Louis Harvey - MSc Coaching and Development

'I am in the final year of a three year course which leads to an MSc in Coaching and Development.

My background is that of a career sales manager in the wholesale financial services industry. I rejoined Reuters, now Thomson Reuters, five years ago as a specialist soft skills trainer working with the sales teams and their managers across Europe, Middle East and Africa.

I was asked by my company to undertake a course of development in coaching and was recommended to the course run jointly by Performance Consultants and Portsmouth Business School. This course is one of the few that combines extensive theoretical and practical tuition, and supervision from some of the finest professional coaches in the UK, with an academic credential. Hence, this course of study is recognised by the EMCC (European Mentoring Coaching Council) as such. The MSc will enable me to be recognised by the EMCC as a 'Master Practitioner' coach.

The last three years for me have been absolutely transformational and enabled me to work at all levels as a professional coach within Thomson Reuters. Completing both the Postgraduate Certificate and Diploma stages has given me a whole new set of personal horizons and career options that would not otherwise have been possible; especially when you take into account the fact that I left school at age 17 and do not have a first degree.

I found the first few written assignments daunting, but with help from the University and tutors at Performance Consultants I rapidly developed the necessary academic skills. The support network within my cohort has been incredibly helpful and given me the chance to work with like-minded professionals. All in all I feel a real sense of achievement and recognise I could not have done this without the support and encouragement of the teams at Performance Consultants and the University.'

Martyn Carr - MSc Coaching and Development

'Like all the other postgrads on the course, I am a mature student studying towards the MSc in Coaching and Development. The course has three stages which gives you flexibility to go as far as you want in coaching; Stage 1, the Certificate, takes one year and involves attending six two-day modules, completing loads of really interesting reading and submitting four Work-Based Learning projects. Stage 2, the Diploma, is a similar format but goes into more depth. Stage 3 is the MSc dissertation. The course always aims to balance rigorous academic study with practical learning.

I read Whitmore’s ‘Coaching for Performance’ and became fascinated with coaching as the ‘missing link’ in my leadership skill-set. There are loads of coaching courses, but I decided if I was going to take coaching seriously I would study at Masters level; I also found the University of Portsmouth course was one of the best established, fitted with the EMCC’s QA framework and had renowned tutors.

Of course I have learned a huge amount about coaching and development. It has satisfied my curiosity for learning and given me access to some wonderful new friends and colleagues.

I am developing all the time and I will use my learning professionally as a leadership coach within my own business, Authensys, which aims to inspire, coach and develop leaders to access their full potential.

The partnership between professional coaches at ‘Performance Consultants’ and the Portsmouth Business School seems to work well and together they have created a Masters degree which to my knowledge is one of only a few that have been accredited by the EMCC’s QA programme at Practitioner, Advanced and Master Practitioner level.'