Creating the conditions for successful implementation
Instructional coaching currently sits in a fairly unique place in the educational world. All indications are that it is an extremely effective tool, perhaps the most effective tool, that we have at our disposal for developing and improving teachers. Yet, despite this, it is still not a practice that is routinely part of all school’s Professional development approaches and skepticism persists in some educational quarters. So, first to the evidence in favour: There is now a growing bank of reliable and crucially, repeatable research to support the idea that Instructional coaching is worth our time investment. For example, Allen, et al, (2011) conducted a randomised control trial entitled ‘My Teaching Partner’ and found that results in the Secondary schools involved showed an average effect size of 0.22. Crucially, the same team of researchers repeated the study in 2015, this time with a larger sample size (the first study involved 78 teachers while the second involved 86). This second trial also found positive effects, with the average student moving from the 50th to the 59th percentile of attainment. This research, along with other excellent studies are summarised by Sam Sims in his blog, here. Added to this, there are some fairly major players in the education world who are very much in support of the conclusions of the research that Instructional coaching should be the primary approach to developing teachers. Tom Sherrington blogged about it here, Peps Mccrea here, Josh Goodrich founded Steplab and has a series of blogs on the subject here and has a book titled ‘responsive coaching’ about to hit the shelves. Others have also expressed support for the efficacy of Instructional coaching, even if their expertise is still developing.
So, why does it feel like we are a little bit stuck with Instructional coaching?
There should be widespread clamor to implement Instructional coaching programmes given the evidence to show how effective it can be. While it is certainly growing in popularity, my (anecdotal) experience tells me that there is still some resistance. Of course, there is the cost factor involved in Instructional coaching. You need to release people to observe each other and ideally, release them to have high quality coaching conversations so that they don’t have to happen at unsociable hours which can hinder collective buy-in. It is also true that there are many other competing priorities in a school but Ofsted’s Independent review of teacher’s professional development in schools. (May 2023) identified that ‘generally, teachers and leaders see improving teachers’ practice as a priority’ which suggests that there is an acceptance that it is worth trading off other work load demands to make space for teacher development through Instructional coaching.
I believe that there are two far greater barrier to the widespread adoption of Instructional coaching in schools:
Many leaders are still unsure of what Instructional coaching is, or, perhaps more problematically, what it is allowed to be
School leaders don’t know enough about the conditions needed to maximise the impact Instructional coaching
What is Instructional coaching?
In its simplest form, Instructional coaching involves a coach helping a teacher get better at teaching by identifying something small and actionable that they can work on in order to improve the impact of their teaching. It usually involves repeated cycles of modelling and deliberate practice between coach and teacher with feedback in between before the teacher puts it into practice in the real world of the classroom. Sometimes the coach will lead the identification of the best next step for the teacher but sometimes the teacher will lead it. Occasionally, Instructional coaching can take place immediately but usually, it requires a period of trust building to be most effective.
That last paragraph deliberately moves from the broad features of Instructional coaching that should always be there towards the features that are increasingly context specific. The trouble with schools is that often, we want a step by step guide to implementing something across a whole school or even multiple schools and while it is true that this is possible with the fundamentals, the elements of Instructional coaching that really make it tick are those which are context dependent.
Instructional coaching refers to coaching of instruction. So, in itself, that doesn’t tell us much about the style or approach to the coaching that should be taken but it also doesn’t create any obvious problems. Most people understand that Instruction and teaching are interchangeable terms. More of the confusion centres around the word ‘coaching’. The International coaching community define coaching as ‘Helping the person change in the way they wish and helping them go in the direction they want to go’. That sounds fantastic and certainly, ownership of one’s own improvement is vital to actually making the desired improvements. However, if we take this definition of coaching and apply it to Instructional coaching, we encounter a problem. What if the teacher doesn’t really know how they want to improve or doesn’t know the direction they want to go in? Most teachers, given the right conditions (more on that later) will be able to identify something they wish were different in their class but not all will be able to identify what they want to do about it or how they want to improve. I experienced a really clear example of this recently whereby a teacher I was coaching believed there to be problems with their explanation because a high proportion of pupils were giving wrong answers during checks for understanding. When I observed, I was of the opinion that engagement was actually the issue and that by improving the routines and expectations so that pupils were better held to account for their attention being on the instruction, the problem might be solved. My opinion was based on the clear, concise and well scaffolded explanation that I observed. Had I been guided by the teacher, I think we would have wasted a substantial amount of time working on something that was in fact not the root cause of the issue.
