Clarity precedes competence
To begin with, leaders must be clear. A coaching culture IS NOT where a school is ‘doing’ coaching. Rather, it is one where the key principles of coaching conversations—active listening, feedback, support, challenge and empowerment—are deeply integrated into carefully designed systems and processes that drive the daily functioning of a school. A coaching culture is all about the designed processes. It’s a culture that fosters growth at every level, from leadership to pupils, and helps to unlock the full potential of individuals and teams.
***A key note to remember…from the beginning
Leaders do not create the professional culture within their school. Instead, leaders introduce the systems and processes that go to shape the professional culture. These processes must be carefully designed to develop the professional behaviours and attitudes that you want to see in every adult.
If you want to create an adaptive coaching culture, capable of getting better at getting better, leaders must first look at two fundamental issues:
1. How people learn within the workplace
2. The professional relationships that exist across the organisation.
An effective coaching culture requires:
all staff to experience a genuine sense of psychological safety
all staff to function with shared beliefs around effective professional learning…including a shared language
leaders to ensure all staff know and understand the school’s agreed practices for high-impact teaching/high-impact leadership (clarity precedes competence)
a rigorous process for self-analysis that is used by all staff…based around the agreed practices
staff to have (some) autonomy over their own professional growth but this is matched with greater accountability
inclusive participation in JPD processes e.g. Study Groups
a greater focus on knowledge creation than on knowledge adoption (CPL vs CPD)
evidence-based research and action is embedded throughout
structured reflection valued and practiced by all staff
How would you say you measure up to these at the moment?
At the end of this article is a basic audit to help you evaluate your current situation. However, you must also consider how you will gain the perceptions of others?
(An electronic, more detailed copy of this audit can be obtained by contacting me directly)
In this post, we’ll begin to explore a framework for embedding a high-impact coaching culture.
***Before you go any further, you might want to read our previous blog/article - How Coaching Can Develop High-Impact Teaching (this can be found on LinkedIn, by visiting our website - www.enhancinglearning.co.uk or by emailing us directly at office@enlearn.co.uk)
Why do schools need a framework for building a coaching culture?
A coaching culture framework is a structured approach that is carefully designed to guide a school as they look to embed the principles of a high-impact professional culture. It provides a detailed roadmap, for leaders, that ensures clarity around ‘the end in mind’ and a rigorous strategy that ensures success.
Step 1 - Make sense -
For the time being, focus on intent, implementation and impact but in a different order (and they should be in a different order anyway…just don’t tell OFSTED!)
Leaders must have awareness around 3 specifics:
Why - Why are we going to do what we are going to do? Why are we looking to develop and embed a coaching culture?
The professional culture of any school should be built around a set of 4 or 5 key cultural principles so in which ways does embedding a coaching culture match these cultural principles?
What - What will this look like once we are successful. What is our ‘end in mind’…our vision for how we want this to look once we are successful (both in the long-term and the short-term)?
How - Leaders must design a thorough strategy for how they will achieve success with this vision…this dream. A rigorous plan for how they will approach the development of a coaching culture and the clearly identified steps to success…marked out along the way
Understanding your ‘why’, your 'what' and your ‘how', with regard to coaching and a coaching culture is essential
Consider these 3 questions, if nothing else:
Why are we considering developing a coaching culture within our school?
What might prevent us from being successful in embedding a coaching culture within our school?
What is my/our responsibility, as designated leaders, for developing and embedding a coaching culture within our school?
Step 2 - Communicate
Remember…articulating something is not the same as communicating something. Leaders must COMMUNICATE.
Staff must feel motivated…energised…when they hear their leaders share the ‘why’ as this will become the main approach for how leaders achieve buy-in from every individual.
Example - See if you can write ‘The 5 Whys’. Record 5 specific reasons as to why staff should look to embrace the idea of a coaching culture. What are your 5 reasons?
How would you look to convince the most sceptical member of staff who just doesn’t have the time or inclination for another ‘initiative’?
Staff MUST know what they will be doing in the future that they are not doing now (the ‘what’) Without this clarity, individuals will experience anxiety which can lead to negativity.
Example - Are you able to create a staffroom working wall which consists of 10 to 15 postcards. Each postcard will be a ‘SMART’ descriptor/success criteria of what will be going on in 3 years time, based around your vision for a coaching culture e.g. Every member of staff will have 1 coaching conversation every 3 weeks (this is very specific and very measurable)
Step 3 - Develop Mindset
Within a coaching culture, individuals are approaching their work with a growth professional mindset and an inquiring mind, and this can be developed by looking at the current processes and how they can be adapted to develop staff as professional inquirers.
Take some time to discuss, with your staff, the idea of engaging in an inquiry and what would be the essential behaviours and attitudes needed to be successful in such a process. In other words, what are the behaviours and attitudes needed to be a professional inquirer and to engage in classroom inquiry?
A coaching culture focuses more on building professional behaviours and attitudes than on increasing knowledge and skills. If an individual demonstrates these professional behaviours they will be in a better position to take responsibility for learning the skills and knowledge. Too much professional development, in schools can actually create cultures of dependency with staff expecting the learning to be done to them.
Which of your current processes lend themselves to be reshaped and refined so that they have an even greater impact on development these inquiry-based professional behaviours and attitudes ?
An example - Don’t do LESS lesson observations! Do more of them but reshape them as trust-based observations
Example - after each observation, ask the teacher (and teaching assistant) to take some time to write their reflections around 6 inquiry-based reflection questions. Once they have had this time, engage them in a professional conversation that focuses on their responses to the questions
What would be the most worthwhile 6 questions?
If you are unsure about these questions, please contact me directly and I can send you examples and a reflection template. (office@enlearn.co.uk)
To summarise this post:
A coaching culture, in any school, MUST be built around agreed principles:
How staff think and interact is fundamental to the success of any school (Social capital)
There is a commitment to deep, transformative professional thinking and learning (practitioner inquiry)
There is a collective belief that every individual can achieve professional mastery
The professional culture is one of continuous improvement…and everyone buys into this philosophy
So…these are the first 3 steps for building and embedding a coaching framework. We will cover steps four to seven in the next post.
If you need any resources and tools to support you with your approaches to building a coaching culture, please contact me directly.
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