ABSTRACT
Coaching has many faces in the further education (FE) sector in England, with its features and purposes varying across contexts. Coaching skills can be part of the manager’s toolkit for encouraging individuals and teams to reflect on their practice and identify specific action points to take forward. These skills are harnessed in team meetings and also in one-to-one interactions such as appraisal and line management meetings. Coaching questions and models are often used by Advanced Practitioners to foster reflective dialogue with colleagues about aspects of their classroom practice, lesson planning and use of technology for learning. Increasingly, coaching approaches are used in pre- and post-observation conversations, led by Teaching and Learning Coaches (TLCs). In many colleges, the TLCs receive training to build their coaching skills in order to play a specific role within the lesson observation process. This may involve meeting the teacher for a coaching conversation before the lesson to identify learners’ needs, review the lesson plan and identify several areas of focus for the observation. This ensures that part of the professional dialogue after the lesson covers areas of practice that the teacher has a particular interest in as part of their developmental journey. Coaching skills are also used in the professional dialogue stage and subsequent action planning review meetings, to enable the teacher to take ownership of their developmental steps.