Facilitative to directive continuum
That is not to say though that teachers should never be in control of identifying their own next step. The directive to facilitative continuum is a line that skillful coaches can position themselves on precisely, identifying the capacity of their coachee to identify their own development point. Even in those cases though, I would still suggest that coaches should watch their coachee before deciding this for sure, acting as a second line of assurance for their coachee’s self-evaluation.
A useful comparison to draw here is one with sport. I have some experience of elite level coaching within the sport of Tennis but I have also coached complete beginners. At the top end of the game, the margins are tiny. Indeed, it is possible (although it doesn’t happen all that often) to lose more points than your opponent but actually win the match in Tennis. More regularly, players lose more games than their opponent but still win the match. In a context of such tiny margins in split second moments, is belief in what you are doing. It therefore follows that players at the top level guide their own development, applying their experience and skill and what they know about the context of their game and their opponent’s as well as the contextual pressure of the high stakes moments they are going to be in when making their decisions. This makes the role of the coach facilitative. In contrast, a coach will be far more directive when working with a complete beginner, who will no doubt require repeated modelling and practise before even attempting to apply the learning to a match situation. While both approaches are markedly different, we still refer to them as ‘coaching’. While I think that most Instructional coaching in schools takes place towards the directive end of the continuum, it is also true to say that some Instructional coaching, with the most experienced, skilled and crucially, engaged, teachers can be effective at the more facilitative end.
Principles based approach
Once an understanding of what Instructional coaching actually is has been established and leaders feel OK with the idea of this continuum, they should then consider what the principles of Instructional coaching are that they really want to emphasise in their programme. In my opinion, we have a bit of an issue with a principled based approach to lots of things in education. A great example of this is the principle that it is a good idea to share the desired learning of a series of lessons with pupils at the start of the teaching process – great principle. This has morphed though into learning objectives being written or stuck into books in every lesson which is now beginning to be seen as what it has always been which is largely a poor use of time. The cause of this is of course the drive to evidence everything and make sure that everyone is doing the same thing. The problem this creates is that there is no space for contextual adaptation if one adopts this view.
Instructional coaching really is something that works with the coach and teacher working alongside each other (even if the conversations are more directive). This is a fundamental to developing something as cognitively demanding as teaching. Aside from that though, it makes sense for leaders to agree at the outset on a set of principles that they want coaches to work by. This creates a sense of consistency and coherence of approach yet maintains the flexibility for coaches to apply the principles to fit the context they are faced with. For example, your principles might be Trust, Development, Authenticity and Collaboration. It might also be helpful to expand on each of these in turn. By ‘Trust’ we mean that the coach must build and maintain the trust of the teacher that the coach is fully invested in and believes in their capacity to improve and sees this as a shared endeavor’. From there, coaches are free to work out how best to bring that principle to life in their interactions with their coachee.
Creating the right conditions
Having established an understanding of what Instructional coaching is and settled on a set of principles for its implementation, the next job of leaders is to create the right conditions for coaching to be successful. I view this job through two lenses:
Ensuring that Instructional coaching is a product of the ethos of the school and fits within the overall culture
Ensuring that the fundamental ingredients of effective coaching practice are in place
School culture is notoriously difficult to define but most would agree to some extent that it largely consists of: how we do things here and the commonality that exists across different aspects of school life. For example, Instructional coaching is likely to be successful in a school that shows that it values development in other areas of school life as well. This is because Instructional coaching then feels like a natural and sensible addition rather than an add-on. For example, Instructional coaching is more likely to feel like a natural step in school where performance management systems promote improvement in teaching practice instead of assessment outcomes in percentage terms.
