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Session 2. Choosing, Training and Matching People, and Finding the Hours
Objective. Set fair selection criteria for coaches and mentors, plan a short training pathway with practice and follow-up, match coaches and coachees with clear rules, and build a realistic weekly hours budget with a safe caseload.
Programmes are made of people and hours. If the wrong people are chosen, nobody trusts the programme; if the training is a lecture, nobody changes how they coach; and if the hours do not exist, nothing happens after September. This lesson goes beyond the key ideas: it shows how to run a selection that colleagues accept, how to build training around practice, and how to read a timetable the way a programme designer must, hour by hour.
Key ideas
Selecting by criteria, not by seniority
- The most senior or the most available teacher is not automatically a good coach. The New Teacher Center warns that choosing mentors by availability or seniority weakens support; it recommends clear criteria such as strong teaching, interpersonal skill, respect of peers and experience with adult learners.
- Use a short, open process: an invitation to everyone, a short written reflection, a reference from a colleague and a 10-minute practice conversation observed by two people. Publish the criteria first so that the result feels fair.
- Separate the coach from the evaluator. A person who also appraises the coachee cannot be trusted with a private struggle. Hobson and Malderez call the habit of mentors passing judgements 'judgementoring' and link it to mentors being asked to assess.
Training that includes practice and follow-up
- A one-off lecture rarely changes how people coach. A World Bank review of teacher training programmes in many countries found larger gains where lessons were practice-based and began with in-person training, and noted that many government programmes offered little follow-up.
- A workable pathway: two days (about 12 hours) of initial training, with at least half spent practising; then four monthly clinics of 90 minutes where coaches bring real, anonymised cases.
- Content in three parts: foundations (role, ethics, confidentiality), skills (listening, questions, evidence-based observation and feedback, already met in courses 11.1 and 11.2) and systems (records, escalation, supervision). Do not reteach the skills in full; refresh them through practice.
Matching with clear rules
- Match first on relevance (same phase or subject where possible, or at least the same building), then on time (shared free periods), then on trust. Where you can, give the coachee a choice of two or three coaches.
- Rule out pairs where the coach is the coachee's line manager, appraiser or relative, and where there is a known conflict. Add a trial month and a clean exit: either person may ask for a change without giving a reason or being blamed.
- Match for the need, not for comfort: a beginner struggling with Grade 7 behaviour needs a coach who is strong in that, not only a friendly one.
Time and workload: the hours decide everything
- Programmes fail first on time. The New Teacher Center recommends that mentor and beginner have 1.25 to 2.5 hours a week together for mentoring activities, protected by leaders. England's early career entitlement gives mentors about one hour a week with each teacher in the first year, and time off timetable for their own training. These are examples to compare with, not rules for Uzbekistan.
- Count the hours of one pair per week: a meeting (30 min), a short visit and feedback (20 min), preparation and a brief note (10 min). That is about one hour of the coach's time per coachee.
- A safe caseload for a coach with a normal timetable is a planning assumption to test, for example two or three coachees; more only with released time. Find hours by swapping duties, merging methodical meetings, timetabling a free period and using cover plans, not by adding unpaid evenings.
A training pathway with follow-up
A selection that people trust
Publish the criteria and the steps before anyone applies. A simple route is a one-paragraph reflection on helping a colleague, a reference from a teacher who has been helped by the candidate, and a 10-minute practice conversation with a colleague playing a worried beginner. Two observers use the same three checks: asks before telling, summarises what was said, leaves the choice to the colleague.
Tell unsuccessful candidates why, and offer a later route, such as joining the next cohort or a peer trio. A selection that is secret or looks like a reward for friendship will damage the programme in its first week. Keep a reserve list so a coach who leaves or is overloaded can be replaced without starting again.
