1. Leadership – developing a coaching culture in your school
Andrew Blench
School Business Partner
SBM Dinnington High School until August SBM Consultant and Coach since then, trading as School Business Partner. Completed my PGCert in Personal and Business Coaching in 2017 with Barefoot Coaching and the University of Chester
School Business Partner -

2. Take home points from today
What coaching is and why it works
An introduction to different coaching models
Dissecting prevalent cultures in school
How a school which has a coaching culture looks and feels different
How to introduce and embed a coaching culture in your school
Overview of our W.A.L.T.
School Business Partner -

3. What is coaching?
The International Coaching Federation defines coaching as ' partnering with clients in a thought provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential‘
“…a process that enables learning and development to occur and thus performance to improve. To be successful a Coach requires a knowledge and understanding of process as well as the variety of styles, skills and techniques that are appropriate to the context in which the coaching takes place.” (Parsloe, 1995, p18)
The definition by Whitmore (1992, p8) is perhaps in sharp contrast:
“ Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.”
School Business Partner -

4. What coaching isn’t! Mentoring Therapy Consulting Training Punishment
School Business Partner -

5. So how does it work then? The coach’s skill set includes:-
Listening to encourage thinking
Asking powerful questions
Paraphrasing and summarising
Giving and receiving feedback
A Way of Being
Listening cards exercise in pairs, once explained each of the points
School Business Partner -

6. Different coaching models
The G.R.O.W. Model (Whitmore, 2009)
O.S.C.A.R. (Andrew, 2009)
C.I.G.A.R. (Cook, 2009)
GROW – Goal, Reality, Opportunity/Options, Way forward/Will
OSCAR – Outcome, Situation, Choices and Consequences, Actions, Review
CIGAR – Current Situation, Ideal Outcome, Gap between C and I, Action Plan, Review
School Business Partner -

7. Different coaching models
GROW – Goal, Reality, Opportunity/Options, Way forward/Will. Practice GROW in pairs, 10 minutes.
School Business Partner -

8. What is a coaching culture?
Clutterbuck and Megginson (2005) define a coaching culture as;-
`Coaching is the predominant style of working together, and where a commitment to grow the organization is embedded in a parallel commitment to grow the people in the organization'.
Organisational Culture - One of the best-known definition is that of Edgar Schein, who describes it as: ‘The pattern of basic assumptions that a given group has invented, discovered, were developed in learning to cope with its problems of external adaption and internal integration, and that it works well enough to be considered valid and therefore to be taught to new members is the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to these problems’ (1983).
School Business Partner -

9. The components of a COACHING CULTURE
A clearly stated business strategy – School Improvement Plan/Developing Excellence Plan
Leadership buy into coaching and lead by example in terms of receiving coaching and coaching others
Managers/Leaders/Internal Coaches have received accredited coaching training
A feature of the operations of the organisation with dedicated resources (people, time, budget allocation) for coaching
Employees understand the difference between ‘Mentoring’ and ‘Coaching’
A programme of accredited training and on-going CPD for coaching differentiated by role
School Business Partner -

10. The components of a COACHING CULTURE
‘The way we do things here’ therefore built into recruitment, induction, management/leadership training
Less of a ‘top down’ approach to line management; more collaboration
Coaching built into role competencies for managers and leaders
Lots of mutual respect and recognition
Goal setting behaviour as standard
On-going coaching communities
Public recognition, reward and celebration for coaching
Identification and development of future coaching talent in the organisation
School Business Partner -

11. advantages Increased employee engagement
Improved operational performance
Staff recruitment, retention and succession planning improved
Improved PR and external image
Greater communications and team work
A Happy Place to be
School Business Partner -

12. How to introduce it at school
It starts with YOU – ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ M Ghandi
Discuss this with your SLT and in particular your CPD Lead – sell the benefits/ gain commitment
Get an expressed commitment to this as ‘the way we do things around here’ and stated in your SIP/DEP documents
Celebrate, recognise, encourage and support a coaching approach when you see it in school
Resource coaching – training, books and resources dedicated time
Look at your people processes – recruitment, induction, performance management
School Business Partner -

13. Further resources
‘An Introduction to Coaching Skills – A Practical Guide ‘ Christian Van Nieuwerburgh Clutterbuck, D. and Megginson, D. (2005) Making Coaching Work: Creating a Coaching Culture. London: CIPD. Human Capital Institute (2014). Building a Coaching Culture. Retrieved 23/08/17 from &RDtoken=34428&userID= Knight and Poppleton. (2008) Developing Coaching Capability in Organisations. London: CIPD Coaching for Performance – John Whitmore
School Business Partner -