Coaching and mentoring form part of South Lanarkshire’s strategy to develop leadership capacity and promote leadership for learning in the authority. The following short case studies from three South Lanarkshire schools illustrate the different ways that coaching is being put into practice following the authority’s investment in a coach development programme.
Alex Dunbar from Biggar High School sees coaching as a way of holding conversations with people that enable them to identify problems and find solutions by active listening, careful questioning and thoughtful responses rather than by giving out advice or showing people how to do things. Coaching enables him to support staff more effectively, develop good practice and negotiate more effectively in his role as union representative. He sees coaching contributing positively to staff welfare which impacts on teacher’s effectiveness in the classroom and in their lives beyond the workplace.
Alex has put coaching into practice in a number of ways in the school: by presenting the fundamentals of coaching to colleagues and demonstrating the use and power of coaching language and in his own interactions with staff. Staff responded positively to the introduction to coaching and could see a number of ways to take things forward during faculty meetings, departmental meetings, self help groups in the school and target setting with pupils.
Coaching conversations take place with some staff who have approached him and with others whom he has identified. Some conversations are very brief and others last for 30 minutes or more, either during the school day or at the end of the day. Alex regards flexibility as important and strives to make himself approachable at all times.
He sees coaching developing slowly but surely in the school. There are small signs of success and following on from coaching conversations, self generated ideas or actions are sometimes undertaken. Coaching conversations are increasingly used to support young people in realistic target setting at several points in their academic year, in course selection interviews and to help pupils set realistic targets for their attainment.
His key learning as a coach is around the importance of active listening and the need to practice coaching skills. He believes coaching is a very effective way of helping people cope with change and the challenges of everyday teaching and for developing solution focused ways of working and promoting mutual support among staff. He sees coaching contributing to the development of a positive school culture in which improvement is encouraged and supported.
For more information please email Alex Dunbar.
Donny McGeoch is Depute Headteacher in Stonelaw High School. He sees coaching as a process that brings out people’s potential and this investment in people in turn builds leadership capacity in the school. He has implemented coaching in the school by inviting colleagues to participate in a coaching project with a focus on leadership and self improvement, drawing on his own learning from the authority’s coach development programme.
The Stonelaw project aims to promote professional dialogue and has involved identifying people’s needs and interests around coaching/mentoring via questionnaire, offering training and setting up pairs of colleagues to take forward their coaching/mentoring dialogue at times and in places that work for them. Donny has worked with all members of the group providing advice around contracting, the purpose of the dialogue (issue to be discussed), confidentiality, listening and questioning techniques.
As a coach he has learned about the power of the coaching/mentoring dialogue for providing opportunities for stepping back and demonstrating a real interest in people. The coaching process has given him a structured way of putting into practice his basic belief in the power of coaching/mentoring for empowering the coachee to take action based upon a relationship of trust and honesty. He thinks the power of the professional dialogue encourages creativity, builds on strengths and focuses on the positive. His intention is for this project to go forward with earlier participants taking on the role of facilitators with others to continue to build leadership capacity.
For more information please email Donny McGeoch.
Richard McGowan, Principal Teacher of Maths, has introduced coaching to his team of 14 teachers to help develop their effectiveness, give him a better sense of how things are going in their classrooms and identify any issues that need to be addressed. The school has already piloted and evaluated the impact of coaching which it sees as a means of improving leadership capacity. He sees coaching as about moving people on a pathway from awareness to continuous, active improvement.
Richards’ approach to coaching involves meeting each member of his team for an hour three times a year for a coaching conversation which is distinct from the professional review and development discussion. This conversation allows teachers who may not speak out in department meetings to air their concerns or just have an opportunity to discuss their remit and classes. It also allows Richard and his teachers to focus on an aspect of practice that might need improvement using a process that invites a teacher to visualise what improved performance would like and describe the steps they might take to achieve that.
These conversations give Richard a bigger picture of what is going on in all of his classes and help him focus on the issues that an individual teacher might be facing. These conversations are not around maths but to do with strategies, engagement with children, thinking and learning. They are to help teachers cope and for demonstrating a manager’s responsibility to support teachers to improve their practice in a climate of trust where recognition of good practice happens and praise and support are given. Richard is also using coaching/mentoring strategies to support disruptive pupils to engage and look for solutions to enable them to access their education. Feedback from staff has been positive and staff feel their coaching conversations are beneficial and supportive.
His key learning as a coach has been around the development of his own interpersonal skills and how coaching has contributed to creating a more trusting, open and honest climate with all his staff. He feels coaching encourages active rather than passive responses from staff and encourages him to be more proactive with them.
Looking ahead he intends to continue coaching his team and hopes there will be coaching development opportunities for aspiring Principal Teachers. He hopes that the introduction of Action Learning Sets, which have started in his school with Faculty Heads will be another effective way of promoting learning, adopting a solution focus and promoting high quality professional dialogue across the school.
For more information please email Richard McGowan (Hamilton Grammar, South Lanarkshire).
In association with Education Scotland
Comments
Barbara Lindsay,
27 February 2008, 1.19 pm
How are the Action Learning Sets going Richard?
Sandra Crawford,
27 February 2008, 1.32 pm
The individual aspect of Richard's coaching is obviously valuable in creating a positive and trusting relationship with his team and its success has led to improvements in both teaching and learning. He recognises that good practice, praise and support are important for staff as well as pupils and leads to improved performance. It's great that teachers are given the opportunity to discuss their concerns.