How are your team doing? How are your students doing? Do you give them the time and space to reflect on their progress? How do you structure the exercise so that it actually makes a difference?
This week’s highlights from the We Are In Beta Community will help you explore the answers to those questions (and learn three techniques to use) so they can improve their thinking (and your curriculum and teaching practice).
We - schools - Are In Beta - always learning (when we ask each other reflective questions).
🧑🏫 Leadership coaching: 5 catch up coaching questions
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This is a guest post by George McMillan, Assistant Director, Harris Federation.
In my last piece in this powerful leadership coaching in school series I shared how to contract an alliance with your team. In this one I bring it all together in a coaching technique you can can do with you teams to drive performance.
When it comes to coaching, I am a big fan of learning some questions that can be really easy to remember and simple to use. I have a few coaching models that I use with my teams but the one I’m sharing today is one of my favourites.
I manage eleven headteachers and every time we have a meeting, we start with the same six question activity below.
It works every single time. Every single time you do it they always say things like, “God, that was so refreshing”.
And you can do this exercise in four minutes. You can’t do it in any less, really. Seven minutes is better. It always goes the same way - really well.
So, this misconception that “there is no time to coach in school” is not correct. There is plenty of time to coach in school.
Especially if you weave these three skills into the activity.
To increase the chances of the activity being a success (and make it more efficient each time we do it) I teach my teams the following skills. By doing so they can coach each other. Plus, the success of the activity does not rely on me coaching them all at the same time.
Listening is vital. I teach them how to listen attentively, accurately, empathetically and generatively. If you missed my piece on listening (and how to remember how to do it well) you can read it here.
Silence is one of the really powerful coaching tools.
If I ask you a question, wait for you to answer it and then not respond to your answer for a short period, you’ll be the one who is prompted to say more and then go deeper. All because I said nothing.
As a coach, you don’t have to jump straight on the back of an answer. Just throw in a bit of silence and wait a bit.
Coaching is like trying to dig into someone’s brain a little bit. So, we use a little bit of silence to do that.
The other technique I teach is asking a simple question.
“And what else?”
It’s a great question.
You can ask that question in whatever form and as many times as you want. It’s so useful.
For example, if someone comes to you with a complaint about something and you want to help them get it all out… keep asking “And what else?”
You just let them speak and let them think… then ask “Is there anything else that would be useful to get out onto the table?” “Is there anything else?” “And what else?”
Then if you combine it with a little bit of silence, it’s amazing how many times they get it all out there.
Now, if they just start repeating the same points, you can say, especially in the interest of time, “Okay, I think you’ve already covered this. Is it useful to cover it again?”
They usually say, “Oh yeah” or “No, it’s not”. And then you can move on.
So, remember: listening, silence and asking ‘what else?’
Believe it or not, until very recently, I never had a name for this exercise. Even though I do it all the time.
The exercise provides a way of finding connections and unwinding the spaghetti in your head. It is not necessarily looking at solutions, although what often actually happens is people start making connections. And it’s important to note that it’s a model that looks at the past (not the future). I’ll share a future looking model in a later post.
So, I - rather imaginatively - called it “catch up coaching”. Let me know if the comments if you’ve got any better ideas.
So how des it work?
So, the six questions (well, one statement and five questions), which are:
We have [n] minutes together to do this exercise…
What’s gone really well recently [or insert time frame]?
What’s been really difficult recently [or insert time frame]?
What made it so difficult (or challenging)?
What made the good stuff go so well?
What was interesting or useful about this conversation?
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What’s gone really well for you (and your curriculum and teaching team) this year?
What’s been really difficult or you (and your curriculum and teaching team) this year?
What made it so difficult (or challenging)?
What made the good stuff go so well?
How do you get out there to learn how other schools and departments achieve their results so that you can keep getting better?
Join us to learn how other subject and curriculum specialists achieve results in their departments and classrooms.
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I didn’t know it yet, but it would turn out to be the most influential meeting I’d ever have.
That 90 minutes in St Pancras Station would equip me to boss (who am I kidding?) survive three of the most challenging (and frequent) scenarios I’d come against for years to come.
As a teacher, it would help get to point where a challenging student would no longer feel the need (or have the ability) to interrupt when I was managing their behaviour (and then give me the space to calmly guide them through what was going to happen next).
As a leader, it would help me make sure I understood as much as a I possibly could when members of my team brought sensitive situations (and as a result give me a better idea of what to ask next).
As a parent, it would help me be patient with (and not spontaneously combust myself during the process) when my (now) 5 year old was having a melt down.
What was the meeting?
It was my first meeting with my leadership coach, who I subsequently went on to work with for 10 years.
How did she help me?
Two ways:
She listened. I mean, properly listened. In a way I had never experienced before.
She kept asking me “what else?” To the point the it was actually uncomfortable.
I can’t express how grateful I am she did.
So the next time, you find yourself struggling through the situations above, try asking “what else?” (until it feels almost uncomfortable to ask any more).
It will help you get through.
But more importantly it will help the person - be staff or students - to improve their thinking and resolve their own problems.
But if improving your curriculum and teaching practice is what’s more important to you right now, register for Curriculum Thinking Week 2026.
What’s would take you a life time to curate on your own, while doing your day job.
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