After a little brain-storm, we came up with these ideas.


1) Contact the local teachers' union and offer to hold a presentation about coaching (some teacher unions have coaches!)

2) Contact a local employer and offer to talk about "coaching skills for parents" to the employees who are parents of teenagers

3) Offer to coach a class of students at the local school, every week for 3 months

4) Contact the local teacher training school, and offer to hold a presentation about "coaching for work-life balance".

5) Contact a local youth club, sports, music... and offer to hold a presentation about "coaching for excellence"

6) Tell the local newspaper that you are goinf to do one of the above

7) With a partner, have a LOUD coaching session at a cafe, and leave your business card on the table. Or you could use your mobile phone to call your partner

8) with a partner, have a LOUD coaching session on a bus, and leave your business card on the seat. Or you could use your mobile phone to call your partner

9) Record yourself coaching a teacher, and post it on your website (and link to C4E)

It's as easy as 1, 2 , 3

1 Get in touch
2 Present, demonstrate and activate
3 Follow up!

You can download the presentation and use it for presenting to teachers, for example.

Active Listening

I showed them the chinese symbol for listening, which combines the symbols for you, eyes, ears, heart and undivided attention

We discussed the benefits of the process of listening actively, and what we might need to do more of / less of than in ordinary conversations. A situation that was useful to refer to was when a colleague comes into the staffroom "full of emotion" from a "tough lesson". Active listening is the best thing you can do for your colleague.

Here's two films that I used, http://www.coaching-for-educators.com/coaching-in-education.html




Task: Actively listen to your colleague
A listens to B speaking about their experiences of the day, in silence, using both ears, both eyes, whole heart, giving no comments, dismissing own thoughts and ideas - just actively listening.


Follow up
We debriefed the BENEFITS and CHALLENGES, and whether or not it's worth mastering the challenges to reach the benefits. We noted that the person mastering the challenges is not the one receiving the benefits; and that this must be part of a MUTUAL effort, from all the staff. A call to action was sometimes appropriate.

Powerful Questions

I used business guru, Steven Covey's quote (chosen from many others)



"Most people don't listen with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply"

We discussed the aim of having a coaching conversation in the context of classroom leadership.

I told them that my opinion is that classroom leadership can be described as "Further the action and/or deepen the learning"

I told them that the best thing to do to keep the coaching conversation moving forwards, to further the action or deepen the learning, was to ask open questions rather than closed questions or leading questions. We discussed examples of these types of questions and where they come from in the coaching conversation.


Task: Further the action or deepen the learning
A listens to B talking about a tough lesson, then asks only open questions based on what B said. A uses active listening of course!

Follow up
We debriefed the BENEFITS and CHALLENGES, and whether or not it's worth mastering the challenges to reach the benefits. We noted that the person mastering the challenges is not the one receiving the benefits; and that this must be part of a MUTUAL effort, from all the staff. A call to action was sometimes appropriate.

I love giving demos standing up! 
Teachers are used to standing in front of people and find it odd to sit down in the classic "coaching chair".

By this time I had identified several teachers who had something to share, and who had the courage needed to be coached live in front of their colleagues. I invited one of them to come up.

I invited the whole group to agree to full confidentiality, "What we say in this room, stays in this room - we don't mention it after today". A show of hands was usually enough to seal the deal.


I used the GROW method for the demo, making clear each step by moving to a different position in the room. In cases where I wanted to sell the GROW coaching cards, I physically selected each question from the pack that I held in my hand. In between the GROW questions I asked follow up "tell me more" questions and summarised what the client had said (two more skills!). Sometimes I used prepared GROW questions, that were displayed on the screen / whiteboard.

Follow up
We debriefed the BENEFITS and CHALLENGES, and whether or not it's worth mastering the challenges to reach the benefits. We noted that the person mastering the challenges is not the one receiving the benefits; and that this must be part of a MUTUAL effort, from all the staff. A call to action was sometimes appropriate.

At this point the conversations were sometimes about the benefits to colleagues, and at other times it was about the benefits to the students. 
I just went with the flow!

You can order these cards for yourself, with the C4E logo on the back.

You are welcome to come to these meetings. 

BOOK here