St Sylvester’s RC Primary School

Christine Jackson, Headteacher, St Sylvester's RC Primary School, Moray

Contents:

• Background
• Reflecting on practice
• Making changes
• Coaching benefits

Background

St Sylvester’s is a denominational primary school with 187 pupils, 11 teaching staff and 11 support staff in the town of Elgin. Christine Jackson has been headteacher for about nine years. She describes her school as one with a strong child-centred ethos and values.

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Reflecting on practice

Christine has developed a coaching relationship with Mandy, a colleague in the school. Coaching has encouraged Christine to reflect critically on her role as a school leader and make changes in how she fulfils her role. This extract focuses on her experience of being coached by Mandy during a CPD activity for all staff. Although it is not uncommon to engage in a coaching conversation in front of colleagues during a training session, it is probably less common for a school leader to offer her reflections on her role in front of her staff and to allow herself to be coached in public in the way Christine does here. By making her coaching visible to her staff they gained insights into Christine’s thoughts and feelings about being a headteacher and learned how the process of thinking through issues and developing fresh approaches on these contributed to changes in Christine's own leadership practice. Staff in St Sylvester’s have also had the opportunity to participate in coaching sessions and acquire new skills to help them implement classroom innovations and provide support for colleagues in the school.

Christine describes how the session went:

'The session was based around what it was like for me as a leader . . . It was a very emotional experience. It started by me acknowledging as a leader and as a person in the school that I often felt I wasn’t doing the job well enough and I was beginning to ask myself why that was. We talked through what it was like to be a leader and the kinds of issues I dealt with on a day-to-day basis; the way I planned my time; the way I organised my work and the unexpected problems that landed on my desk which prevented me from focusing on what was important. I talked about feeling very isolated a lot of the time as a leader . . . Partly because of the huge volume of paperwork, also the challenges in the school across a wide range of issues, and I felt I was trying to do a bit of everything and not doing anything very well. I felt there was a lack of understanding among the people I worked with, who could knock on my door, walk in, expect me to deal with something there and then, give them an answer . . . so that’s how the conversation went and (laughing) I looked out at the faces and there was a stunned silence! And they were all looking at me . . . and the staff became very emotional. From the comments at the end, one member of staff asked me, 'Did all this come from coaching?' and I said 'Yes, it did.' . . . I felt quite vulnerable in front of the staff but things had come to a point where I really needed to talk about it . . . afterwards I felt relieved . . . I felt more confident. I was bearing in mind that I had a group of people in front of me who over the next few weeks would notice the impact this coaching session had made

. . . When we talked through the solution, one of the reasons I felt isolated was that I had perhaps allowed myself to become this way due to the way I was managing my workload and the demands and expectations made by everyone . . . Now I strive towards putting my staff, parents and pupils first. I go round and see the staff every day, take my diary, check in and see how they are and ask if there is anything they need or anything I can help with. So it means the staff and school are my priority. And that has changed because through coaching I have found a solution which has enabled me to deal with interruptions and the at times overwhelming paperwork to allow me to focus on the school.'

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Making changes

Coaching has helped Christine look specifically at what she was doing on a day-to-day basis and reconfigure how she could be both a leader spending time with people and carry out the other aspects of her role as headteacher. The coaching process led her to manage her time differently, ensuring she was available to staff by implementing a system so they could bring important issues to her as well as allowing her to be visible in the school, starting her day by meeting and talking with her staff. This coaching process has also helped remind Christine of her purpose for being in teaching.

 'I went into teaching because I love working with children . . . and I found I was spending less time with them and more time on administrative tasks and unnecessary interruptions . . . it becomes quite overwhelming really. I talked to my staff about what I missed. I missed working with children, being there for them, in class, working with small groups, out in the playground, being a leader. So those are the kinds of things I now do. In my role as school leader, part of my job is to be out there working alongside the children and staff, noticing, encouraging, being an example and almost like a role model . . . If you’re not working alongside your colleagues and pupils some of the time how can you possibly understand the day-to-day challenges, joys and achievements of your school community and take forward your vision? So I do get out quite a bit now.'

Coaching benefits

Although Christine considered the possibility of working with a headteacher colleague as a coach, she has taken her coaching relationship forward with Mandy.

'Mandy is very good at what she does . . . very skilled . . . an excellent listener . . . able to draw out from my conversation the areas I was most worried about and the areas I could do something to improve and change.'

Christine is clear that coaching has contributed to her changing her practice as a school leader.

'I think I am listening a lot more to staff, not just listening but making the time to see them and work alongside them . . . and I spend a lot more time with the children too. Probably it’s impacted on the way I work with parents, pupils and staff.'

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Contact:

For more information please email Christine Jackson.