Coaching: transforming culture to improve school and teacher effectiveness

 

Ms Robyn Buckeridge Warragul Regional College Warragul, Victoria, Australia

 

The introduction of a coaching program at Warragul Regional College has been the cornerstone of a program designed to transform the learning and teaching culture. Our ‘Leading Schools' project enabled the employment of the equivalent of three full-time teachers to enable staff to take on coaching roles in a variety of learning areas. The term ‘coach' was selected for this team of teachers because it did not assume, or imply, that these teachers were experts. Rather, they are change agents who act in a broad range of facilitating roles. They focus on areas of teacher effectiveness to transform learning and teaching and improve learning outcomes for all students.

Building a coaching program relies on developing trust, enthusiasm and collegiality. Our first semester of coaching in late 2004 was designed to build trust amongst teachers and establish a culture of working together in classes. Teachers had traditionally worked individually with their classes, only sharing excellent teaching practices and strategies by accident, rather than by design. Collection of data to inform teaching practice was not common practice. The aim of our ‘Teaching Smarter Learning Better' program was to improve the learning outcomes of all students, by teachers working with coaches to:

• build collegiality;
• develop our thinking skills and resilience overlays;
• embed ICT into the curriculum;
• develop, implement and evaluate a broad range of teaching strategies;
• use data to improve learning outcomes;
• share teaching strategies amongst staff;
• build leadership capacity.

Eleven coaches were initially appointed, following an interview process. These coaches chose the area of work in which they would like to be involved. These areas were publicised so that staff could select a coach with whom they would like to work. A concurrent series of professional learning meetings was organised to assist coaches with information and strategies for working collaboratively with staff. Each fortnight, a different coach took responsibility for organising a session to develop leadership capacity and confidence. Sessions included:

• Kolb's learning cycle – a reflective tool;
• coaching protocols;
• communication strategies
• leading change;
• classroom design and management.

A staff survey during semester 2, 2004, indicated that the program was fulfilling the purpose of building collegiality. Lack of time and flexibility for both staff and coaches was a limiting factor.

To ensure a more strategic use of time to develop deeper learning for students, changes were made to the structure of the coaching program for 2005. Three strategic targets were identified, in which coaches would play a key role in supporting colleagues:

• planning, implementation and evaluation of units based on identified learning outcomes;
• development, implementation, evaluation and revision of the thinking skills and resilience overlays;
• incorporation of ICT into the broader curriculum.

All staff developed two action plans per semester, one based on the key learning areas in which they taught and the other based on student management and wellbeing, as developed in their learning circle (sub-school). Coaching teams were appointed for ‘Maths Innovation', ‘Science', ‘Learning and Teaching' and ‘ICT'. The coaching program was designed to improve student outcomes by increasing teacher effectiveness, through improving teaching knowledge, professional practice and professional engagement. Coaches worked with colleagues to develop their action plans, by talking about:

• which group would be targeted;
• what data was required;
• what targets for improvement were set as a result of data analysis;
• what strategies were necessary for these targets to be achieved;
• how learning would be assessed;
• reflection on success, or otherwise, of improved student learning;
• reflection on changed teacher practice;
• strategic development of programs for future classes.

Teachers were encouraged to develop cross-key learning area units. Working in professional learning teams, staff developed, implemented and evaluated these programs to determine the extent of improved learning outcomes for students.

Reflection data collected from coaches mid-year, and at the end of semester 2, indicated that the emphasis on deeper learning had increased markedly. Reflections paid particular attention to skill development, unit analysis and effective collegiate activity.

However, the sudden emphasis on action plans, with the consequent collection of data and reflection, added much pressure to teacher workload, which resulted in considerable whole-staff discussion on processes. The coaching program was further refined, resulting in new categories of coaches for 2006.

In term 1, 2006, a ‘Learning and Teaching' coach was appointed to each key learning area to work in classes with teachers on evaluating the improvement in learning through teaching specific skills. New teaching strategies are now being trialled with mixed groups of students and teachers in our Flexible Learning Centre.

Intranet coaches are working with staff to upload units of work onto the college intranet. The purpose of this is to identify the skills being taught from the thinking, resilience and ICT overlays.

ICT coaches work in classes with staff to introduce new technological skills into their teaching programs and to lead professional development in ICT, including the INTEL Teach to the Future Program.

‘Later Years' coaches are working in Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) classes with staff, to implement the VCE action plan, designed to improve the overall results of every VCE student. New teaching strategies include online surveys of students, to provide valuable feedback about learning and teaching processes in all VCE classes.

A data coach provides staff with summarised information from student interim and semester reports. This staff member assists with the downloading and interpretation of that data, resulting in more strategic classroom practice.

The impact of sharing coaching responsibilities more broadly (a team of 23 coaches in 2006) has met with staff approval. There has been an increase in the number of teacher contacts with coaches, staff visiting other classrooms, cross-key learning area units and curriculum mapping via the intranet. This distributive leadership model is extremely successful.

Warragul Regional College has an extensive mentoring program for graduate teachers. This is clearly different from our coaching program because it involves an experienced teacher working with a teacher who is new to the service, to assist them in gaining their Victorian Institute of Teaching accreditation. Our mentoring program does not extend to other staff. However, new experienced staff entering the school work with a buddy to help facilitate their ‘settling in' period and to answer questions of a logistical nature.

The changes to our learning and teaching program have been reflected in results on student opinion surveys, with considerable improvement being noted in most targeted areas.

The program has not been completely ‘smooth sailing'. The perennial problem of time has been the major obstacle to thorough evaluation and reflection of changed teacher practice. We have attempted to address this by altering our meeting structure to allow for two professional learning team meetings per month (key learning area and learning circle). A specific agenda is designed to enable all staff to reflect on the previous month's progress on action plans. The agenda assists in planning the next month's activities.

The coaching program at Warragul Regional College has impacted greatly on teacher effectiveness, the transformation of learning and teaching and the improvement of learning outcomes for all students. The most remarkable change has been in team collegiality, the development of new teaching strategies and the sharing of ideas and resources designed to improve the skill levels of students in thinking, resilience and ICT. Teachers have enjoyed the opportunity of working smarter, not harder, to create units of work that engage and challenge students to learn more deeply. The analysis of results at the end of the three-year project will indicate a radical change in the way we educate students at Warragul Regional College for the 21st century.

 

Ms Robyn Buckeridge is Assistant Principal at Warragul Regional College, in Warragul, Victoria, Australia.

Join the online discussion for all supporting papers from Monday 19 June to Sunday 26 June 2006.