Having said that the best Instructional coaching programmes are principle and context driven, there are still some fundamental ingredients that seem to characterise the most effective programmes that I have seen and worked with. These are just my own personal hunches based on my experience but through conversation with others who have significant Instructional coaching experience, I can confidently say that I am not the only one who has found what follows to be true. So, to recap the points covered so far:
Be clear about what Instructional coaching is
Understand the facilitative to directive continuum so that you know where the parameters of Instructional coaching in your school will be
Identify the principles that you believe in within your school and check that Instructional coaching fits with those principles. If you like formal observation, marking audits and display checklists, it may not fit with your existing beliefs and values
Then we come to the fundamental ingredients that it seems lead to the creation of the right day to day conditions for Instructional coaching to actually have an impact on improving teaching.
It is really important to build trust first
Don’t let coaches dive straight into observing their coachees. It is really important that the coachee is open during the coaching process as well as during any classroom observations and so it is vital that trust is built up in order to facilitate this. There are lots of ways that this trust can be built but I like to use an initial conversation, during which I am finding out three key things: A). Does the teacher really believe that I am not interested in judging their teaching but am instead going to be obsessively interested in finding the next step for them to work on? B). Does the teacher want to tell me their thoughts on their own teaching before we start the coaching process? Some people passionately want to tell you everything about their practice but others, largely I suspect because of having years of observations where feedback starts with ‘Tell me what you thought about your lesson’, would rather let the coach drive that part of the conversation. C). What kind of challenge do they want? I always want to make clear to teachers that there will be an element of healthy challenge in our conversations but I give the decision about how that challenge is given to them. Ie, do they want me to pose lots of questions or would they prefer me to give them my views and make my pitch about their next step very directly? Once I have gathered information around these three areas, I feel confident that the purpose of the coaching is mutually understood and that the teacher is at best ready for and at worst intrigued by the process to come.
Diagnose development areas accurately and focus on granular, high-leverage areas
Much of this is about suspending your own bias as a coach. Naturally, as we sit and observe lessons, there will be practices that we don’t enjoy aesthetically, things we wouldn’t do ourselves. The purpose of Instructional coaching observations is not to make everyone teach like us. It is to find the next step that will have the most tangible impact on the teacher’s instruction. As such, keep it focused on high-leverage strategies and techniques. Focus on identifying an issue and then really working out where that issue is coming from and then think about some strategies that might be effective at remedying the problem. As an example, I recently observed a colleague and in the early stages of the lesson, I felt that there were some issues around attention being caused by poor behavior. This is a real bug bear of mine. As a teacher I find it incredibly frustrating and so my eye is instinctively drawn to it when I observe. As I kept watching, I noticed a pattern emerging. Every time particular children’s attention waned, it directly followed the class teacher addressing a misconception with an individual child. This shifted my thinking to focus on techniques and strategies that might help the teacher keep everyone thinking when addressing the misconception of one individual. If I hadn’t have suspended my own judgement, I could have encouraged my coachee to look at behavior management instead. Then, and most crucially, break down that strategy or technique into tiny manageable steps and decide how many of those steps you’ll suggest your coachee focuses on. Of course, with more experienced teachers, you can chunk a couple of steps together as they have the knowledge and experience to required for this in the same way as you can do with expert learners.
Don’t spend hours in a class
Once you have noticed something and formed a hypothesis of the next step for the teacher in question, and you have tested it out by watching that little bit longer, leave. There is nothing to be gained by staying in a classroom longer than you need to once you have the information you need. Of course, there will be many more things you could identify to praise and perhaps some more things that you could identify as areas to improve. But, you would only be gathering this information if you intended to share it and, in both cases, sharing it would be unlikely to lead to improvement. By giving endless lists of areas of strength, you risk seeming disingenuous and also distract the teacher from focusing on what they do most effectively so that they can do more of it. Of course, too many development points is overwhelming and due to the high cognitive demand of day to day teaching, impossible to develop all of them effectively.
Don’t attach it to performance management
If performance management is linked to pay, don’t also link it to Instructional coaching. This will only serve to undermine the developmental spirit of Instructional coaching by intertwining it with the ultimately judgmental system of performance management. Having said that, if performance management is not linked to pay in quite the same way, then it could work well. One school I know of has re-branded their performance management system as ‘performance development’ and has ensured that all targets are process rather than outcome driven. The success criteria are to do with ‘engagement with’ rather than ‘achievement of’ specific actions. In such a model, Instructional coaching fits into the developmental model of performance development. What this also shows is how schools with a genuine commitment to a culture of development will find that Instructional coaching supercharges this.
