East Lothian Coaching Up-date

I took part in the original coach training programme offered by East Lothian Council and today we were recalled for our follow up meeting at John Muir House. It was nice to meet with members of the original group and swap stories on how our coaching was going. We are all at different stages in the new East Lothian coaching accreditation process, but I was pleased to be able to contribute to the development of the pilot programme.

I have taken a lot from my coach training, in particular the questioning techniques that it has taught me. In my new role at Musselburgh Grammar School

I can feel myself falling back on my coach training when dealing with pupils, staff and parents. I have found it particularly useful when using it in applying a restorative practice philosophy to help resolve conflict.

Since my original training I have dabbled with coaching groups of friends (mainly for practice), but if I am going to become a fully fledged coach I will need to have the opportunity to coach someone over a longer period of time. The suggested time period is about six hours (one hour a week). I did put out an open invite asking if there was anyone out there wanting to be coach – but I had very little interest.

I feel there is a place for coaching within education but I also feel that we have a lot of work to do in helping people understand what exactly it is. It has come up on the agenda few times at out management meetings and the perception is that it is life coaching or careers advice. In reality the coaching that were are trying to offer in East Lothian comes for an American driven model which is more about trying to get people to reflect on their own practice and make positive decisions about themselves to improve their efficiency. My role as a coach is to ask the right questions to allow the person being coached to come up with their own answers. 

This afternoon during our recall session. I had an opportunity to be coached about how I might go about introducing a coaching model into our school. After my 15 minute slot I came up with the following three point, progressive, action plan.

1. Take an opportunity to explain to staff what coaching is.

2. Ask interested staff to attend a 30 – 45 minute coaching session with a coach during a CPD afternoon. The key here, I feel, is to engage all East Lothian Coaches in this process. This way we may be able to get 12 staff being coached at the same time. Then we would get these 12 people together after their experience to reflect on their coaching experience.

3. For those staff who had had a positive experience or who could see the value in the model there would be an opportunity to sight up for a longer programme of 6 – 8 coaching sessions.

The next stage will be to find an opportunity for how to bring these ideas into practice. Once again if there is a member of the school community (including student teachers, NQT’s, teachers, support staff and managers) looking to develop their reflective practise or for some structure in working through a work related issue. Then I am still looking for volunteers to be coached. I am particularly interested in finding a volunteer who would like to use skype as a medium of communication. Email me or leave a comment if you are interested.

Comments

[Jackie Cameron]

HI Ollie
Do you have links to other authorities who are in the process of rolling out coaching for teachers. There might be some ideas you can share...both ways! Get in touch if you want some suggestions.