We want to give you a peek inside our Coach Certificate & Mentorship Program. Coaches taking part in this academic-year-long journey have graciously given us permission to post some of their learning and reflections from the private coursework they are undertaking during this program. Where possible, we have shared the course and the action task to give context for the guest post.

Watch Sara’s Video

Read Sara’s Reflection

What goals did you set for yourself at the beginning of the program?

At the start of the year, I really wanted to gain clarity in understanding instructional coaching and my role within the team and the school. I wanted to find my place in the team and grow in my confidence in working in different areas of the school (especially in Upper School)

How did each milestone support you in reaching your goal?

Creating a clear definition of coaching and coaching menus helped our team nail down what our purpose was and the services we wanted to and could provide for teachers. The Coaching Cycle template helped me a lot in documenting the work I was doing with teachers and helped bring more purpose and intentionality to my interactions with teachers.

What has been your biggest area of growth in the program?

I can confidently talk about how instructional coaching can support teacher and student growth. I also feel like I have a much clearer understanding of how I fit within our team. I also pushed myself to have coaching conversations and complete coaching cycles that I don’t think I would have done without this course.

Where do you still have room to grow?

I still need to get more comfortable working in subject areas and age groups outside of my comfort zone. In particular, Early Years and DP are 2 areas of the school I haven’t worked in much in a coaching capacity yet.

What surprises and/or challenges have you had along the way?

It continues to surprise me and challenge our team that people STILL claim to not know which coach to go to with various requests and also say they don’t understand what it is the coaches do at our school. We also continue to battle the perception that if we aren’t in classrooms teaching, we aren’t impacting student learning. These are challenges that we will need to carefully reflect on and plan for going into next year.

How did the Coach support you in your learning journey? How has your learning inside the Coach impacted your coaching practice & program in your school setting?

The Coach supported our team tremendously in that it helped us begin to speak the same language and supported us in gaining a common understanding of the work we wanted to be doing. It helped us begin to do the work to establish necessary systems and structures, as well as partnerships with administrators.

What next for your professional learning?

I want to continue to work on having coaching conversations, engaging in coaching cycles, and generally being comfortable taking a coaching stance, rather than jumping to consulting or defaulting to wanting to do things for people to make their lives easier.

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Level Up Your Coaching with The Coach!

If you are ready to dive deep into your coaching practice, to help you #coachbetter and build a thriving coaching culture in your school, please join us for our next cohort of The Coach!

Wherever you are in building a coaching culture in your school, The Coach will give you the strategies, skills and tools you need to make coaching a success and will empower you to confidently apply instructional coaching strategies in any situation – from building a coaching program, to having coaching conversations, to being a leader in your school community. We facilitate only one cohort each academic year so we can offer individualized support for each participant.

Coaches of all levels are welcome: you’ll start the program with a self-assessment to determine exactly what the next steps are for you!