Case Study: Lees Brook Academy - Instructional Coaching at the heart of school improvement

Background

Lees Brook Academy is an 11-18 academy in Derby City. In September 2023 we achieved a ‘Good’ Ofsted in all areas for the first time in over a decade, and during the last three years, we have seen our academic outcomes improve and the quality of education provided for our students develop dramatically. While the journey is not over, we are incredibly proud of what we have achieved, and to say that instructional coaching has been at the heart of this improvement model would be an understatement!

Aims and vision

We strive to be a great school that not only provides high-quality teaching, but inspires ambition and a love of learning for students and staff alike, where everyone can believe and achieve. Instructional coaching has been instrumental in supporting the development of teaching and learning at Lees Brook and is something that staff voice reports is highly valued.

Our model

Our Continuous Professional Learning (CPL) programme, including coaching, aims to follow the Education Endowment Foundation’s Effective Professional Development model of mechanisms, and consists of a range of core and optional CPL, with coaching running in a three-week cycle. Coaching time is allocated to CPL on Thursday afternoons and follows a sequential coaching curriculum. It originally began simply with precise praise, and we built in other aspects of coaching over time. Our quality assurance feeds into this, so if we see a particular step needs rehearsal, we add this into the next coaching session on specific action steps, so all coaches develop the knowledge and understanding of how to implement it, while also understanding what makes a specific action step and how to choose the highest leverage step.

Every third week we have a Coaching Teach Meet reviewing the previous cycle, and then a one-hour Coaching CPL session on a Thursday afternoon. This follows a 20:20:20 model: 20 minutes of coaching deliberate practice, 20 minutes for coaching partner A’s feedback, scripting and rehearsal, and then 20 minutes for coaching partner B. This allows for upfront input (informed by quality assurance) and development of our coaches.

Year 1

We launched instructional coaching in September 2022, initially using our middle and senior leaders as coaches, each coaching several staff members. The aim was to support leadership at all levels in getting into lessons, observing practice, and providing regular feedback in the three-week cycle. We quickly realised that coachees were not receiving the same quality feedback from coaches due to the structure of the programme and time constraints. This was in addition to coaching feeling ‘done to’ rather than ‘done with’. This lowered motivation and engagement, so for the next year we moved to a reciprocal model: everyone is a coach, and everyone will be coached.

Year 2

With input from Heads of Department, reciprocal coaching pairs were carefully assigned, based on development needs and staff strengths, for example, ensuring ECTs were paired with their mentors. This model saw motivation and engagement increase dramatically, as did the quality of coaching conversations. This was due not only to having reciprocal pairs, but also because staff were freed up from one briefing on a coaching week, allowing them time to observe their partners, with coaching feedback taking place in CPL sessions on a Thursday afternoon. By carefully partnering our coaches, we found that all staff benefitted not only from being coached, but also from seeing the practice of colleagues and coaching them. Through the 20:20:20 model, every coach was receiving coaching training in every cycle, in addition to Coaching Bulletins and Teach Meet reflections on the previous cycle. We began using quality assurance of coaching write-ups, checking for understanding during coaching sessions, and coaching check-ins to identify coaching needs and ensure they were built into the next coaching cycle.

Year 3

In our third year we built on the reciprocal model by recruiting seven expert instructional coaches from our staff body. Alongside the coaching curriculum all staff receive, they have a bespoke development package focusing on quality assuring coaching within their coaching hubs, developing leadership skills, and understanding pedagogies and effective professional development. Furthermore, we have heavily emphasised drop-ins as good practice, providing regular reminders and encouragement to take part in coaching in a genuine way. So, staff not only have personalised CPL from their coach, but can go and see great practice in action elsewhere and benefit from the expertise around the school. These additions in the third year have helped us to really embed the ethos and practice of coaching across the school.

Where next?

With the inaugural cohort of expert coaches proving so dedicated and benefitting so much from this CPL, we are looking to recruit and train a second group, so in the near future we will have even more expert coaches developing and delivering outstanding coaching CPL.

Impact

As a result of our coaching programme, we have seen a significant improvement in the culture around CPL at Lees Brook, which is often commented on by the wider Trust. We are seeing staff regularly take responsibility for their own development, dropping-in to colleagues’ lessons and sharing great practice, and we have seen academic results improve consecutively for the last three years. Because we ensure time is made for coaching and feedback, staff can see it is a priority for everyone, and that it is a way of improving the quality of education across the school. What has really shown me this is that staff genuinely want to take part in coaching because it is personal, timely, effective, and ultimately improves them as practitioners.

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