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Peer (Co) coaching- improving classroom practice,
changing school culture Rachael Edgar Sunday
25th August

• If you want one year of prosperity, grow seeds.
  If you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees.
  If you want one hundred years of prosperity, grow
  people.

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Session aims

• Look at definitions of coaching and what are the
  benefits to students/staff
• Explore the skills of being an effective peer
  coach
• Learning to listen actively
• Practise being a coach/ being coached
• Effective Lesson observation feedback

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• Coaching is essentially a conversation-
• a learning conversation

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Different types of coaching
Mentoring is a structured, sustained process for
supporting professional learners through
significant career transitions
Specialist coaching is a structured, sustained
process for enabling the development of a
specific aspect of a professional learners
practice
Collaborative (Co-coaching) is a structured,
sustained process between two or more
professional learners to enable them to embed new
knowledge and skills
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Why use coaching?what are the benefits?

• A way of reaching the potential of all staff
• Improved learning for pupils
• Increased motivation
• Willingness to take risks
• Deeper commitment to accessing research and
  evidence regularly
• Opportunities for collaboration with peers
• Staff learning with and from one another

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Choosing a celebrity coach!

• Imagine you have to buddy up with one person from
  this group of people- which would you choose?why?

Victoria Wood
Victoria Beckham
Lenny Henry
Simon Cowell
Henry VIII
Wayne Rooney
Oprah Winfrey
Katie price
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What makes a good co-coach?

• Relate sensitively to learners and work through
  agreed processes to build trust and confidence
• Draw on specialist resources to inform learning
• Draw on evidence from research and practice to
  shape development
• Understand the goals of the co-coach
• Observe, analyse and reflect upon each others
  practice
• Provide information that enables learning from
  mistakes and success
• Learn reciprocally with commitment and integrity
• Use open questions to raise awareness, reveal
  beliefs and enable professional learners to
  reflect upon them
• Listen actively- listening not telling!
• Set aside existing relationships based on
  experience, hierarchy, power or friendship

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Be honest with yourself..which behaviours would
you naturally tend to exhibit in a
coaching/classroom/leadership situation
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Coaching is not about

• Giving the right answers or advice
• Making judgements
• Offering counselling
• Creating dependency
• Imposing agendas or initiatives

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Learning to listen actively
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Skills for active listening

• Listening actively involves
• accommodating and valuing silence
• concentrating on whats being said
• using affirming body language to signal attention
• replaying whats been said using the same words
  to reinforce, value and develop thinking

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iSTRIDE model

• i- Information gathering- Determining the
  coachees issues, goals, confidence levels and
  finding relevant evidence
• S- Strengths- Paying attention to the coacheee
  strengths
• T- Target/goal setting- Identifying the target to
  be achieved and exploring the motivation to
  achieve it
• R- Resources/reality- Exploring the current
  situation in relation to the target and
  identifying limiting beliefs
• I- Ideas/strategies- Seeking ideas that might
  help achieve the desired target and overcoming
  limiting beliefs
• D- Decisions- Selecting the most appropriate
  option from the ideas generated and rehearsing
  success
• E- Evaluation- Evaluating the solution now
  (exploring a commitment to agree decisions) and
  evaluating later (agreeing a time to follow up on
  the actions taken arising from the decision)

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Role Play Scenarios 1

• Pair up with someone on your table, one of you is
  the coach and the other the coachee. Choose a
  scenario to role play, use the active listening
  prompts to help you structure the conversation

1. My lessons with my year 9 boys are a disaster!
They wont behave or listen to my instructions..
2. I cant seem to finish my lessons, I always
run out of time..
3. There is such a huge range of ability in my
classroom, how do I meet the needs of all the
children I teach?
4. My class are really quiet,
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Observing your peers

• A stimulating, fascinating and rewarding thing to
  do
• Prompts reflection on the teaching and learning
  process
• Helps us to rethink the way we do things
• Focus more on what did I see?

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• Sentence Stems to help in feedback
  conversations with another teacher
•  How do you think your starter went?
• What were three successful things about this
  lesson? What would you do differently if you
  were to teach this lesson again?
• What your thoughts behind your group work
  activity?
• Could you tell me more about.
• I am not sure I understand (or that I saw) can
  you tell me what you were expecting?
• I noticed that (this student did, The
  learning outcome was The lessons steps
  included..)
• Tell me more about what was happening when
• When I observed_____, it made me think of/
  wonder/ consider
• What did you want to see happen when
• Weve been talking about _____ during
  professional development, how does this lesson
  support that work?
• Was there anything that surprised you?
• What will be your plan in the next week to?
• What do you think about..?
• What steps have you taken/ or will you take?
• Did students have the opportunity to
• It might be helpful to
• Did you get the response that you wanted?
• You asked the following questions.. How do they
  support higher order thinking skills?

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Role play scenarios 2http//www.tes.co.uk/teach
ing-resource/Teachers-TV-Esther-Arnott-Lesson-1-Un
cut-6084395/

• Watch the 15 minute clip of a History lesson.
• In pairs role play a coaching conversation where
  one peer feeds back to another.
• Whilst watching the clip
• Identify one or two most important areas for
  growth
• Give feedback that is specific and use the
  sentence stems to guide your conversation

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• You cannot teach a man (or woman) anything. You
  can only help him/her discover it within him(or
  her)self
• Galileo

Begin with the end in mind Stephen R.Covey (The
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People)