Course Details
An introduction to coaching
Appointing the right people is only the first step in ensuring you have quality staff in your school. How you develop your staff once they’re in the job is universally recognised as a key feature of a successful school.
We're all familiar with the word ‘coaching’ in a sporting context. The concept of professional and life coaching to help improve performance has begun to have an impact on practice in education. The use of the word ‘coaching’ has become more commonplace, alongside the more familiar ‘mentoring’. Coaching and mentoring are often used interchangeably, so in this course, we’ll attempt to show the differences between the two highlighting how coaching focuses on performance in particular. The important thing to remember is that the aim of coaching is to get the best out of the people we work with, in a supportive and developmental way.
The aim of this course is to demonstrate the usefulness of coaching as a managerial tool in developing staff performance and to introduce you to the basics of the process.
It’s designed to contribute to the continuing professional development of anyone responsible for the development of other staff. At the heart of this course is the belief that developing and motivating your staff is one of the most powerful tools in school improvement. The Activities and Tasks in this course are aimed primarily at staff who are aspiring to management or have some responsibility for the performance of other staff.
The course is divided into four modules:
- What is coaching?
- Developing good questioning skills
- Coaching to review progress
- Coaching for target setting
Author Biography
Meet the course author:
Carol Taylor has taught in Birmingham, France, Northampton and Hampshire, starting as a languages teacher and rising to deputy headteacher in one of the country's largest comprehensives, with substantial experience in staff induction and development.
She has an MA in Education Management and works as a threshold assessor, external adviser, and governor trainer. In addition to her main role as Recruitment Strategy Manager for West Sussex, she is a coach on their Advanced Management Development Programme.
In addition to writing for Optimus Professional Learning, she has written articles for the Times Educational Supplement and for the Schoolmanager.net website.