The benefits and impacts of a coaching and mentoring programme for teaching staff in secondary school

Abstract

This study attempts to produce evidence to establish whether teaching staff in schools in the UK, who undertake coaching as part of their continuous professional development, will enjoy benefits and impacts upon their professional and personal lives. There is a paucity of empirical research on this subject. Coaching in schools is at an early stage and there have been calls by professional bodies to produce evidence of its benefits and impacts. This study does this by conducting an intensive coaching programme for three teaching staff in a secondary school wishing to develop coaching: a senior and a middle manager and a junior member of staff. The study was approached as an action research project. Data were collected in a variety of ways, including formative evaluation reviews, data from reflection notes and from an extensive summative feedback evaluation questionnaire. It also included third party evidence. This has resulted in the production of evidence that appears to support some of the claims of a number of professional organisations and writers.

Keywords

• Coaching
• teachers
• continuous professional development
• evidence of benefits
• impacts