How to become a coaching school
by Chris Kellaway, Certified Start With Heart Facilitator
July 22, 2024
In March 2022 I wrote a blog about creating a coaching culture at Woldingham, after 6 months of being asked to bring coaching into the school. Fast forward to March 2024 and I was reflecting at Graydin's Coaching Day that we are now a coaching school, with coaching weaved into the fabric of all we do. So I thought I would outline what we have managed to achieve in 3 years to help others in their coaching journey.
Why be a coaching school or business?
The best answer to this is to ask what type of people do you want in your school? Do you want independent individuals who know who they are, what they will become and what they want to achieve? If so, a coach-like approach enables that by putting the emphasis on what is important to the individual and supporting them with their ideas by great questioning and listening. This applies to teaching staff, administrative staff, parents and students.
From a pastoral perspective we know the issues associated with a lack of control, especially in adolescents. Taking a coach-like approach allows the coachee to own their problems and navigate their own path to a solution. One example, from my experience, is with a girl who admitted she had a 'problem with her eating' in a coaching conversation and agreed her own steps on how to get better. The medical feedback we received was the fact she was in control of the process meant her recovery was much quicker.
What was the coaching vision?
In 2021 the vision for the whole school was to be "coach-like" and we wanted as many staff as possible to have coaching skills. The immediate focus was on the staff with the highest amount of student touch points - pastoral leaders like heads of year and boarding staff. We placed an emphasis on Sixth Form tutors as we were informed that coaching was most effective with older students. In order for the whole school to be coach-like we also ensured that non teaching staff were invited (and am pleased to say we have had a member in each of the 7 groups we have trained). The plan was to use Graydin to train key targeted staff and then eventually to train staff to deliver coaching training to colleagues in house. The vision we set for coaching is set out below:
We wanted all staff to be coach-like and therefore rolled out a 1 hour Coach-Lite introduction to all staff and new staff, which has subsequently been delivered to parents and students alike. All staff were then invited to take the foundational coaching course (The Anatomy) with a focus on those in a pastoral role, we have also trained 20 sixth formers each year in this and our Parent Reps (called WPSA reps). Key pastoral staff or middle leaders as well as keen staff would then be encouraged to progress to the Advanced Course (The Journey) to help embed ideas in the school. The last stage was to have 4 or 5 Facilitators so that we could train up more staff, at speed. The plan was for each Facilitator to have a responsibility for a key group in the school - teachers, parents, students and non-teaching staff - with me as Director of Coaching overseeing and supporting each of them. We managed to fulfil one for each except the non-teaching staff role. This is a harder role to fill as there are fewer opportunities to practise compared to a tutor or pastoral leader but is one that could make a big difference in our community for their wellbeing and integration into the school. There is often a divide between teachers and non-teachers in school, I have found the coaching courses as a way to draw people together with many close bonds formed through completing coaching courses together.
Was it successful?
In 3 years Woldingham has been transformed into a coaching school with 100 staff trained in core coaching skills (The Anatomy) over this period. All of our Boarding Housemistresses are trained and every Sixth Form tutor is similarly trained in coaching. We have a coaching squad of Upper Sixth girls who coach some of the younger girls and we have trained over 40 parents in Coach-Lite and 12 parent reps in the Anatomy course. All new teaching staff complete the Coach-Lite training within their first half term.
Coaching is involved in all levels of the school, including in our tutor handbook (called a personal growth journal) but two of our most successful coaching events are in the coaching sessions we arrange for Year 11 to help them make their A Level choices & Year 12 for higher education choices. This time allows students to think through their choices with a trained coach who is trying to get to the heart of what is important to them rather than their peers/ parents or even teachers (one student I was preparing for Theology at Cambridge changed to Law after a coaching session with me!).
All year groups now have a 'coaching & croissants carousel' in PSHE (see pic below) where they have a coaching chat in small groups with a trained staff coach to chat about their academic performance, a visualisation on what their dreams are for the future, a session on what they are like at their best (their champion self) and some reflection time. How many of you were asked questions such as 'what is your dream?' when you were young? Big questions such as these help students (or adults) to work out decisions in front of them and plan to realise their dreams.
'Coaching & croissants' event with Year 7&8
Students also book coaching sessions with teachers using a coaching e-mail address to ensure they always have someone to talk to and heads of year have been setting up coaching conversations with students as a support before or sometimes instead of counselling. The more opportunities students have to talk to someone when they need to, the better!
What made it successful?
Targeting key groups worked really well as we could immediately sell the benefits of the course and make them feel special that they were invited! Once we had one group trained they then spread the message about how useful the course was and we had lots of coaching converts who preached to other staff about its value and how they were using it - both at home and at school. Coaching is a great course as it gives people a skill to take away straight away. We also had a vision that aimed big and ensured coaching was built into everything - e.g. staff development had coaching chats built in and coaching took over PSHE sessions. Coaches also advocated by leading by example, staff sharing how they use coaching with difficult conversations at home. I even got coached in front of the whole staff body about taking up running as I hadn't scored a try playing for my vets rugby team in years as I wasn't fit enough! Showing is always more effective than just telling and our Coach-Lite course involves some coaching to give people a taste.
