Are you energised for the new school year? Are you looking to improve as a teacher and will you be trying modern evidence based practices in your classroom? Will you be helping to coach other teachers or be open to being coached yourself? A new school year is an opportunity for a new start. Will this be the year you learn more from coaching or being coached? Will you be involved in instructional coaching?
Instructional coaching is about companionship, the desire to grow, and leading and learning together. As coaches, for our own learning and development, being globally aware is important. There is much we can learn by reviewing coaching in schools around the world.
The Australian 2021 Spotlight Paper ‘Classroom coaching that makes a difference’ from the Education Research Centre discusses the impact of coaching in education, and how teachers should make coaching ‘right, make it work so that it makes a difference for teachers and students’. The paper quotes the Australian Department of Education writing that ‘a strong culture of leading and learning together has positive impact on the quality of our system, the success of our students and the wellbeing of our people’.
I love the phrase ‘leading and learning together’. As coaches, leaders and educators it is important that we model the desire to grow and develop, if this is what we expect from our pupils. Coaching is the process that supports this growth in learning organisations, and the paper highlights the importance of a shared understanding of what coaching is based on teachers’ knowledge and beliefs. There are many definitions of coaching, many types and many coaching models including TEACHER and GROW. One type of coaching is instructional coaching and Jim Knight and the impact cycle are mentioned in this paper.
For some reason, the UK appears to be lagging behind many other countries around the world in its adoption of instructional coaching. Copilot describes instructional coaching as a collaborative process where a coach supports a teacher in improving their instructional practices to enhance student learning outcomes. Instructional coaching involves on site professional development through coaching discussions and modelling. For any teachers who want to learn more about instructional coaching Insight 2 Execution run an excellent course called the Microsoft Certified Coach program which has recently gained the ISTE seal of approval.
Coaching, in whatever form, requires a supportive culture. As coaches, we are aware of the importance of supportive relationships. The Spotlight Paper describes this as companionship, which I think is a great term. In coaching, the sense of companionship fosters a collaborative environment where goals are co-created, ensuring that both the coach and the coachee work together towards shared objectives.
The paper also discusses Kretlow and Bartholomew, 2010 and how ‘coaching has been shown to improve the extent to which teachers implement evidence-based practices It also discusses Cravens and Wang’s 2017 study, which showed that ‘expert teachers who are responsible for leading coaching practices contribute to system-wide instructional improvement by encouraging bottom-up action research’. It is important that we are aware of the impact, and share the impact that coaching can have. It is important we recognise and communicate the transformative potential of coaching and how it can help us navigate change.
The world is changing and teaching practices need to change too. Teachers need to have the confidence and support to implement action research and modern evidence based practices. As the new school year approaches, I hope that teachers are coached to have the energy and desire to grow, and can help their pupils increase their desire to grow too.
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