Coaching

Melanie Taylor Dean of Professional Practice

The King’s School Coaching Framework aims to bring together several key stakeholders in a collaborative expertise network to create collective efficacy and support every teacher’s professional learning program. Instructional coaching practices underpin a successful coaching program and enable teachers to accomplish their Academic Excellence, Character and Christian Community goals more successfully whilst honouring their professionalism.

Prof. Christian van Nieuwerburgh, Professor of Coaching and Positive Psychology at the University of East London, advocates for the development of coaching cultures in schools and believes that “places of learning are the ideal context in which to grow coaching cultures.”(van Nieuwerburgh & Barr, 2016. p.13) The coaching program will be a key tool in The King’s School Professional Learning Framework, focusing on the idea that coaching is learning in the presence of others and leads to higher quality professional conversations where teachers master new ideas, ultimately enhancing student achievement. This learning relationship aims to develop a culture of caring and lead to improved teacher capacity and self-efficacy. Megan Tschannen-Moran, a Professor of Educational Leadership at the William & Mary School of Education, explores how the relationship between the coach and teacher should connect to a higher sense of purpose, be based on educational trust, and connect to a positive outlook on self-improvement. This idea positions the teacher as an active participant in this relationship who is responsible for their own learning and is instrumental in constructing change within their context.

The coaching relationship will be supported by the King’s School Teacher Dashboard. The dashboard will consist of a landing page that collates information such as a teacher’s qualifications, teacher accreditation status, completed professional learning activities, and role evolution within The King’s School. This will then expand into tabs that explore each teacher’s involvement in school life, data analytics, industry partnerships, and professional growth/coaching.

The King’s School Coaching Framework is part of the 2022-2024 Strategic Plan and informed one of the workshops at the July Strategic Planning Professional Learning Day. In utilising Edward De Bono’s Thinking Hat routine, the participants, consisting of operational staff and teachers, provided valuable insight into the role a dashboard and coaching framework could play in their professional growth at The King’s School. The workshop participants’ feelings on the coaching program, both positive and negative, were shared using Edward De Bonos red hat thinking routine. The negative feelings discussion allowed the participants to express their concern about being compared to other teachers and their nervousness about how the resulting data may be used. The positive outlook discussion focused on how a coaching program would provide exciting opportunities for staff development and promotion, and how the program would become part of an employee value proposition when attracting new staff.

In discussing the value of the development of a coaching dashboard, the participants began to consider how this platform could make the work they do more visible and tangible, and how the coaching program would be a worthwhile way to track performance and allow staff to be acknowledged for the significant work they do at The King’s School. A black hat approach allowed the workshop participants to provide negative and logical feedback on the initiative. The key ideas that were shared in this discussion were that the program would be performance management in disguise, that it would create a large workload for teachers, that there wouldn’t be time allocated for the program, and how comfortable would a teacher feel with their allocated coach. There was also concern about the accuracy of the data collected and how that data would be used.

The discussion also touched on how the program would be launched to ensure that people resistant to change would be willing to participate. A yellow hat perspective allowed the participants to reflect on the program with an optimistic mindset. Numerous ideas were put forward, such as how the program could accelerate career progression, provide an opportunity to set goals at an individual level and bring out the best in a teacher, help staff feel valued and recognised, create transparency so staff and their line manager know where they are up to, and promotional and professional learning opportunities could be tailored using data. The participants also acknowledged that these frameworks were transferable to their current roles but would be relevant to the teaching of students. In the final stage of the workshop, using the green hat, participants explored their own innovative ideas in relation to the program. The key insights provided were how this would enhance employees’ fulfilment in their job, how it could have a positive impact on working relationships and provide a program whereby teachers/ staff can identify their skills and aspirations. The participants acknowledged that this type of program would lead to better quality teaching and improved student outcomes, that the time for coaching needed to be scheduled into the day, and that the aim of the program was for staff to reach their full potential and feel recognised and valued.

The first iteration of The King’s School Dashboard is set to be completed by the end of Term 4, 2022. It will then be trialled in Term 1, 2023 by a range of Senior School departments, across the preparatory school, and Tudor House. The King’s School Institute is currently finalising the Coaching Implementation Roadmap in preparation for 2023.

References

van Nieuwerburgh, C., & Barr, M. (2016). Coaching in Education. In

T. Bachkirova, G. Spence and D.

Drake (Eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Coaching. Sage. https:// au.sagepub.com/en-gb/oce/ the-sage-handbook-of-coaching/ book245418