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.
Read Timothy’s Reflection
What goals did you set for yourself at the beginning of the program?
The first goal I set for myself in the program was to continue to build the coaching culture at my school, because coaching is not built overnight. My second goal was to improve my use of data to drive my coaching program. The third goal I set was to have a more inclusive coaching practice by including more members of the school community when coaching, such as learning assistants, parents, and other non-teaching staff.
How did each milestone support you in reaching this goal?
The first milestone focused on clarity, which is when I rewrote my coaching definition. This was truly important to help add clarity to my program—not just for other people, but for myself. I had to do a lot of thinking about what I valued as a coach while studying different coaching definitions and core elements of instructional coaching. This led me to intentionally include components such as confidentiality, agency, and inclusion into my definition.
The second milestone led me to start creating what I now call Coaching Insights at ICSA. It started with the working title of a ‘coaching guide,’ but I knew that wasn’t quite what I wanted to call it. This milestone sat in the consistency phase, and it was beneficial because it made me reflect on the types of data I was collecting. Because of the transient nature of international schools, I wanted to leave behind a lasting artifact that could share what has already been done with coaching to keep building this culture. It was also a vital tool for reflecting on my own practices.
The document now includes my coaching definition, data forms, reflection questions for coaching interactions, and methods for gathering feedback from coaching partners. It also features resources I found useful, such as tools for navigating confidentiality, coaching ‘ways of being,’ partnership principles, and goal-setting frameworks. Finally, it includes descriptions of the different coaching stances, which I adapted to include Adinkra symbols. Using these traditional symbols and cultural ideas allowed me to ground the coaching concepts in our local region, helping to build a stronger understanding among the people with whom I work.
What has been your biggest area of growth in the program?
Without a doubt, my biggest growth has been clarity. I have a much better understanding of the role of the coach, specifically the roles that confidentiality and agency play. I learned to truly protect the people I coach by being careful about what I share, while using that confidentiality to build deep relationships of trust with my coaching partners.
When it comes to agency, I have grown by reminding myself that coaching is invitational, and that the coaching partners are the priority. While the school has its mission and divisions have their goals to guide us or shed light on possibilities, the actual standard we are working toward is what the teacher identifies as their own need for growth.
Which milestone has the most impact on my professional growth?
Once again, it was milestone one—the clarity element of creating the coaching definition. Having that foundation truly helped me with every other part of the program, because I referred back to it throughout everything else I did.
Where do I still have room to grow?
While we always have room to grow everywhere, the specific place I want to focus on is my usage of data. I think I got better at looking at lead indicators, but I want to grow in using lag indicators to more clearly see the long-term impact coaching is having on student learning in the classroom.
What surprises and/or challenges have come along the way?
The biggest surprise was the response I got when I shared my understanding of confidentiality with people in school leadership. The pushback I initially received became an opportunity for me to help them understand what an instructional coach actually does. However, it turned into a challenging situation that forced me to dig into research to ensure my convictions were grounded in established professional practices.
To a somewhat lesser extent, the idea of teacher agency was also a challenge. There is still a general misunderstanding of what an instructional coach does; some people still view it like a sports coach who is going to go in, make the plays, and mold people to follow them. They expect a directive approach rather than a facilitative or dialogical partnership. This may be because their past experiences with coaching were highly directive, and it is something I want to find out more about.
How did the coach support me in my learning journey?
The Coach supported me tremendously. Gaining that foundational clarity was huge, and I am very grateful for it. In addition, the monthly cohort calls were very important to me. I found it incredibly helpful to hear what other people were doing, which gave me new ideas and things to reflect on in my own practice. The cohort was also a safe space to flesh out my ideas. Finally, having regular monthly conversations with my mentor and coach was invaluable. Experiencing coaching firsthand helped me see its true value, and it helped me focus my thoughts when my ideas felt scattered, pulling everything together into a concrete plan.
How has your learning inside the coach impacted your coaching practice and program in your school?
One of the main ways it has impacted my practice is making sure I am consistently gathering feedback from my coaching partners. I have improved a lot by taking what was modeled to me in the program and ending my coaching sessions with targeted questions, such as, ‘What has been most useful to you today from our conversation?’ Using their feedback has become a powerful jumping-off point for setting future goals together.
What is next for your professional learning?
Next year, I am transitioning into a positional leadership role. My next professional learning focus will be discovering how I can transfer and apply these coaching skills within that leadership position. I know that I will not be able to maintain the exact same relationship with staff because the role is different. However, I believe that a leader with coaching skills is simply a better leader.
I still want to be able to intentionally exercise different stances, working collectively with people to decide when I need to step in as a consultant or when I need to step back. Above all, I want to remain a good listener. Before I entered coaching, I always most valued leaders who would truly listen to me before trying to give advice—oftentimes, I would figure out the solution myself just by talking it through. Even though that is a coaching move, leaders who are not positionally coaches can use that move to empower their staff. My goal is to learn more about how these coaching skills can best serve people in positional leadership roles.
Watch Timothy’s Video
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