Hannah Thomas, Director of Professional Learning

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

This week saw the launch of Cranbrook Senior School’s Peer Coaching Programme. This pilot initiative aims to measure the impact of coaching as a professional learning tool to enhance teacher innovation through solutions-focused conversations.

In the first phase of this programme, 12 Senior School leaders and mentors participated in Growth Coaching International’s ‘Introduction to Leadership Coaching’ course, which provides a grounding in all three elements of effective coaching practice: the GROWTH conversational framework, the key coaching skills and the coaching Way of Being. These practical workshops, facilitated by Sonja Stubbs-Mills and Debbie Lowe, gave trainee coaches the opportunity to apply these elements in a range of conversational contexts.

The next phase of the programme will involve participants coaching a designated conversation partner, a Senior School teacher who is completing an action research project as part of the Cranbrook Teacher Inquiry Group 2024. This series of coaching conversations will occur across Terms 2 – 4, with both coaches and coachees measuring their progress towards a self-determined success descriptor.

Throughout the pilot programme, the peer coaches will continue to develop their coaching skills through ‘triads’ sessions, in which groups of three participants take it in turns to adopt the role of coach, coachee and observer, observing each other’s practice and receiving feedback on their own coaching style. They will also be offered the opportunity to be coached by Caroline Usasz, a Senior School English teacher and professional coach, who has led and embedded professional coaching practices within teams to develop cultures of positive conversations that empower staff and students.

Warm Regards

Hannah Thomas
Director of Professional Learning