If you’ve been a coach for several years, you know that you can’t keep working exclusively 1:1 with coaching partners – it’s a ticket to burnout! The reality is, there will never be enough time in the day (or coaches on staff) to support every teacher at the 1:1 level.
Once you start finding yourself booked out and busy, with a schedule full of coaching cycles, it’s time to start scaling your impact and start working with groups or teams. This way you can leverage your time and support teaching and learning in even more classrooms than you are already!
If this is you and you’re ready to start scaling your impact, come join us in our course for experienced coaches called: Coaches as Leaders. You can find all the details at edurolearning.com/cal
Ok, if you’re feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, and that you can’t keep working at this pace, you’re likely working with so many coaching partners that you don’t have time to keep track of your conversations or follow up on all the different opportunities within the school day.
This means it’s time to think about the sustainability of your coaching practice the way it is right now – and how you can scale the impact you make by working with teams and groups.
This requires a mindset shift – instead of thinking about coaching as exclusively a 1:1 experience, start thinking about how you can leverage your time to work with as many colleagues as possible – in a way that is supported by the systems and structures that are already in place in your school day.
Here are three ways to think about doing that:
1: Work with existing teams:
We all have school structures in place that support teaming. This is often the easiest place to start, and will help embed coaching within the culture of the school. Once you find success with one team, you can begin to consider how to bring team level coaching to all teams across the school (which is key to building sustainability for coaching).
Some questions to consider:
- What teams already exist in your school community that you can support? You might start with subject area departments or grade level teams
- Who on that team already has experience with you and could advocate for you participating in a team meeting?
- How might you approach the Head of Department to see if there is a natural opportunity or connection for you to be part of team meetings?
- Who might you need to have conversations with about bringing coaching into team meeting time on a divisional or school wide level?
What’s YOUR level of coaching mastery?
All coaches go through various stages of coaching mastery. Once you identify where you’re at, you can begin to build the skills needed to move to the next stage.
This quiz is based on real-life case studies compiled from years of working with coaches inside The Coach Certificate & Mentorship Program!
When you receive your results, you’ll also get your matching case study from the STRIVE Case Studies to see where you fit in the stages of coaching mastery.
Ready to tackle your challenges and move on to the next level in YOUR coaching practice?
The STRIVE Model of Coaching Mastery quiz will help you identify your level of coaching mastery by matching you with case studies compiled from years of working with coaches inside The Coach Certificate & Mentorship Program so you can easily see where you fit!
When you complete the quiz, you’ll get:
- Your matching case study,
- Specific strengths & challenges aligned to your result;
- Suggested next steps for each stage;
Plus the Case Study Document includes:
- Case studies leveled by coaching mastery;
- A framework to identify essential stages of professional growth & key areas to focus on in your professional learning;
- Alignment with the THRIVE Model for a Successful Coaching Culture;
- Space for you to reflect & prioritize so you can take action immediately!
You’ll go straight to the Quiz, and get the Case Study Document via email.
2: Create a group:
As I have mentioned in a previous episode, Embracing Your Informal Leadership as an Instructional Coach, you have a very unique perspective because you are working with colleagues all across the school. You may be able to see connections between departments and across grade levels that your coaching partners can’t see (yet). Bringing those teachers together begins to develop a support structure that might never have existed – and can often be sustained independently.
Some questions to consider:
- Who have you already worked with that has similar goals to another colleague? How can you partner or group them together?
- Who do you know, across the breadth of the school that might benefit from working together? Can you create a group time for them to work together?
- Can you offer learning walks or labsite visits to visit each other’s classrooms and create a space for dialogue about what’s working?
3: Empower others:
One of my clients calls this “extending her coaching arms”. Instead of thinking that you have to do all of the coaching all the time, who can you support and empower to start having some of these conversations and facilitating some of this learning. Think of this as an opportunity for professional growth for these colleagues too! It will also help you develop your leadership skills.
Some questions to consider:
- Who have you worked with that might be ready to support other teachers? In what ways might they support other teachers trying to d similar things? How can you connect these teachers together?
- Who have you worked with that might be able to facilitate learning opportunities with other teachers? How can you support them in taking a next step in their professional growth by facilitating conversations or professional learning?
Making Your Role Sustainable
Keep in mind that even when you have all of these coaching groups happening, you can still support colleagues on a 1:1 level, and continue coaching cycles. All you’re doing here is shifting the way the job functions to make the role more sustainable. As you focus more on the systems and structures in place that support (or hinder) coaching, you’ll be able to see more and more opportunities to make coaching sustainable. (Keep your eyes and ears peeled for another video digging into systems and structures coming soon!)
Watch the Video
Ready to start making your role sustainable?
My brand new workshop, Scaling Your Impact as an Instructional Coach digs into the specific systems and structures that need to be in place for instructional coaching to be sustainable – including advocating for your role with your senior leadership team.
You can find it at edurolearning.com/scale
This workshop will also give you a preview of our online course for experienced coaches, Coaches as Leaders. So, if you’re an experienced instructional coach, and you’re ready to start thinking about these big picture, systemic structures so you can make your coaching program more sustainable, watch the workshop at edurolearning.com/scale (and then join us in the global cohort of Coaches as Leaders!)
And, if you discover that you need support as you go through the process, join us for our first global cohort of Coaches as Leaders – designed for experienced coaches ready to advocate for and build the systems and structures that are needed to truly sustain a coaching culture.
In Coaches as Leaders we’ll help you recognize exactly which systems and structures you need (and might be missing in your school setting) so you can make your coaching culture sustainable – for you as an individual coach & for your school.
Registration opens only once a year!
Get all the details at edurolearning.com/cal
Wherever you are in your coaching journey, we can support you!
If you’re not sure if Coaches as Leaders is right for you, try one of our FREE workshops where you’ll be able to dig deeper into the concepts we talked about today, and get a peek at all of our courses for coaches.
We have workshops (and courses) to support coaches at every stage of their career: from new and aspiring coaches making the move from classroom to coach; to current coaches ready to be more intentional and strategic in their practice; to established coaches leveraging their coaching experience to lead.
You can them all on our coachbetter website at coachbetter.tv/workshops
If you’re curious right now, you have questions, please reach out. You can leave a comment below, join our #coachbetter Facebook group, or find us on social media at Eduro Learning and send me a DM. I’d love to support you on your coaching journey. See you next time!
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