Don’t make people be coaches if they don’t want to be but do give them the option of being one with scaffolding if required
This is one that I have wrestled with for some time. For me, the ideal is to have every teacher in a school being coached and also coaching a colleague. I take this view because it is the best way I have seen of building that widespread culture of development. It says, ‘we are all teachers first and we can all get better by reflecting on our practice and deliberately trying to get better at aspects of it. We all do this because we all believe in the importance of developing.’ The alternative to this model is usually presented as being a select group of coaches who coach others. This can also work well in the right school culture and it poses less of an issue in terms of ensuring coaching expertise because there are less people to train with that system. As with most things related to schools, and indeed people, there is another way… A system that I am currently moving towards is one in which everyone who wants to be a coach can be. The only ‘rule’ is that they have to engage with developing as a coach as well as developing as a teacher. This is framed as being important because it means they can provide increasingly good support to their colleagues. Some teachers really don’t want to be coaches, and that is completely fine. For some, they are happy to engage with a peer supporting them but really don’t like the idea of analysing someone else’s practice. In the model I am developing at my own school now, people are only coaches if they want to be. The reason that I think this seems to work is that no one is excluded and so the cultural impact of Instructional coaching bringing everyone together in a shared endeavor of development is preserved. At the same time, the problem of training someone to do something that they really don’t want to do and the subsequent resistance and half-hearted attempts at coaching are avoided. Also, we aren’t asking people to do something they really don’t want to do, which seems to be the decent thing and decency, is one of our leadership principles. The effect so far is that those who are coaches are enthused and enjoy their coaching and, most interestingly, almost everyone has decided they would actually like to coach a colleague. By setting the system up in this way though, I have created something that everyone has asked to do rather than have been told to do, and that makes sustaining the change and generating enthusiasm about improving all the more possible.
Match your approach to your context
As with everything in schools, if you want to bring something in, make sure you match your implementation plan to your context. And, consider everything that contributes to that context. For example, in a school that has gone through periods of changes of leadership, I would suggest that the first action in eventually establishing an Instructional coaching programme would be to get people thinking and talking about teaching (rather than speculating how long the next Head will last). This could be done through a weekly blog reflection at the start of a staff meeting or by giving people time to have unstructured conversations about their teaching. In a school that has the context to be more set up for steady evolution, it may be appropriate to go in with a more robust roll out of an Instructional coaching programme. There is a raft of contextual factors to consider, each of them valid and important, so dig deep before you decide on your strategy and crucially, keep it under constant review. As the context of the school, or indeed individual teachers shifts, so to the approach to development must shift also.
Model and rehearse as much as you can in coaching sessions
It might feel uncomfortable at first but the only way to really unpack the granular step that you will have chosen with your coachee is to model and rehearse it. That repeated deliberate practise with feedback in between each repetition really helps to draw out the minute aspects of the strategy or technique that will make or break it. Recently, I was working with a teacher on their modelling in Maths. I modelled to her and then she had a first go at rehearsing. We then spoke about how she could make it even better by explaining what she was going to do at each point in her modelling before she actually did it. She then had another go. We then spoke about the importance of the size of the model to ensure that it is visible to all. Without the cycles of rehearsal and feedback, I would not have known that her understanding and mine were not quite as well aligned as I had intended. To get better at anything, practise is essential and teaching is no different.
Instructional coaching is a potentially powerful tool in our school improvement armoury. The key is utilising it effectively and much of that centres on getting the aspects outlined above right. Ensure that you understand what Instructional coaching is, establish your understanding of the facilitative to directive continuum, establish, or at least check your principles of leadership and make sure that coaching fits in with these. Then, think about creating the operational conditions for coaching to be successful. Dylan William said ‘Nothing works everywhere. Everything works somewhere’ and while this is true, I would love to add that some things are more likely than others to work in most places. Although it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, ensuring that you put in place the best bets explained above will, in my view, help ensure that the conditions you create for Instructional coaching allow it grow and thrive in your school and from there, the impact is potentially limitless.
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