Coaching – not sure
It started of as a series of five posts, but I split this one, so it now six.
Results in the ICT Department had more than doubled. We had established a committed and stable team. I was promoted onto the Senior Leadership Team. I benefited from one-on-one time with the Head. I was leading others. I was probably doing some good and a far amount of damage through my leadership. Apart from that once a year, three hours drive up to the SSAT Conference in Birmingham, formal Coaching passed me by.
A year later Hamble Community Sports College governors appointed a new Headteacher. Work felt less secure – change was expected. My wife and I were expecting our second child, Freya, and I gave up professional football coaching.
The new Headteacher applied a more system-driven approach to our school; School Self-Evaluation, School Development Plan and professional development were very much on the agenda. New standards, new policies and new staffing framework. With it an accountability framework and targets. Improving the quality of teaching and learning was a priority and a welcomed opportunity for many teachers at the school. It would also bring ‘experts’ from outside the school, into it.
Riding this wave of professional development, I asked to attend the Senior Leadership Pathways (NPQSL) course. It was not an easy sell as it was not an insignificant investment of time, money and the Head’s time (the course stipulates a Leadership Coach). I asked regularly and persistently. I even filled in her side of the paperwork proactively, until I got her approval. I note, that she shared her reservations about being able to commit to the Coaching hours required. But – if I accepted this, I could attend. This taught me two things: she had an awareness of how time intensive Coaching can be, and in all honesty, as a new Head Teacher, she knew she didn’t have the time. Look, I had her approval, I had the appetite, I was not going to let the absence of Coaching be a barrier, even if Coaching was central to the course. The Coaches Guide states:
Coaching and mentoring skills, which are essentially high level helping skills for working with others and developing their professional abilities.
https://www.nationalcollege.org.uk/cm-lp-online-units-directory.
The programme highlighting that Coaches must offer a minimum of six coaching sessions to facilitate developments at each stage of the participant’s progress within the programme. With preparation and reflection as a Coach about the session, that is a significant commitment.
I was not going to let the absence of Coaching be a barrier, as I was still “not sure ” that Coaching was for.
Coaching was revisited during this longer NPQSL course and I had undertaken a far amount of wider reading since the NPQML. There were some really good resources, still are, on the National College for Teaching and Leadership and I took full advantage. I tackled the difference between “Coaching,” and “Mentoring,” frustration that I found foggy and unnecessary and learnt that they are very different approaches and equally important. I learnt, with a little research, that Coaching and Mentoring had significant backing, it’s own journal, organisations and Conferences that tested my ‘Coaching is hocus-pocus’ hypothesis. I explored whether a Coach should/could be part of an organisation or whether they should be seconded persisted? Unbeknown to me, I had started to explore the issues of trust within leadership. A topic I am heavily invested in and committed to now, and for the future.
The knowledge and frame for both the Coach and Coachee roles, that had been missing from the NPQML introduction, was shared more enthusiastically this time around. Hence, I re-read my comments as being more open to Coaching, this time around. It does infer to me, what we all know, that learners seek that heartfelt commitment to your subject or role.
Away from the workshop days, the Headteacher / Coach was true to her word. She didn’t have enough time to Coach me though I can now empathise and reflect that given all her priorities she did not have the capacity to do so. She was getting to grips with her new role herself, new staff and new appointments, to new roles and setting an improvement trajectory for the school. The few one-to-one meetings we she did convene felt operational, they were predominantly mentored conversations, focusing on an improvement agenda and holding me accountable within this the new systems approach. We did not discussion the SL project and growing my capacity as a leader. I expect there was a good dose of Coaching going on too (and when I needed her support, she was undoubtedly there) but it was about addressing the Areas for Improvement from the previous and inherited Inspection Report.
Weekly line meetings with the Deputy Head Teacher and my line manager were operational and directive.
Re-reading my NPQSL posts, I can see that they were starting to be more introspective. I was starting to look to myself for personal professional development rather than merely looking out at my immediate and proximal leadership role models. I was certainly shifting my view of ‘effective’ leadership and setting myself a new aim.
As a leader – to demonstrate integrity, decisiveness, an analytical ability, approachable, imaginative, a willingness to give of oneself, an ability to face adversity, to evolve from a ‘doer’ to an ’empowerer’, to demonstrate a level of consistency that enables staff to accurately describe me (a might need to manage the order, and accept that the order will change.)
Towards the end of the year there was a personal recognition that Coaching and Mentoring required a more subtle definition and that conversations, when handled skillfully, were more effective than I had originally thought.
Jane Suter: What sort of recognition? From whom / where?
From a fair amount of wider reading and learning but also exposure to a wider group of leaders, the new Head Teacher and Deputy Head Teacher and new school organisation. Plus I was leading more widely, across three curriculum areas and an IT Services team – so may experience was broadening and deepening.
The course was informative and I invested more time learning via National College for Teaching and Leadership. It felt like my leadership understanding / appreciation had been hit by a truck when I read,
Our real challenge is to move to a different paradigm that is not based on (and limited to) the transfer of knowledge or ability from one person to another. The question is: how can we create the optimal conditions that stimulate individuals to realise their own potential? Or perhaps: how do we liberate the innate tendency of all human beings to continually regenerate and flourish?
Philip Brew
I learnt about the CEDAR framework, to add to the GROW model, I listened to interviews with practitioners such as Julie Starr and Marshall Goldsmith. Practitioners who spoke with assurance about the potential of Coaching and Coaching approaches. Coaching – was awarded a capital “C” in my thinking. I added co-coaching to my repertoire – where Coaching is a structured, sustained process between two or more professional learners to enable them to embed new knowledge and skills from specialist sources in day-to-day practice. Particular with new colleagues, where I had been asked to line manage curriculum leaders, in curriculum areas, with which I was unfamiliar. I would go on to use this approach with a team of Middle Leaders as part of a whole school strategic move away from graded Lesson Observations to Learning Observations in my role as Vice Principal at The Wellington Academy a few years from this point.
Reflecting on the wider reading. The literature was littered were frequent reminders of the effect leaders can have when “working with teachers” to influence student outcomes rather than directing or managing leaders. Enabling, growing, facilitating leaders. Coaching felt more aligned with developing teachers, developing people, rather than a “leadership tool.”
Maybe… Coaching – might be for me