Coaching for all: Empowering Australian educators through collaborative relationships

 Professor Rachel Lofthouse, Director of CollectivED at Leeds Beckett University was one of the keynote contributors. 

The Australian EduCoaches Community spans educational institutions and settings across all sectors, from early learning to higher education, and serves educators, students, and communities in public, private, and independent contexts. Established by Stephy Salazar, Natasha Mercer and myself, Mark Bennett, we plan to address current educational challenges in Australia. Drawing from our experience as coaches in schools, we aim to promote equitable access to coaching conversations and share a vision to make coaching more accessible and transparent, all the while emphasising a set of core beliefs. We recognise that coaching in education can be limited or harmful when not implemented well, leading to damaging misconceptions. We believe that the benefits of coaching should extend beyond those with the title ‘coach’. As such, we seek to collect and share success stories to inspire educators to become agents of change through coach-like professional conversations within their contexts.

The chosen theme for the inaugural event, 'Stories of Collaboration in Coaching’, reflected the core values that initially brought us together. We aimed to attract a diverse audience interested in coaching, not limited to coaches alone, by promoting the event widely on our professional social media platforms. We sought speakers who could provide insights into collaborative coaching practices in educational settings across Australia, using a TeachMeet style. These stories were intended to highlight the impactful coaching work taking place daily and stimulate discussions about coaching's role in our institutions.

In bringing like-minded and curious professionals together, including Rachel Lofthouse, with a keynote presentation on the theme of ‘Collaboration in Coaching’, our event was able to surface a number of key themes. I will briefly elaborate upon three key themes emerging from the event, with reference to some of the points that the presenters shared.

Theme 1: Collaboration needs defining
While we regularly espouse that we are in collaboration with others, it is often enacted without much thought about exactly what constitutes collaboration. Multiple speakers noted that collaboration involved active work towards a shared focus. While the purpose may differ in each context, such as the improvement of student outcomes in a Primary school or wellbeing support systems for higher education students, it was noted that coaches play an important role in gaining clarity of purpose with those they work with, so that the work can be productive. 

Theme 2: Powerful collaborative relationships yields great success 
During the event, presenters shared collaboration stories from their respective contexts. While Rachel referenced her research in collaborative coaching relationships having a positive effect on hope, it was also noted that effective collaboration can improve student learning outcomes. Interestingly in another presentation, one coach recognised the benefits of powerful collaboration in enhancing complex problem-solving. This success was attributed to a well-developed, contextually relevant collaborative coaching structure with clear roles and responsibilities, highlighting the school's investment in this approach.

Theme 3: Collaboration involves roles and responsibilities
A number of presenters acknowledged the importance of roles and responsibilities being an enabling factor for successful collaboration. During the event, a panel discussion was held between Australian EduCoaches Community co-founder Natasha and a former high school student student. The discussion outlined Natasha’s school Alumni coaching program, whereby former students would visit their secondary school and host coaching conversations with current senior students. The alumni would work alongside their conversation partners as they navigate the challenges that life and study presents. Importantly, Alumni would be trained in facilitating empowering conversations, learn how to listen for what what is wanted, and how to ask questions that encouraged new thinking. They were also taught to recognise when a coaching conversation needed to be referred to a pastoral leader when required. 

Final Comment
The inaugural event was a remarkable success, drawing a substantial number of attendees and generating strong interest from those eager to present at our follow up event scheduled for early 2024. The theme of collaboration in coaching proved to be a valuable topic to initially address with presenters sharing highly informative stories from the field. While on the surface the event launched our community into the Australian educational landscape, I believe it was also a distinct signal that the future of education is embedded in purposeful and effective collaborative relationships. Collaboration can act as a mobilising agent in our education system, equipping those willing with an empowering language, resources to address complex educational issues, as well as an understanding that meaningful change is possible. As such, the Australian EduCoaches Community continues to uphold its values through active engagement on social media and collaborations with other professional learning networks in the interim.