Time for a coaching culture revolution?
Jo Lindon and Martin Hanbury ask whether coaching might become an increasingly important strategy in supporting school improvement in an era of tight budgets.
Coaching is a well-established approach in schools, but as finances continue to tighten around the country and school support systems are reduced, could coaching become an increasingly important strategy in supporting school improvement?
We believe that the coaching models we have developed in our schools – Harwood Meadows Community Primary in Bolton, and Chatsworth High School and Community College in Salford, Greater Manchester –offer some valuable examples of what can be done.
Harwood Meadows Community Primary is a 265 pupil single form entry primary school in the Harwood and Bradshaw area of Bolton. At Harwood Meadows, a culture of coaching emerged following involvement with the Outstanding Teacher Programme. This has had a major effect on our culture.
Initially, the senior leadership team (SLT) was trained in coaching with the Executive Coaching for SLT and National College coaching programmes for middle leaders. In addition to this, all staff participated in a coaching inset. From this grounding, teaching staff were organised into three person ‘triads’. Threes were chosen in order to team plan, conduct paired observations and feedback to colleagues using a coaching approach. Staff found this preferable to a one-to-one coaching approach, as there has been more opportunity for discussion during peer observations and team planning.
Harwood Meadows is currently into its fifth round of triad observations, with a different focus for each based on current priorities. The triads plan the overview of the three lessons together, with each member delivering a lesson and receiving feedback through a coaching conversation.
The focus has been around the use of learning-to-learn skills, such as ‘thinking hats’ and higher-order questioning to challenge children’s thinking, then around provision for more able pupils and currently the focus is on different roles of guided groups.
In each case, the specific challenge staff were trying to tackle was a hard-to-move group of passive learners in each year group. The triads have been targeting these groups and making it possible for colleagues to observe how learners respond to different teaching approaches. The triads have been able to identify specific activities that engage pupils, the sorts of questioning styles that get the best response and how teaching and learning strategies make an impact on learners within each session.
Chatsworth High School and Community College is a 100 pupil 11–19 community special school based in Salford, Greater Manchester. The school caters for students with PMLD (profound and multiple learning disabilities), SLD (severe learning difficulties) and autism, and is the sole secondary aged provider for students with these needs within the local authority.
Over the last three years, an entirely new leadership team has formed within the school and a gradual shift in approaches to performance management has provided an opportunity for the development of coaching strategies within the school.
This shift in approaches to performance management involved the development of a regular cycle of activity based on the notion of practice support – a way of exploring practice with teachers that gives them ownership and allows for reflection and self-evaluation. Over time, these changes in the structure and ethos of performance management within the school have gradually reduced resistance from teachers to practice observations. More recently, our staff’s involvement with programmes such as the Outstanding Teacher Programme has introduced colleagues to peer observation, which teachers find a positive and illuminating experience. Significantly, staff have become more aware of one another’s strengths and learned to trust each other’s professionalism.
At Harwood Meadows each triad has a lead teacher or member of the leadership team to drive outcomes and make sure this aligns with the school development plan. This approach means that leadership is effectively distributed and there is plenty of challenge within each triad. One triad focused on teaching and learning for more able learners and the active involvement of all pupils through the use of co-operative learning structures in classrooms.
Now in its third year, you can see the impact of the approach in a number of ways:
- More good and outstanding lessons
- Increased opportunities to create activities that challenge more able pupils
- Pupils tell us that they have more knowledge about their progress
- Increased professional dialogue around teaching and learning
- A significant shift in staff’s attitudes to observation
- Less passive learning in classrooms which leads to higher attainment in end of year tests
This triad model is also mirrored at SLT level. Harwood Meadows has partnered with two other Bolton schools to work together on leadership coaching. This work includes writing a self-evalution form (SEF), evaluating action plans and working out school improvement priorities.
Year 5 and 6 pupils also benefit from these coaching principles. Pupils have a termly one-to-one coaching conversation with a teacher in which they discuss their progress towards targets.
If the development of a coaching culture in schools is an organic process, then Chatsworth is at an earlier stage of development than Harwood Meadows, but the signs are that it is well on its way.
Teachers were recently asked for their views on developing models of peer coaching and they strongly supported the idea. Now the leadership team is working on a coaching model for Chatsworth that will help teachers’ share their practice and encourage self-reflection.
Sustaining the coaching culture
The challenge for school leaders is to create a climate in which coaching can thrive, but this might need radical changes in custom and practice. In some cases, the challenge may be in the way feedback is delivered to staff and in helping them overcome their anxieties about this.
Crucially, coaching should be seen as a vehicle for improvement, rather than a new initiative. At its best, coaching offers a structured, supportive and sustainable route towards positive self-reflection that allows professional growth through empowerment.
The potential for coaching to provide a dynamic and flexible strategy for school improvement is as yet untapped. One possible reason for this can be the complexities of arranging for staff to observe one another. However, the time spent in the organisation will be time well invested and can reap more rewards than costly external courses.
And in the current financial climate this is something that we believe schools cannot afford to ignore.
Jo Lindon is deputy headteacher at Harwood Meadows Primary School in Bolton. Dr Martin Hanbury is headteacher of Chatsworth High School in Salford, Greater Manchester.
Read both Jo and Martin's research associate reports:
- Creating a culture of coaching - Jo Lindon
- Leadership coaching - Martin Hanbury
Published January 2012
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