Building a Culture of Coaching: What Works
A strong coaching culture is characterised by trust, openness, and professional curiosity. In the schools across our Trust where coaching is flourishing, it is not treated as a remedial measure or a performance management tool, but as a developmental and collaborative process. One of the most successful indicators has been the embedding of coaching within the wider strategic CPD plan. This ensures coaching is aligned with school priorities, resourced with time, and championed by leadership.
Key elements of an effective coaching culture include:
- Non-hierarchical relationships: Coaching thrives when it is peer-to-peer and collaborative, rather than top-down or evaluative.
- Clarity of purpose: Coaching is most productive when the focus is clear—supporting teaching practice, pupil outcomes, or professional reflection—not muddled with monitoring or appraisal.
- Coachee ownership: Teachers gain most when they drive the focus of their coaching, supported by a coach who can help them reflect, problem-solve, and experiment.
- Time and space: Protected time within the timetable signals that coaching is valued and worth investing in.
Good Practice in Coaching Conversations
One of the most insightful findings from the research is the importance of coaching talk. The quality of coaching conversations determines the level of professional learning that emerges. Strong conversations move beyond surface-level feedback into reflection, challenge, and co-construction of new ideas. They are:
- Evidence-informed (e.g., drawing on lesson video, pupil work, or observation notes),
- Reflective (prompting teachers to think about why something worked or didn’t), and
- Forward-looking (focusing on what will be tried next).
Coaches who use open-ended questions, listen actively, and help generate dissonance (constructive challenge to assumptions) play a vital role in deepening professional practice.
The Impact on Teaching and Learning
The link between teacher learning and pupil learning is clear. When teachers engage in coaching:
- They reflect more deeply on the effectiveness of their classroom practice.
- They become more responsive to pupil needs, adapting approaches in real-time.
- They develop a stronger sense of agency, autonomy, and confidence.
- Most importantly, there is a measurable improvement in pupil engagement, progress, and outcomes.
In our Trust, we’ve seen how coaching supports teachers to make meaningful changes—whether that’s refining questioning techniques, enhancing behaviour strategies, or deepening subject-specific pedagogy. Coaching also builds social capital across our schools, fostering stronger professional relationships and a culture of shared learning.
What’s Next?
We are continuing to invest in developing our coaching provision. This includes training more coaches, sharing best practice across schools, and creating spaces for coaches to reflect on and refine their own practice. We’re also exploring how video can be more routinely used as a powerful stimulus in coaching conversations, helping to make both teaching and learning more visible.
Weekly Writing Outcome
This week’s WWO comes from a Year 3 pupil from Old Ford Primary Academy. The remit was to, as an independent piece of writing, create an advert for the bullfight, detailing the sights/sounds/cost/merchandise etc.
We have chosen this piece because it contains the following:
- use of persuasive language ‘5 star’ ‘..is the best place you can find’.
- question to engage the reader ‘Why not go to our museum?’
- strong verbs ‘looking’ ‘feeling’
- appropriate use of exclamation mark to create sense of excitement ‘Doors open at 10am!’