Coaching and Mentoring with Professor Rachel Lofthouse

Rachel Lofthouse is Professor of Teacher Education in the Carnegie School of Education, Leeds Beckett University and Director of CollectivED The Centre for Coaching, Mentoring and Professional Learning.

In this episode, Rachel and I talk about coaching and mentoring for Early Career Teachers and school leaders. We discuss why coaching is important throughout a teacher’s career and why mentoring matters (#MentorsMatter). We also touch upon the impact of coaching and mentoring including discussing one of Rachel’s brand new research papers called: ‘Understanding coaching efficacy in education through activity systems: privileging the nuances of provision.’

This research paper can be obtained by contacting Rachel directly at r.m.lofthouse@leedsbeckett.ac.uk. You can also follow Rachel and CollectivED on twitter for more updates on coaching and mentoring.

Research mentioned in the episode:

In the episode, we spoke about the research Rachel carried out last year with Ruth Whiteside on leadership coaching in schools. You can access this research here.

I very briefly mentioned Cycles of Growth (CoG) and didn’t actually have any time to discuss it – perhaps an opportunity for another episode? CoG is worth reading about if you are interested in coaching. You can find out more about CoG here.

The CoG model is also the basis of the Chartered College of Teaching Impact Journal (issue 13) ‘Creating the engine room for professional learning’.