, something his family never thought would happen. That kind of progress is what really makes the work meaningful.

Are there similar examples from secondary schools?

Absolutely. One example is our leadership programme for pupil leaders and prefects, usually with Year 10 or Year 11 students.

It’s a blended programme, some in-person, some online, and over about six weeks, the change you see is incredible. These are students who look successful on paper: ambitious, academically strong. But as we worked with them, it became clear many had significant things going on in their lives that school hadn’t picked up, such as mental health struggles, racial abuse, different forms of trauma.

We created a safe environment where they could share those experiences and use them as a starting point to write new chapters for themselves. It’s powerful work.

People sometimes assume our work is only for students who are struggling, but this showed how even thriving students need space to be vulnerable. We run this programme annually and consistently see young people valuing the sense of community and empathy it creates.

Alongside workshops, we also do one-to-one coaching in secondary schools, and we see improvements in behaviour, attendance, wellbeing, and confidence.

How do you adapt your approach when working with schools or individuals who may be unsure about leadership concepts?

We’re quite lucky in that the schools we work with are already closely aligned with our approach. We don’t often encounter resistance, but sometimes there are concerns, usually around curriculum time.

Teachers worry that bringing us in means losing syllabus time. What they often find, though, is that our work complements learning. Leadership, as we teach it, is really about how young people lead themselves. Once they do that well, everything else improves.

Teachers consistently report improved learning behaviours, better teamwork, a healthier understanding of failure, and stronger relationships. So while time is taken out initially, students come back better prepared for learning.

If you could articulate one key principle you hope every participant takes away, what would it be?

That we’re all leaders. Young people think they know what a leader is, but they rarely see themselves as one. That’s true for seven-year-olds, Year 6s, and even teenagers.

When young people start to see themselves as leaders, it gives them agency, energy, and empowerment. They stop waiting for permission, whether that’s a title or a role.

Leadership is about how you show up in your own life. If you do that well, you’ll naturally influence others. You don’t need permission to lead yourself.

Are there any emerging trends you’re seeing in education or training?

We’re definitely seeing more young people being identified with special educational needs. That’s something schools, families, and society need to respond to.

Because our work is based on a coaching philosophy, helping individuals understand their strengths, set goals, and move forward, it naturally adapts to individual needs. Even in group workshops, we’re always responding to what comes up in the room.

We’re also seeing increased awareness around mental health and wellbeing. Being a young person has always been challenging, but technology and reduced face-to-face interaction add new layers.

For me, leadership isn’t a single skill. It’s a a collection of skills: communication, organisation, empathy, courage. That’s what we focus on developing, and it feels more important than ever.

Where do you see Bright Leaders in the next five to ten years?

I’d love to see Bright Leaders have a national reach. At the moment, we’re mainly in the North West, but I’d like to expand that, particularly in secondary education.

I’d also like to develop online provision for parents. I hear from so many parents asking how their child can get involved, and at the moment, it depends on whether their school has the budget or awareness.

Longer term, I’d love to explore evening or weekend programmes, once time allows. That feels like an exciting direction.