Coaching as an alternative to line management

Case study

The Colne Community School uses a ‘single conversation’ model of coaching, with subject and pastoral leaders having one point of contact for all issues.

Summary

The headteacher of The Colne Community School has developed a school-wide coaching programme to streamline line management responsibilities and enable middle leaders to become more involved in decision making.

Key learning/outcomes

Coaching has encouraged middle leaders to become more involved in decision making and take greater ownership of issues that they have the power to resolve.
Coaching has helped to increase the confidence of middle leaders in the school.
Since the introduction of the coaching programme, the school has seen a gradual rise in examination results and more consistency in examination performance across subject areas.
In 1998 the school had very low outcomes for geography, but coaching has helped the subject leader to transform geography into one of the highest achieving subject areas.

Background

The Colne Community School in Brightlingsea, Essex, is a comprehensive school for pupils aged 11-19. In 1995 the headteacher Terry Creissen attended an MBA lecture on coaching as a system for developing leadership across organisations. He says: “I decided then to apply this to the school leadership team as a different model for line management.”

Key challenges and issues

Enabling independent problem-solving

In his early days of headship, Terry Creissen was seen as the school’s problem solver. He wanted to move away from this notion and towards supporting and enabling people to solve problems for themselves.

Making time for coaching

The greatest resource required for coaching is time. Coaches and those being coached need to be allocated sufficient time to get value from the process.

Balancing coaching and line management

At Colne Community School the coach is also the line manager, which means that line management issues have to be communicated through the coach. The school aims to communicate issues through face-to-face discussion rather than in written memos.

Solution or approach

Individual coaching sessions

The headteacher introduced the coaching model through individual coaching sessions with members of the leadership team. These sessions focused on encouraging individuals to seek their own solutions to issues, using the headteacher as a sounding board and critical friend.

Training in coaching skills

The headteacher went on to lead a series of training sessions in coaching skills for the leadership team. It was important to keep reminding people that coaching is about helping the person being coached to solve problems for themselves.

Regular meetings

Every member of the leadership team coaches a number of subject leaders and pastoral staff. They have regular scheduled meetings and can arrange additional sessions if required.

Single point of contact

Instead of middle leaders having to respond to requests from different members of the senior leadership team, each coach acts as a single point of contact. The coaching scheme embraces the idea of a ‘single conversation’, where leadership team requirements are fed through coaches.

Flexibility

The school uses a coaching form to provide structure to the sessions, but it is quite open and non-prescriptive. Coaching sessions can focus on any subject that the individual being coached wants to raise, from teaching and learning issues through to personal matters.

Promoting student voice

Colne Community School has introduced the principles of coaching into some of its work with students. For example, coaching principles are used within the school council and in service learning programmes.

Next steps

The headteacher will continue to set a high standard for coaching and provide a model of best practice for the leadership team. The school’s aim is for coaching to become the accepted, normal way of working.

Further information

For further information contact The Colne Community School