For some months now the Enfys Acumen has been promoting a performance coaching programme for teachers and school leaders. During October 2007, two major developments have taken place.
Firstly, I have started delivering a coaching programme for a primary school teacher in Monmouthshire. Funded entirely by a grant from the General Teaching Council for Wales, the coaching programme for this teacher is focusing on issues that have been agreed with the school's headteacher.
Secondly, I have been recruited as an associate of Dysg, the Welsh Assembly Government division focusing on on improving the quality of teaching and learning in the post-14 education and training sector.
Headteachers and teachers interested in introducing performance coaching in their schools are encouraged to read this extract from an Enfys Acumen information sheet:
What is coaching?
Generically, coaching is a form of support for individuals as they decide what they want to achieve in their career, relationships, health, finances - in fact any area of their lives. Coaching has developed from the stages of mentoring and guiding to empower people to make decisions about their lives and to support them whilst taking the necessary action to achieve what they decide they want.
In a professional setting like a school, an independent coach can reflect ideas, evoke solutions and support their implementation in a way that few organisational insiders could ever do. Individual or one-to-one coaching is ideal to work with a person who wants to develop themselves on issues that are unique to themselves. Individual coaching is the best choice in the following scenarios:
· support for a new member of staff or a recently promoted teacher or manager. Research suggests that 1 in 8 workers resign before getting to grips with a new role and the average worker needs a minimum of 5 months to become competent in a new job. Competency in a role is usually directly related to the levels of confidence felt. Coaching increases individual confidence and therefore reduces the time needed for competency to occur
· to provide extra recognition to high achievers and a school’s future leaders
· to help an individual meet key performance indicators
· to assist an individual to increase their confidence in their role
· support for an individual who has non-work related issues that are affecting his/her performance
What are the benefits of coaching?
· coaching enables people to find clarity in a situation where currently they feel unsure of what is the 'next step' to take
· coaching helps people to find their best decision making state of mind so that they can trust their choices and move forward without doubt
· coaching helps people with strategies to achieve what they want
· coaching gives people a support mechanism to stretch them out of their comfort (or discomfort!) zone
· coaching gives people someone to help maintain motivation on action where they might previously have given up
How does coaching take place?
Coaching sessions last between 60 and 90 minutes. These can be either face-to-face or more usually, over the telephone.
Having a series of coaching sessions is ideal because this enables people to build up momentum to be empowered to continue with their action plans after the coaching sessions finish. We suggest that booking a series of 4 coaching sessions is a good starting point. 10 sessions tend to be the average.
How to introduce coaching into your school?
Organisations that are most successful at introducing coaching have been found to introduce coaching throughout their organisations. Very importantly, having senior management support when implementing coaching greatly increases the success of coaching initiatives in the workplace.
Fifty per cent of UK Companies now have coaching initiatives within their organisations.
How much does coaching cost?
| Single session | Block of 4 sessions | Block of 6 sessions | Block of 10 sessions |
| £100 | £360 | £480 | £750 |
NB A grant is currently available from the General Teaching Council for coaching. Additional discounts available for contracts to coach more than one member of staff
About the Enfys Acumen Coach
Nigel Griffiths is the founder of The Enfys Acumen and has been coaching for most of the last 20 years, but he admits that he hadn’t realised that’s what it was called until relatively recently. And now regularly receives coaching himself!
He initially qualified as a teacher in special education and after a couple of years teaching became a manager and developer of voluntary services. Starting from humble beginnings he rose through the ranks to the role of chief executive of a national charity with resources worth £4.5m and doubled the staff team in a three year period.
Nigel has always been committed to personal development. In 1998 he was awarded an MSc in Interprofessional Studies and more recently an Advanced Diploma in Marketing for Coaches. In order to enhance his skills he is currently working towards diplomas in Personal Performance Coaching and Executive and Management Coaching, both with Europe’s top Coaching Academy. Nigel is an avid reader of management theory and theology.
Nigel was born and bred in Holyhead, North Wales and is semi-fluent in Welsh. He has lived in Newport, South Wales since 1984 (except for 2 years “missionary work” in Shropshire, England in the late 1980s). He actively supports his children’s leisure activities and is a leader in the Scout Movement (CRB checked).
For larger coaching projects, the Enfys Acumen works with a core group of qualified/respected and experienced coaches.
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