In today’s education landscape, the demand for high-impact teaching, classroom practice that really makes a difference to the outcomes of every pupil, is more pressing than ever. Educational leaders are continuously seeking ways to further increase the capacity of teachers and teaching assistants, to improve teaching practices, enhance pupil outcomes, and foster a culture of continuous professional growth and development. One of the most effective processes for achieving these goals is professional coaching. When used strategically, coaching can empower teachers and teaching assistants to refine their skills, adopt innovative teaching methods, move out of their comfort zones and ultimately create an environment where all pupils thrive.
In this post, we’ll explore how coaching can help develop high-impact teaching, the benefits for leaders, teachers and pupils, and how educational leaders can implement a coaching program that drives sustainable and continuous improvement.
The Importance of High-Impact Teaching
High-impact teaching refers to instructional practices and pedagogical techniques that significantly contribute to pupil engagement, achievement, and long-term success. It’s about more than just delivering curriculum content—it’s about creating meaningful learning experiences that inspire pupils, achieves greater-depth learning, encourages higher-order thinking, and fosters a sense of curiosity.
For educational leaders, fostering high-impact teaching means providing teachers and teaching assistants with the resources, support, and professional development they need to excel. Teachers are at the heart of pupil success, and by supporting them in refining their craft, leaders can have a profound impact on the overall quality of education within their schools.
How Coaching Cultivates High-Impact Teaching
Coaching is a powerful, personalised form of professional growth and development that allows educators to receive targeted support designed to meet their specific needs. Unlike more traditional professional development processes, which often provide broad, one-size-fits-all strategies, coaching focuses on individualised growth.
Here’s how coaching can directly contribute to high-impact teaching:
Personalised Growth and Development: Coaching offers a tailored approach to professional growth, addressing specific areas of need or interest. Whether an individual wants to improve classroom management, deepen content knowledge, or try new teaching methods, coaching provides a space for targeted support.
Reflective Practice: Effective coaching processes encourage professionals to reflect on their teaching practices, which is a critical component of professional growth. By engaging in deep reflection, teachers can better understand their strengths and areas for improvement, leading to more intentional changes in their teaching methods.
Building Confidence: Teachers who work with coaches often report a boost in their confidence. Knowing that they have the guidance of an experienced mentor or coach helps them feel supported and more willing to try new strategies in the classroom.
A Collaborative Environment: Coaching fosters a culture of collaboration, where teachers feel safe sharing challenges and successes. When teachers work together in this way, it encourages a sense of community, reducing isolation and increasing a shared commitment to student success.
Benefits of Coaching
The benefits of coaching go beyond individual teacher development. Both teachers and pupils experience significant improvements when coaching is embedded into the culture of a school.
For Teachers:
Enhanced Skills: Through ongoing feedback and collaboration, teachers refine their instructional practices, adopting new strategies that enhance learning outcomes.
Increased Job Satisfaction: Teachers who receive regular coaching feel more supported in their roles, which contributes to greater job satisfaction and retention.
Professional Growth: Coaching opens the door to lifelong learning for educators, allowing them to stay engaged with the latest educational trends, technologies, and research.
For pupils:
Improved Learning Outcomes: High-impact teaching methods, supported by coaching, lead to greater student engagement, retention, and achievement. When teachers feel more confident and equipped, their students are more likely to succeed.
Greater Engagement: A teacher’s ability to connect with students and create an engaging learning environment is directly influenced by their instructional skills. Coaching helps teachers develop these skills.
Positive Classroom Environments: Teachers who are supported through coaching are better able to manage their classrooms, foster positive relationships with students, and create a space where students feel valued and empowered.
Effective Coaching processes and Strategies
While coaching can take many forms, certain approaches and strategies are particularly effective in supporting high-impact teaching. Here are some of the most commonly used coaching models in education:
Performance Coaching: Often seen as the most ‘authentic’ form of coaching and a processes that is most recognised in organisations around the world. This model focuses on ‘self-discovery’ in which the coachee takes responsibility for solving their own issues. A coach will act as a ‘mirror’ and will support the individual in continually progressing through a cycle of 3 essential stages of action, reflection and learning.
Instructional Coaching: This model focuses on improving teaching practices by providing teachers with one-on-one guided support, demonstration and instruction. Coaches observe classroom lessons, offer feedback, demonstrate corrective techniques and help teachers implement new strategies. This model is highly effective for teachers who are looking to refine specific instructional skills.
Team Coaching: In team coaching, a coach will support a group of professionals to collaborate, offer feedback and support based on mutual respect and shared goals. This model of coaching is often far less evident in schools but can have a significant impact on team culture, social capital and collective responsibility.
