Ten Years in the Classroom, a Lifetime of Study
Why a teaching assistant, therapist and parent built The Calm Coach
We regulate through connection
About Me
Hello, I’m Victoria, founder of The Calm Coach.
For almost ten years, I’ve worked as a Teaching Assistant in a primary school, supporting children through some of their biggest emotional challenges. I’ve sat alongside hundreds of children doing their very best to cope with overwhelm, anxiety, frustration and big feelings, often without any understanding of why their bodies were reacting the way they were. Nobody had ever explained it to them.
Alongside my work in education, I trained as a Craniosacral Therapist, Reflexologist and Yoga Nidra Teacher, and built a holistic therapy practice working one to one with adults. What struck me time and again was how familiar their experiences felt. The adults in my therapy room were often carrying the same struggles as the children in my classroom. The racing heart before something difficult. The feeling of shutting down after too much at once. The constant pressure to keep going without understanding what was happening inside their own bodies.
Two very different settings, yet both taught me the same lesson. We are rarely taught how our nervous systems work, and without that understanding, we often spend years believing there is something wrong with us, rather than recognising that our nervous systems are responding in ways that make sense based on what they have experienced.
I’m also the mother of teenagers, and that’s when this work became deeply personal. Watching my own children navigate exam stress, friendship challenges and the everyday pressures of growing up, I found myself wishing they had been taught something so simple, yet so powerful: how to recognise what their bodies were telling them and respond with understanding rather than fear.
Not simply being told to “calm down”, but being shown how, and understanding why.
One of the greatest gifts we can give children is the experience of co-regulation before self-regulation. Children learn to regulate through calm, connected relationships with the adults around them. When parents, carers and educators understand the nervous system, children develop the confidence and skills to regulate themselves.
That’s why I created The Calm Coach.
My Approach
I kept coming back to one simple question. What if children learned how their nervous systems worked before stress, anxiety and overwhelm became lifelong patterns? And what if the adults around them learned it too?
The more I reflected, the clearer it became. We cannot expect children to regulate if the adults around them have never been taught how regulation works either. The Calm Coach was created to bridge that gap.
It’s more than a programme for children. It’s a whole-community approach that supports children, parents, carers and school staff together, creating a shared understanding of regulation both in school and at home.
What makes this approach different is the unique combination of experience that lies behind it. It brings together almost a decade working in primary education, professional training as a Craniosacral Therapist, Reflexologist and Yoga Nidra Teacher, years of supporting adults in therapeutic practice, and extensive personal study of the nervous system, neuroscience, breathwork and emotional wellbeing.
My passion is translating complex science into practical, accessible tools that children can understand, teachers can confidently use in busy classrooms, and parents can naturally weave into everyday family life. Because lasting change happens when the adults around a child change too.
My Mission
My mission is simple. I believe every child deserves the opportunity to understand their nervous system and develop the skills to regulate their emotions, regardless of where they live or what school they attend. I also believe these skills should never depend on a school’s wellbeing budget.
That’s why the children’s and staff programmes are available to schools completely free of charge. Not as an add-on or a one-off wellbeing initiative, but as something that can become part of everyday school life and be reinforced at home.
The only thing I ask in return is that schools help share this approach with parents and carers too. When home and school use the same language and the same understanding of regulation, children experience the consistency they need to thrive.
My vision reaches far beyond The Calm Coach. I believe nervous system education and emotional regulation deserve to be as embedded within the National Curriculum as maths and English. Every child deserves to leave school not only knowing how to read, write and solve problems, but also understanding their own body, recognising their emotions and knowing how to respond to life’s challenges with confidence, resilience and self-compassion.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story and for considering bringing The Calm Coach into your school.
Kind Words