Training built on practice
Adults learn to coach by coaching, so give most of the time to practice. A good two-day pattern is: day one on role, ethics and confidentiality with short demonstrations; day two almost entirely in trios, where one plays coach, one coachee and one observer with a card of three observable behaviours, rotating until each has had a turn.
The learning does not end on day two. The first month of real pairs is where the training takes hold, so the clinic must start early and the coordinator should visit one meeting per coach if both agree. Do not promise mastery from training alone: set the expectation that skill grows through practice and reflection over the first year.
Examples from the classroom
The practice conversation changes the list
Scene. In a Bukhara school, six teachers apply to coach. The most senior, Mr Rustam, gives five pieces of advice in ten minutes to the 'worried beginner' and asks no questions. Quiet Mrs Gulnora asks three questions, summarises and offers two options. The two observers score the same three behaviours. Mrs Gulnora is selected; Mr Rustam is offered a role running the clinic's logistics and a place in the next cohort after he has practised listening.
Insight. A practice task with observable behaviours shows coaching skill, which seniority does not.
A pair that should not be a pair
Scene. The coordinator in a Tashkent school matches new teacher Malika with the deputy head Mr Rustam because they share free periods. In week two Malika tells a friend she does not want to say anything honest to the person who appraises her. The coordinator, who built a clean-exit rule into the agreement, hears about it and offers Malika a choice of two other coaches without asking for a reason. Malika picks Mrs Gulnora and starts the next week.
Insight. Matching rules and a clean exit protect trust when a good-looking match is not safe.
Finding hours in Namangan
Scene. A Namangan school with 24 teachers wants eight coachees supported by four coaches. The deputy lists every coach's week: 22 lessons, a duty, two methodical meetings. She finds 9 hours: each coach gives up one duty (0.75 hours) and receives two released periods (1.5 hours). The plan needs 9.6 hours with clinics, so the clinic moves inside one existing methodical meeting a month, and each coach holds two coachees.
Insight. Counting hours person by person shows what is possible and prevents promises that cannot be kept.
Common pitfalls
- Choosing the coach by title and then being surprised that the coachee says nothing real.
- Training for a day with lectures and no follow-up in real pairs.
- Matching a coachee with the person who appraises them.
- Asking coaches to find time 'somehow' instead of changing the timetable.
Select, Match and Fit the Hours
- Trios (5 min): think of the best helper you ever had at work. Each person names three qualities and one thing the helper did not do.
- Trios (20 min): open the Kit. Read the six SAMPLE candidate profiles. Write your selection criteria first (four to six), then score each candidate 0-2 on each criterion and choose three coaches. Note which candidate a school would choose by seniority or friendship and whether you agree.
- Pairs (15 min): match the three chosen coaches with six coachees described in the Kit using the matching rules. Mark one pair you would not make and give the reason. Write the trial-month rule in one sentence.
- Whole group (5 min): share one selection criterion that was hard to score and one matching rule that surprised you.
- Part B, pairs (30 min): complete the hours budget in the Kit for the SAMPLE school. Calculate the weekly hours needed, the hours you can find, the gap, and decide the caseload. Then outline a training pathway (days, topics, practice share, four clinics) in five lines.
- Alone (10 min): write the leadership task from the Kit and decide how you will announce coach selection openly in your school.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which criterion changed your mind about a candidate you first liked?
- Where did the hours in your budget really come from, and who loses something?
- What would you say to a respected senior teacher who is not selected?
Reflect
- Who in your school would be an excellent coach but would never put themselves forward?
- Which duty could you stop or swap tomorrow to free one hour a week?
- Is any pair in your school at risk of judgementoring because the coach also appraises?
Try it tomorrow
- Write four to six selection criteria for coaches in your school and test them against three people you know.
- Plan a two-day training outline with at least half the time in practice trios.
- List one coach's week hour by hour and find where 1.5 hours could come from without adding evenings.
Further reading and links
Choose by published criteria, train with practice and follow-up, match by rules with a clean exit, and let the hours budget decide the caseload.