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Session 1. The Coaching Cycle and the Coach's Role
Objective. Explain how coaching differs from mentoring and evaluating, make a coaching agreement and plan one full coaching cycle with a colleague.
A colleague asks you to look at a lesson. What happens next decides whether the visit helps or hurts. Without a shared cycle and clear roles, observation turns into inspection, advice or gossip. This lesson goes deeper than the key ideas: why the separation of roles matters so much in a school, and how to keep a cycle short enough to survive a real timetable. You will leave with a plan you can start within a week.
Key ideas
Three different jobs
- Coaching: the colleague chooses the goal, you ask questions and bring evidence, and what you see stays private. Mentoring: you advise and guide a newcomer (course 11.2). Evaluating: you judge quality for a decision such as a rating.
- One person can do all three in a school, but not in the same conversation. Say aloud which hat you are wearing.
- If marks reach the file, colleagues stop being honest with a coach. Keep coaching notes out of any evaluation.
The four stages
- Goal: a 20-minute conversation to find one specific thing to change for pupils. Observe: 10 to 15 minutes of one lesson, with one tool and one focus.
- Feedback: within two days, about 20 minutes, evidence first. Action: the colleague tries one small step for two to three weeks.
- Then a follow-up with the same tool closes the loop and may start a new cycle. A whole cycle takes about four to five weeks.
The coaching agreement
- Before anything else, agree five things: that coaching is voluntary, who chooses the focus, who sees the notes, how often you meet, and how either of you can stop.
- Say the limit too: if a pupil is at risk, the school's safeguarding rules come first and you will tell the colleague before you act.
- A 5-line agreement, said aloud and written on one page, is enough. It protects both people.
Small enough for a real school
- Watch a slice of a lesson, not the whole lesson, and use one focus. A short, repeated cycle beats one long visit.
- Use free periods, swap a duty or use a 15-minute break slot. Paper and a pen are the only tools you need.
- Coach one or two colleagues well rather than six badly. Depth matters more than numbers.
The coaching cycle
Why roles must stay separate
In a school everyone knows everyone. If the person who helps you is also the person who writes about you, you will show only your best lessons and say only safe things. That is a normal human reaction, not a lack of honesty. A coach therefore needs to say which role they hold and what happens to the notes.
A practical test is to ask: 'If this note were read by the head tomorrow, would my colleague still speak freely today?' If the answer is no, the note does not belong in coaching. Evaluators and mentors have honest jobs too; the harm comes only from mixing them without saying so.
A cycle small enough to finish
Many coaching efforts fail because they are too big: a full-lesson observation, a long report, a meeting that never happens. A cycle that fits a Uzbek school day is small: a 20-minute goal talk, a 10 to 15 minute slice of one lesson, a 20-minute feedback talk within two days, and a follow-up some weeks later.
Put the dates in both diaries at the first meeting. Plan with the colleague's timetable, not yours, and use a free period or a break. If a stage slips, move it, do not drop it. A short cycle completed teaches more than a perfect plan never used.
Examples from the classroom
The mark that closed a door
Scene. Gulnora in Fergana observes Bekzod's Grade 9 lesson at the deputy head's request and sends a mark from 1 to 5 to the file. Bekzod later says 'everything is fine' whenever she offers help. A month later the deputy head asks her to coach him again. Gulnora tells the deputy head that she will either evaluate or coach, not both, and asks someone else to do the rating.
Insight. Mixing roles costs trust; naming the role and separating it restores a safe base for coaching.
Fifteen minutes at the break
Scene. Dilnoza teaches Grade 5 in Samarkand and has no free periods on Tuesday. Her coach Aziz meets her for 15 minutes in the first break, watches the first 10 minutes of her Thursday lesson, and gives feedback on Friday in another break. The cycle takes five weeks and about 90 minutes of Aziz's time.
Insight. A short cycle that fits the real timetable is finished; a long ideal plan is not.
The three hats on one table
Scene. In a school in Bukhara, the head of the maths department Malika is also the mentor of a new teacher and has to rate her for a category. At the start she says: 'Today I am your coach. The ratings are done later by the deputy head, and I will not share these notes.' She puts a small card marked COACH on the table. The new teacher laughs, then relaxes.
Insight. Saying the role aloud, even with a card, makes the rules visible and lowers fear.
Common pitfalls
- Doing a full-lesson observation when 10 to 15 focused minutes would do.
- Letting the coach choose the goal because the coach is more experienced.
- Passing the coaching notes to the head 'just to keep him informed'.
- Starting without dates, so that the cycle fades after the first meeting.
Sort the Roles and Plan a Cycle
- Open the Activity Kit: ten statements about what a person does. In trios, sort each into COACH, MENTOR or EVALUATOR (10 min).
- Whole group (5 min): look at the statements where you disagreed. Discuss when one person holds two roles, and how to say so.
- Pairs (20 min): choose a real colleague situation (no names). Fill in the cycle planner: what happens at each stage, on which date in the next five weeks, and how many minutes it costs you.
- Second short activity (10 min): write your five-line coaching agreement for that colleague. Read it to your partner, who asks only one question: 'What is missing?'
- Alone (5 min): write your school-based task from the Kit and the date you will invite your colleague.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which statements were hardest to sort, and why?
- What did your cycle plan reveal about the time you really have?
- What would a colleague in your school fear when you say the word 'observation', and how does the agreement answer it?
Reflect
- Who helped you improve as a teacher? Was it coaching, mentoring or evaluation?
- Which colleague would say yes to a coaching offer from you, and why that person?
- What is one thing you would never write in coaching notes?
Try it tomorrow
- Write your three roles at school (coach, mentor, evaluator) and decide which one you hold with the colleague you will invite.
- Put the four cycle dates in your diary for the next five weeks, with a 15-minute slot each.
- Say your five-line agreement aloud at your first meeting and ask the colleague what to add.
Further reading and links
Coaching is the colleague's goal, a short cycle, evidence and privacy: say which role you are in, and agree the rules first.