Coaching in Education Podcast Series

Are you an aspiring or emerging school leader? Or are you already in a leadership role and want to expand your reach or maybe consider a move to a leadership role in another school? Maybe you lead an executive team and want assistance in how to best recruit and position your staff? If it's a yes to any of these then join me in conversation with Amanda Samson of Hutton Consulting Australia and lear...

Enhancing the quality of conversations in educational communities. A key objective in the work of Growth Coaching International. For many of us we think immediately of adult conversations in staff meetings or board rooms, maybe even in the school corridors but what about conversations at student level? How do we enhance the quality of conversations between our students? In this episode of the Coac...

Enhancing the quality of conversations in educational communities. A key objective in the work of Growth Coaching International. For many of us we think immediately of adult conversations in staff meetings or board rooms, maybe even in the school corridors but what about conversations at student level? How do we enhance the quality of conversations between our students? In this episode of the Coac...

In this episode I'm joined by Mark Keenan, Principal of Maraetai Beach School in Auckland, New Zealand. Join me in conversation with Mark as he shares the incredible coaching journey he and his staff and students have been on in the last three years. Mark emphasises the importance of a strategic approach to developing a coaching culture in a school and the need to regularly revisit the question of...

In this episode of the coaching in education podcast series we hear how Paul Bennett, Assistant Principal of Howick College in Auckland New Zealand, upscaled coaching in his school to a very impressive level. Paul shares how his initial attempts 'bombed' but with sheer determination and an eye on the research from schools around the world, he managed to turn things around. Howick College now boast...

In this episode I'm in conversation with Ian Dickinson, Principal of Pigeon Mountain Primary School in Auckland, New Zealand. Listen in as Ian shares many of the wins as well as some of the barriers he has experienced over recent years developing a coaching culture. Join me as I learn how video peer coaching has provided a wonderful vehicle for improving the quality of conversations as the school...

In this episode GCI speak with Janice Lenarduzzi, Deputy Principal at MacGregor State School in Queensland, Australia. Janice shares with us the successes and challenges of introducing a coaching culture in a large state school of over 50 staff and 1300 pupils. Starting out with only two coaches Janice invests time and energy in unpacking what coaching is, succeeds in convincing 50% of the staff t...

In this episode I talk to Alison Spence, Principal of Kohia Terrace School in Auckland, New Zealand. Alison shares the highs (and lows) of establishing a coaching culture in her school. From a challenging first few years Alison has successfully developed coaching to a level where the majority of her staff are now trained coaches, an amazing sixty students have been trained as coaches and she herse...

In this 're-launch' episode of the Coaching in Education podcast, GCI Managing Director Chris Munro introduces our new podcast host Richard Reid and interviews him about his own coaching journey. As you will hear, Richard is a school leader who has experienced and witnessed the benefits of coaching in school settings. Richard continues to work as a Principal in County Down, Northern Ireland and is...

"Effective communication is an essential skill for a fulfilled life, and we can't teach it to students if we don't know how to do it ourselves." In this podcast, Leigh Hatcher interviews Dr Jim Knight about his new book,  Better Conversations Coaching Ourselves and Each Other to Be More Credible, Caring, and Connected.  He is joined by Gray Ryan, our Senior Consultant based in Victoria. Jim explor...

In this podcast, Leigh talks to John Campbell, GCI Executive Director, on the topic of schools as conversational communities. John talks about conversational contexts in schools and where the coaching style conversation could make a difference.

Do students have the emotional intelligence to coach their peers? And what would some of the other key considerations be for schools interested in implementing a student peer coaching program.  In this short interview, we talk to Ben Calleja, Co-Director at GCI WA, SA & NT, who explains what others have found in this exciting new area of coaching.

Over the last 18 months GCI Director, Annette Gray, helped initiate and embed a coaching culture to improve safety at Laing O'Rourke, a multinational construction company. Laing O'Rourke is a quite a different setting to the education sector that GCI mostly works in. But in this conversation, Rob and Suzy share a lot of transferrable insights for educators. Listen to how taking a different approac...

Growth Coaching International (GCI) is excited to announce a new partnership with Dr Jim Knight and the Instructional Coaching Group (ICG). This partnership will enable GCI to deliver the world-leading instructional coaching programs to educators in Australia and New Zealand. In this interview, we talk with Jim about his work and what he's discovered in over twenty years' of studying professional...

Staff and students at Santa Maria College in Western Australia are encouraged to focus on growth. In this interview, Anthony Phillips and Shani Andrews share practical implementation tips and discuss the significant benefits of the Teacher Growth and Development Framework (GROW) program, a program designed to develop a culture of improvement with coaching and feedback in education.

Schools are complex environments faced with unique issues. In order for staff and students to flourish, relationships within the school need to be really highly connected. Hale School in Perth WA has embraced coaching as a platform to enable people to connect more deeply, to talk about professional practice and to be able to rely on one another's opinions when challenged with complex issues.  In t...

Peter Macbeth is passionate about building belief in young people. At the core of this drive to meet the needs of young people in their context is the focus on building relationships and on good communication, something which can be challenging in the far-flung areas of the Far West of New South Wales, Australia. In this interview, Peter explains how coaching has become a key strategy in the way i...

Change happens from very small steps - those small steps can make a huge impact. This is a follow-up interview with Elena Joli, a science teacher who went to Antarctica to help make an impact on climate change and in the process discovered a new, more personal understanding of the concept of 'leadership'.  You will hear how Elena, with the encouragement of coach Annette Gray, dared to step out of...

Exposing graduate teachers to models of good practice involves navigating along the conversational continuum between mentoring and coaching. This is a school-based story about how using a blended approach to mentoring and coaching, as needed, supports beginning teachers. In this interview, Sue Richards, a former school leader with 40 years' experience and current GCI coach, explains how she change...

A coaching approach underpins the Woonona High School approach to professional learning, resulting in significant improvements in student learning outcomes. In this interview, Belinda Wall, former Principal at Woonona and, since 2018, a Director with NSW public schools, describes how staff embraced coaching as a way to engage in a rich dialogue around their professional practice, and how students...

Learning how to effectively conduct professional conversations can achieve real change. Since the release of an important publication from AITSL, written by Professor Helen Timperley and focusing on professional conversations and improvement focused feedback, a lot of people are thinking more deeply about the term 'professional conversations' and what this means. Dr Kristine Needham, Emeritus Cons...

Performance Development conversations are usually 'cascading conversations' which can set the direction for Peer Coaching conversations. In this interview, we talk to Grant O'Sullivan about how a coaching approach is useful in these types of conversations and we explore how, and why, effective schools establish a viable link between Performance Development conversations and the Peer Coaching conve...

As a child, Italian science teacher and physicist Elena Joli (Ph. D) dreamed about visiting Antarctica. In this inspiring interview, Elena, and her coach Annette Gray, explain how she has finally been able to achieve this goal as she heads off on the adventure of a lifetime with a ground-breaking year-long Women in Leadership program which is developed by Homeward Bound and aims to empower women i...

As teachers and parents, how can we put the new scientific insights into using a strength-based approach into practise to help build resilience and optimism in children and teens? In this inspiring interview, Professor Lea Waters shares practical tips on how we can identify, grow and call forward strengths in real-life situations at school and at home.

Kate Grayson feels fortunate to have been coached by some wonderfully supportive people very early in her school career. Going through that process inspired her become a champion of coaching in her role as Deputy Principal at Churchlands Senior High School in WA. In this interview, you will hear how Kate uses a coaching approach to inspire the development of others so that they can confidently mee...