Case studies

Coach your way to Success

Coaching is a positive, helping relationship between two people: a trained coach and a client. It differs from other helping relationships such as counselling, mentoring, and guidance in that it does not offer advice nor does the coach suggest that he/she is an expert in a client’s field of work. Coaching seeks to empower a person to find their own solutions to their challenges, focussing on the present and the future and not dwelling on past events. Coaches are non-judgmental and non-critical, focussing on strengths and encouraging clients to build on these.

Why is coaching such a powerful agent for change?

Children are born without internal psychological hurdles and barriers. The adage “children don’t see danger” sums up the belief that anything is possible when we are
young. Over time we acquire boundaries to our behaviour and capabilities. Some of these are helpful to our survival, others are extreme and hold us back. This continues into adulthood, and our past experiences from all aspects of our lives impinge on our ability to succeed.

Coaching draws on different disciplines to help clients overcome barriers which prevent them from achieving their goals. The skilled use of questioning, reflection, and some specialised coaching techniques can help people unlock the potential within them that is blocked by negative experiences from the past.

Coaching provides the client with a space for reflection and an opportunity to discuss and organise their thoughts without the interruptions of everyday life. This is provided by a coach whose main role is to question, listen and reflect back to the client. Coaches employ techniques that can enable people to consider problems from other angles and develop positive approaches to problem-solving.

How could it impact on teaching and learning?

Coaching could be used by teachers for their own personal and professional development. It could also be used with pupils. A teacher skilled in coaching can lead to a better understanding of themselves and a greater focus on goal-setting and achievement. The focus provided by a coach can really push them forward to achieve goals which they may be reticent to formulate and achieve alone.

Public Personnel Management in 1997 conducted a study into the use of coaching as a follow up to face-to-face training in public sector organisations. It found that training alone could yield a 22.4% increase in productivity; when coaching followed training, this figure rose to 88%. Coaching, we suggest, has a key part to play in improving the effectiveness of conventional training.

South Notts College run a performance coaching course for teachers. This gives specific approaches to “one-to-one pupil/teacher” coaching , and “teacher to whole class” coaching. This sets out to provide the theoretical foundation and practical approaches to enabling students to overcome barriers to success. There can be real benefits for schools in terms of pupil achievement through raising self-esteem in this way. More than this it provides students with valuable life-skills set incorporating listening and speaking skills, emotional intelligence and goal-setting.

In maximising the performance of an individual pupil, teacher or manager, coaching can help a person to address very personal issues that they may not work through in any other kind of school-based support. The benefits to the individual and the organisation in as few as 4 sessions could thus be enormous.

Coaching is carried out either face-to-face or more usually over the telephone. One-to-one coaching sessions usually last 45 mins. Using the phone means that the logistical blocks that sometimes prevent two people meeting are removed.

Coaching is:

• a non-critical and non-judgemental helping process
• a powerful way to overcome internal barriers to success
• adaptable to use with all age groups
• used across a group or one-to-one
• used to help pupils, teachers, managers and parents maximise their performance
• adding to the impact of conventional training
• easily carried out
• often done over the telephone, thus reducing logistical difficulties of two people meeting face-to-face

Staff development can be expensive and the benefits uncertain. Some of the best developments occur when the talents which already exist within staff are unlocked. Coaching is one way of doing this. Coaching involves non-judgmental support for individuals to find their own solutions. A good coach is skilled in listening, reflecting, questioning and clarifying.

“Coaching is the art of facilitating the performance,
learning and development of another”

Through a coaching programme you can access the talents of more staff, focus on solutions, develop observation and feedback skills which will be essential for our assessment model, raise morale, improve relationships and build co-operation. The coaching programme can also extend to learners. They are given skills to support each other’s progress.

You may need outside help. Start with a core team and grow it out. Separate Coaching from any appraisal scheme in place. Set a series of coaching networks.

10 Ways that students benefit

• increased motivation through greater ownership of decisions
• better understanding of others
• a greater understanding of what holds students back from achieving success and what propels them forward
• increased resilience and improved stress tolerance
• improved relationships with peers and adults
• greater readiness to accept and act upon feedback
• the development of a solutions-focused approach to learning
• a realistic awareness of personal potential and limitations
• improved performance in a range of aspects of their lives
• tool for constructively dealing with unhelpful behaviour

10 ways that adults benefit

• enhancing personal effectiveness (working smarter not harder)
• improving student performance
• encouraging reflectivity and professional growth
• enhancing the ability of teachers and support assistants to motivate students and other adults
• improving team involvement
• constructively challenging unhelpful behaviours
• improved tolerance of adults and young people
• enhanced energy and job satisfaction
• opening of creative thinking pathways
• an enhanced awareness of the setting of realistic goals for themselves and others

Coaching Case Study

The Mayfield School, Portsmouth has had a successful history of training teachers from a variety of atypical backgrounds and creating excellent practitioners of them. Borne out of a crisis in teacher recruitment they have developed an excellent teacher training programme, spear-headed by Colin Cox and Mike Harbour. Their approach to coaching in the school has extended beyond the early days of supporting unqualified teachers and now operates across the school. They use trios of teachers; each trio consists of a trained coach, a newly qualified or unqualified teacher and another member of staff.

The school created opportunities for regular liaison in these trios, with the trained coaches eliciting discussion and goal-setting with follow up. One of the trained coaches in the programme explained how coaching had released her from a burden that she felt to be the provider of solutions. Coaching, she explained released that perceived need to solve for others and created the ethos of self-solution. The effect on this is evident from the comments of many of the coaches in the school

One of the important aspects to this institutional approach is the inclusion of all of the staff regardless of experience in a process of structured reflection. Whilst the agenda for reflection remained with the individuals the structure in terms of grouping and time-resourcing was created by the school. Consequently the main barriers to coaching taking place are removed and the reflection process can take place with minimum disruption.

Excerpts with permission
copyright Will Thomas.

What next?

You may like to read a more from these texts on coaching and personal development:
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