Coaching interventions are becoming more widespread in UK education. Schools have been taking the lead but Further Education is fast catching up, as BHASVIC’s initiative shows, reports Karyn Prentice
An initiative to embed coaching at Brighton, Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College (BHASVIC) is enabling managers to shift from teaching and expert modes to listening deeply and helping others learn from their own experiences. And although the aim was to help managers help colleagues rather than using coaching skills in the classroom, a coaching style is beginning to show up in conversations with students – with positive and successful results.
As a beacon status college with 95 per cent of its nearly 1,800 students studying for Level 3 qualifications, BHASVIC has been publicly recognised for its excellence and innovation. Its results are very good – it records top marks nationally in a number of A and AS level courses. And the ethos of working together for success is strong. This set the scene for real development towards becoming a coaching culture.
The successful mid-sized college on the UK’s south coast wanted to help its managers and other key staff optimise their natural strengths, developing a wider range and flexibility of skills so they could support professional development and boost effectiveness across their teams. A flatter organisation meant more issues needed to be handled within departments.
Active support
Chris Thompson, the principal, has been an active supporter of the initiative. He and the whole senior team were keen to take part in the first cohort and showed they were prepared to develop their skills and be examples as leaders in learning. Putting themselves into the frame demonstrated they were investing in a way of communicating for everyone.
Considerable support for taking coaching forward emerged after an all-staff planning day. Shaping that vision has been an ongoing priority.
Phased learning
Thinking long term, BHASVIC decided to introduce coaching skills in three phases to heads of department and managers college-wide. This allowed time to build on each group’s learning and experience using coaching skills.
Fletcher-Prentice & Associates was engaged to work alongside the college after former vice principal Anne Fielding Smith – who has recently joined Strode’s College as principal – attended a workshop with Karyn Prentice.
The organisations co-designed a programme to fit the college environment – participants were more likely to use coaching skills within their different roles than to become dedicated coaches.
The programme explored the differences between coaching and mentoring, as the latter is a more familiar model in many colleges. A particular challenge was a shift in approach from telling to drawing out knowledge and learning from their staff in order to encourage greater accountability.
Many sixth-form college leadership teams have identified a preference among middle managers for a more affiliative style of leadership, one where delegation and holding staff to account outside the classroom are major issues. Building a coaching approach would give them the opportunity to empower their staff to apply their knowledge in different ways.
Dynamic experience
It was important to make the learning experience more dynamic. Skills practice was continued in coaching action sets back at college. These helped to create a powerful learning environment (see Coaching action sets: benefits).
A follow-up workshop was run by Fletcher-Prentice to consolidate skills, share experiences and add more practice with feedback.
The second cohort had the benefit of colleagues who, by this time, had been practising and using their coaching for the best part of two terms. A third group is currently underway.
To maintain the momentum of using coaching in the everyday and embedding it further into college practice, an optional cross-college Teaching and Learning Coaching project was set up. This included an analysis of an area to be developed, a link to lesson observation and feedback, and a summative view of development going forward.
The benefits of coaching are growing. Managers are expanding their view of themselves as managers, helping others be more effective with their time, planning, organisation and communication.
There is a significant shift to deepening real listening. For some this required quite a shift from teaching and being a subject area expert to helping others learn from their experience. It is also contributing to them tackling difficult or awkward conversations with greater confidence and credibility. They also learned they could use small chunks of time for more effective conversations than they had thought possible.
Unexpected benefits
There was an extra bonus. The objective of building a coaching culture was initially aimed at managers helping staff, whether in teaching or business support. The college had not planned to focus on using the skills in the classroom due to the time constraints of delivering the syllabus. However, the benefits of a coaching style also began to show in conversations with students (see case study 1).
Elsewhere, too, there have been benefits. Chris Nagle, head of HR, says: “The impact on HR has been great. The department used to get a lot of emails asking what to do or for HR to sort out issues in departments that needed to be handled earlier by the manager in the department concerned.
“Before, many staff seemed hesitant to manage and didn’t really feel in control. By using coaching to encourage a different engagement, managers are starting to feel more confident to have vital conversations. Coaching has had a significant impact as a result.”
Karyn Prentice of Fletcher-Prentice & Associates has more than 30 years’ experience offering leadership development programmes in coaching and coaching supervision to both the public and private sectors. Her work with Michael Gray under the banner of COUNTERPOINT is well known in the FE sector. www.fletcherprentice.com
Learning points: success factors
- Commit from the top down This is not just to endorse coaching but to be part of the learning laboratory of skills development and practice as well. All the senior team signed up to show they were on board.