Staff coaching in trios on a course I was running
Coaching has been woven into all we do and is also a key part of our teaching approach - Empowered Learning - as it helps foster independent learners as it focuses on asking 'What do you think?' rather than telling students what to think.
Coaching to help embed best teacher practice:
One of the features of high performing schools that aim to improve teaching and learning, is that the schools provide opportunities for teachers to learn from one another (Barber & Mourshed, 2007). It is also evident in a study by Showers and Joyce (1996) that the benefits for the teacher observing were often greater than for those being observed. With this in mind, we have assigned a peer partner to each member of staff at the beginning of each year. This is someone outside of their department, but within their faculty (Humanities, STEM, Languages & Practical), to give them someone to bounce ideas off, to observe each others lessons, to share struggles, chat and to coach each other on teaching best practise using WALKTHRUs as a base for what good teaching practice is or to focus on a particular area to improve e.g. checking for understanding. Further building coaching practices into all that we do and building up the community as a result. For more on coaching in the classroom check out Jim Knight (www.instructionalcoaching.com) or https://walkthrus.co.uk/coaching-solutions.
What are my top 5 key takeaways for embedding coaching?
Vision - have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and by when
Vision is always key for any change to gain momentum and we had a clear vision from the start about the benefits of coaching and how it could support staff and students
Having an ambitious but achievable timescale is also key so people believe it can happen but go to slow & you will lose the power of 'new' and lose momentum
Learn - from other coaches & colleagues
It's so much easier to learn how others have done it & then apply it rather than try to do it from scratch and ALL the coaches I have ever spoken to have been so kind with their time and willing to help in particular:
The Graydin team - Quinn, Mckenzie & Amy are always willing to chat coaching, share ideas & just be coaching bubbles of positive enthusiasm
James Ellis - was very generous with his time explaining coaching to me right at the beginning & giving me my first ever coaching session
Emmie Bidston at Wellington was a brilliant & inspirational help who has done some really cool work on leadership
Julian Murray at CLSG is full of enthusiasm for positive psychology and even let me watch one of his excellent PSHE lessons
Laura Smith & Sally Hale at Merchant Taylors School were so very generous with their time, ideas & resources introducing me to WALKTHRUs & even being online coaching buddies! Check out an article by Laura here which sums up everything better than this
Learn from each other by organising regular coaching refreshers and opportunities to practise
Trial - see what works for you & your school
Not everything will work in the same way everywhere.
Work out what you think will fit best for your organisation.
For example, some schools do a two day compulsory coaching training for new staff members before they join the school. I didn't think this would work for Woldingham so we decided to make only the Coach-Lite compulsory and make it opt-in, with surprisingly high numbers adopting coaching when it involves giving up at least 10 hours of their own time (one course was during half term on Valentines day no less!).
Trial things and adapt as necessary
Target - key staff & events
Targeting key staff is fundamental as you then have a set of champions to promote coaching. We started with 4 trained staff then 22, then 40... now we have 100 over a 3 year period.
Those first 4 got the movement going and the next staff's positive word of mouth really got it rolling!
Also target key events that work to introduce coaching e.g. choices such as A Level & UCAS for students
Share - vision, learnings
Share the vision with all stakeholders (staff, students and parents in our case)
Share the benefits of coaching and any struggles to demystify it. The more everyday examples you have, the easier it is to create buy-in
Share the leadership of coaching with other keen coaches, as fresh perspectives are key to target different audiences. I have learnt so much from fellow coaches & am indebted to the leadership of the other Woldingham Facilitators Michelle, Tania & Helene to keep coaching moving forward
What's next?
You can always be more coach-like and there are always more opportunities to include coaching, for example building coaching time into any talk or lecture to allow participants to reflect on what they have learnt. But the next stage at Woldingham is to build on what has been started with the three main areas of growth being:
Parents - how can we ensure parents are more coach-like and give them more coaching skills? I would also love to have a group of parents trained who could coach other parents with any issues that arise. Wouldn't it be great if parents could be helping and supporting other parents with coaching skills?
Students - how can we get more students coaching other students to find their own solutions? This is where we are getting to but is still in its infancy and the student coaches need support to keep up their skills
Non teaching staff - how can we train up more staff and make the whole school more coach-like? A non teaching staff Facilitator is the first step towards this and is what is planned for September
Here are the brilliant parent reps we trained this year
Please see the high level coaching plan for last year below:
Next steps for me?
I begin a new journey at City of London Freemen's in Ashtead in September and hope to bring coaching there in due course. In the meantime, let me know if you want to chat about bringing coaching into your organisation. Leave a comment, message me on https://x.com/iknowkellaway or find me on LinkedIn.