Coaching in Schools

How School Coaching works and the impact from the horses mouth.

Caroline Atkins Hinchley Wood School

In my role as Achievement Co-ordinator at Hinchley Wood School in Esher, Surrey it is my responsibility to oversee the progress of our Gifted and Talented students and to implement specific and targeted support programmes for any potential underachievers.

I am a strong believer in the 1:1 mentoring approach and decided to invest in the services of a Professional Teen Life Coach, Sarah Newton, to run what is now known as ‘The Success Club’. This programme targeted 15 of our exceptionally able students who were failing to achieve their potential. They were run each Monday after school for a period of 6 weeks.

How this programme was introduced initially was extremely important to ensure the students signed up and remained interested throughout. Sarah was extremely professional in her approach treating our students as young adults from day one. She worked with them through a wide number of barriers in an extremely informal, yet often quite entertaining way. The sessions involved discussion around personal motivators, personal blockers, perception, coaching, discipline, revision techniques, learning styles and personally designing of a revision timetabling.

Although the money spent took up quite a percentage of our annual budget and was an unknown risk, having reviewed the outcomes, it has been extremely worthwhile. The programme had a huge impact, with the majority of the group achieving their target grades in at least 3 more of their subjects, one achieving their target grade in 5 more of their subjects.

It was not only the results for this particular group which has been such a huge success, it is the insights which have helped to shape our internal programme not only for Gifted & Talented students but for the school as whole.

I have summarised a number of these as follows:

• Students were setting their aspirations very low (5 A-C’s). This was ‘all they needed to get into the local college”. This needed to be challenged and raised considerably.
• Students did not have a realistic view of how they were failing to achieve their full potential, having received very mixed messages in progress review days re 1’s & 2’s. They needed to understand 2’s were not a mark of their ‘achieving their full potential’.
• Students did not have any revision timetable and were planning to leave revision far too late. They needed specific help to get going and direction to know how.
• Students did not have their own motivational drives. They needed help to search for these.
• Students found revision extremely boring and therefore did not have a positive approach to it. They were given strategies to develop a positive approach.
• Student really valued the ‘special identify of the group’, competing against a much higher average than what the year group provided.
• Students were keen for after school revision sessions stating ‘once we go home it is so much harder’ and also they felt ‘revision in groups was helpful’.
• Students were motivated differently – for some by rewards (ie ‘imagine how great you’ll feel when…’) whereas others by pain (ie. ‘imagine how awful you’ll feel if’). It was noted the importance of teachers/parents and students understanding of this.
• There was more a fear of ‘success’ rather than of ‘failure’ – this was key.
• Students really benefited from using their learning styles in revision.
• Students needed to realise they were not ‘pushing’ themselves but instead ‘wasting their talents’.

Some quotations collected from students after the life coaching sessions.

“I am studying 7 times more than I would have without this course!”

“You made me realise that I did not want the last four years of my life to be for nothing”.

“You helped me make a choice to be a success”

“You helped me understand my learning style. I don’t know why they don’t teach that at school”.

“ I know why I am studying and I want to do it”

“ You have motivated me to do my best”.

We have re-booked the same programme for this coming year and look forward to working closely with Sarah in a variety of ways in the future.

Here are the students results so you can see for yourself