- Don’t opt for skills building alone BHASVIC used a blended learning approach, creating time and space for continuing practice by linking it to additional important college activities and initiatives. This was vital in building trust and confidence.
- Build a coaching culture from the heart The programme was centred on BHASVIC’s values and code of professional behaviours, and the coaching had to fit into BHASVIC’s plan to move the college forward, even making it part of how it inducts new staff.
- Combine internal resources with an external programme Choose an organisation with a strong coaching background and a deep understanding of the educational environment.
- Make sure clients can take part at the start of the academic year Releasing staff in the autumn term is a big ask, but it meant managers had time to use the skills, get feedback and build on them over the remaining two terms, so the momentum was not lost.
Case study 1: Coaching students
Former senior tutor James – now director of student services – used coaching with one of his students to help improve her attendance.
Betty was studying Health and Social Care, and was required to attend college three days a week and a work placement the other two days. Betty had good attendance in class, but was not going regularly to the placement. James spoke to Betty a number of times, but the problem kept resurfacing, so he opted to use coaching.
Rather than tell her what to do, James explored her experiences and the feelings she had around the placement. He spent much of the time really listening and engaging her in thinking around the factors that could change and her ideas.
The change was almost immediate and very dramatic. She was not used to being listened to in this way and responded very positively. Betty described the underlying issue for her and identified a number of ways she could change what she was doing.
She began to attend every placement session and went on to get a distinction on the course and find a job – no easy feat given she had not arrived at the college as a student with an obvious path of academic achievement. She had 18 previous criminal convictions and had been almost living on the streets before crime reduction charity NACRO became involved and helped her get a place at BHASVIC.
- Coaching action sets: benefits
- Improves basic coaching skills
- Spreads good contracting practices
- Models a professional practice among peers
- Shares ideas and stories of coaching
- Increases confidence to experiment in a safe place
- Builds the discipline to ringfence precious time
- Reinforces the importance of a sounding board
- Shares valuable feedback that has led to improvement
- Builds awareness that it’s OK not to know and to ask
- Widens perspectives on potential solutions
Case study 2: Coaching in the team
Public funding cuts have caused colleges to review structures and processes to see where savings could be made. This was a time of anxiety and concern for BHASVIC staff. One head of department, Paul, used a coaching style of leadership with his team during the review and consultation.
Paul created an environment where the team was actively involved in finding ways to achieve savings. They discussed their feelings about change, but stayed with the facts that could help them be robust at the end of the consultation. This kept them focused on the outcome not the problem, and on how they could support each other even in the face of a potential staff reduction. Paul spent most of his time listening, clarifying and demonstrating that he had really heard them.
He kept the feedback chain open in both directions so there was little distortion between intent and impact of messages in the team. This built enormous trust and honesty within the group. Paul said that the development of skills in coaching helped him hold a different kind of space; offer a different quality of listening: “Given than I couldn’t tell them exactly what would happen, I created the conditions to work in a different way together and that paid off dividends.
“Not only do we have a more effective team, but as a result the team feels more empowered to succeed and we are a better team for it.”
Here’s what worked for Paul using a coaching approach with his team:
- Everything was on the table for discussion
- Space and time were ringfenced
- Contracting was clear as were the aims – this made it safe to talk
- There was enough trust to put their mistrust on the table
- They hypothesised what would work rather than what would not
- There was a place for everyone’s voice
As a result, people were more constructive in subsequent meetings, with both unions and senior management. They developed reflection skills to incorporate learning, both as a team and personally.
Case study 3: Line management perspective
Sonia has been a manager in post for many years. Despite her experience she postpones all decisions, even those easily within her remit, instead always asking her line manager, one of the vice principals, what to do.
Following the development of coaching skills her line manager began using a coaching approach with Sonia. She stopped supplying the answers and suggesting actions. Instead, she asked more questions, drawing out Sonia’s understanding. She encouraged Sonia to explore her ideas and their consequences and to set a plan in motion and implement it, even if in stages, depending on the potential risk.
Over time, the meetings became shorter and more pro-active. The result for Sonia was greater confidence to step fully into her role as a team leader, as well as increased respect from others.
Coaching at Work, Volume 6, Issue 6