Putting Covid 19 to one side and the disruption this has caused to education, there has been an underlying trend downwards. From September 2019 to March 2020 fewer schools were being judged to be ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’*
Quality of leadership and teaching are at the core of success, but how do you improve these? Sack poorly performing teachers, dismiss or side-line struggling middle and senior leaders? Spend time and money you don’t have on trying to recruit the ‘right’ people?
Well, you can do that, or look at improving the resource right under your eyes, your existing staff. That’s right. You don’t have to rebuild to improve, what you need to do is identify the problem areas and provide efficient support and coaching to enable your staff to excel. One of the main problems though – time and resources – and that’s where we can help.
We believe in the benefits of coaching; it’s why we have a coaching culture within Fresh Start. Coaching has many benefits for the organisation because it benefits the individual. It has a positive impact on an individual’s career and therefore on the school. It will improve performance and help retention, as staff feel valued and empowered to work on their own development. It will help reach goals, increase personal awareness of strengths and weaknesses, and allow staff to improve on them. As Sir John Whitmore said, ‘coaching is unlocking people’s potential to maximise their own performance’.
Coaching benefits new teachers as they move away from the support they received as a student teacher or Newly Qualified Teacher. There are various figures bandied about, regarding the number of teachers leaving the profession within 5 years of qualifying; this seems to be from one third to almost a half of them. Either way, these figures are shocking! The loss of a new teacher is a drain on financial resources. Coaching will aid staff retention by giving them the skills, self-awareness, and confidence to continue to develop their practice.
Coaching also benefits middle and senior leaders. It gives them the opportunity to reflect on the challenges they face, improve communication within the organisation and improve the effectiveness of relationships. It provides confidential and valuable thinking time to discuss and consider options and to make better choices. It helps clarify values, support learning from current experience and to plan and take action based on that learning. It provides non-judgemental questioning that challenges people to think things through.
Coaching will help your team grow, develop and maximise performance. Better performance equals better outcomes for students and better results at any inspection.