Mentoring: Mentoring pairs experienced educators with less experienced teachers. While similar to coaching, mentoring often has a broader focus, including career development and personal growth.
Overcoming Challenges in Implementing Coaching Programs
While coaching has proven benefits, educational leaders may face some challenges in implementing and embedding coaching into the culture of the school. These include:
Lack of clarity: Clarity Precedes Competence. Knowing your 'why' before moving on to your 'what' and your 'how'. School leaders must, themselves, understand why they are looking to embed a coaching culture. Next, they must be rigorous in creating and communication a vision (long-term and short-term) and what they want this culture to look like once they are successful. This vision needs to be exceptionally detailed and, when communicated with staff, should be motivational to an extent where it is successful in achieving buy-in from all staff
Ad Hoc: A vision without action is just a dream…action without a vision is a nightmare. As well as a detailed vision, that motivates, leaders must also design and implement a thorough strategy for achieving success with this vision. This strategy MUST have clearly signposted ‘milestones to success’ which are dated and offer a clear description of what will be achieved, by this date, that ensures the school is on-track.
Both of these challenges can be effectively overcome if the leaders choose to appoint and working alongside their own leadership coach.
Consistency: Crucially, a lack of consistency with regard to agreed teaching practices, is one of the most significant challenges. What are your school’s agreed practices for effective teaching? How many do you have…7, 8, 9 ? The teachers and teaching assistants, in your school, must be aware of these agreed practices and this awareness should go beyond each individual knowing the practices but actually being able to demonstrate some understanding of each. And then there are the pedagogical techniques that you are looking for each teacher and teaching assistant to master. These are not the same as classroom practices but, instead, are specific to the art of teaching. What are your school’s agreed pedagogical techniques and how many do you have?
Time Constraints: Coaching requires dedicated time for both coaches and teachers. Scheduling regular coaching conversations, observations, feedback sessions, and collaborative planning can be difficult in busy school schedules. Educational leaders can address this by prioritising time for coaching and building it into the school’s culture.
Resistance to Change: Some teachers may be hesitant to engage in coaching, viewing it as critical or time-consuming. Building trust, setting clear expectations, and communicating the benefits of coaching can help overcome this resistance.
Resource Allocation: Effective coaching programs require schools to identify and train their ‘in-house’ coaches who may not be individuals already in a position of leadership. Leaders can address resource challenges by leveraging existing expertise within the school, seeking external partnerships, or using peer coaching models to stretch resources.
A framework: 7 steps to embedding coaching as a process for continuous improvement
Coaching is a powerful tool for developing high-impact teaching and building a strong professional culture. By providing teachers with personalised support, fostering a culture of reflection and growth, and helping educators develop new strategies, coaching can transform classrooms and improve pupil outcomes.
However, coaching will not have the desired impact unless leaders design and work through a structured framework for embedding coaching into the professional culture of the school. This framework should consist of 7 clearly identified steps along with a set of essential questions that MUST be asked within each step:
Make sense - Understand your ‘why’, your 'what' and your 'how' with regard to coaching and a coaching culture
Example - How clear are we with regard to why we are looking to develop a coaching culture within our school?
Communicate - Communicate this ‘why’ together with the vision and strategy
Example - What will be the most effective way of communicating this vision to the staff in our school so that we successful achieve buy-in? (Hint - articulating a vision is not the same as communicating a vision)
Develop Mindset - Look at the current processes and how they can be adapted to develop teachers as professional inquirers e.g. trust-based lesson observations
Example - Which of our current processes will most lend themselves to being reshaped and refined to develop an inquiry mindset with our teachers?
Build capacity - Identify and develop your in-house coaches
Example - Which leaders, teachers and teaching assistants would be most suitable to train as coaches and why?
Practice - Create suitable opportunities for your coaches to study and learn the essentials of coaching
Example - How will we create suitable opportunities for all our appointed coaches to practice coaching techniques?
Extend - Create the time and space for coaching to become widespread throughout the culture of the school.
Example - Which of our teachers and teaching assistants will be the first to engage in a coaching process and why do we believe these individuals should go first?
Evaluate - Continuous reflection and evaluation of IMPACT must be built in to the development of a coaching culture.
Example - How will we measure the impact of coaching on pupil outcomes?
Educational leaders play a crucial role in making coaching an integral part of their school culture. By supporting the implementation of an effective coaching framework, allocating time and resources, and ensuring that coaching is part of a broader professional development strategy, leaders can create a sustainable environment where high-impact teaching flourishes.
Investing in coaching is an investment in the future of education—one that benefits not only teachers but, more importantly, the pupils they serve.
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