A potent professional development strategy
A crucial challenge for all schools is to refine the skills, and thereby the effectiveness, of their teachers. In the range of professional development strategies adopted by schools, a regular, incremental approach to observation and feedback, here termed ‘incremental coaching’, is claimed to be particularly effective in accelerating teacher development (Bambrick-Santoyo, 2012). This article examines the nature and efficacy of incremental coaching as implemented by some schools in England.
What is incremental coaching?
Coaching has been defined in various ways. The definition of coaching as ‘a structured one-to-one learning relationship between coach and coachee aimed at developing competence and improving performance in the coachee’ (Wisker et al. 2008)is a starting point. Sarah Fletcher (2009)has provided a succinct summary of the coaching scene and issues in the context of education. Bubb and Earley (2016) have reviewed the mentoring-coaching continuum and stressed the importance of organisations developing a coaching culture.
The ‘incremental coaching approach’ is based on an approach to observation and feedback advocated in ‘Leverage Leadership’ by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo (2012) and practised in the North Star Academy schools in Newark, New Jersey.He cites an example of a school where every teacher is observed and receives face-to-face feedback every week. The teachers develop rapidly and get exceptionally good results. It is important to stress that the observations are the basis for coaching not evaluation.
School leaders in the North Star Academy schools are committed to weekly 15-minute short observations of each teacher, combined with weekly 15-minute feedback meetings for every teacher. At each feedback meeting the teacher is given “direct, readily applicable feedback. The next week, the coach checks that the feedback has been implemented and looks for a further area for improvement, thereby building a cycle of improvement. The result is a set of observations meant not to evaluate but to coach – a change that makes all the difference.”
Frequent feedback and opportunities to practise are said to lead to rapid development. Bambrick-Santoyo asserts that “by receiving weekly observations and feedback, a teacher develops as much in one year as most teachers do in twenty.” Imagine what levels of mastery are possible if incremental coaching is continued throughout a career – as indeed it is in many other occupations - from sport to surgery - requiring high and continually improving levels of skill.
The ingredients of incremental coaching
The term ‘incremental coaching’ encapsulates a regular, frequent and ongoing cycle of observation and action-based coaching. The coaching is a dialogue that typically includes review, praise, feedback, reflection, modelling, planning and goal setting. Essentially:
- The process focuses on one action step at a time.
- Each step is followed up in subsequent observations until it is demonstrably embedded in practice.
- There is a minimal interval between observation and coaching.
- The observation and coaching events are planned into the organisation of the school.
- Coaching is a disciplined activity which incorporates common elements.
- Coaches are trained in the process.
- Coaches are lead practitioners who have earned professional respect.