CollectivED: The Centre for coaching, mentoring & professional learning

CollectivED The Centre for Mentoring, Coaching and Professional Learning aims to expand the available knowledge base on coaching, mentoring and collaborative professional development through research and develop new approaches to active knowledge exchange.

2 men sat at table talking
Conversation between two people in initial teacher training

collaborative conversations powerful learning

CollectivED: The Centre for Mentoring, Coaching & Professional Learning is a research and practice centre based in The Carnegie School of Education. We form a community of professionals, academics and students with shared interests. Our aims are to;

  • Encourage and enable collaborative conversations which create powerful professional learning
  • Build capacity of educators to create contexts which support inclusive career-long and profession-wide learning
  • Remove barriers to professional development
  • Increase opportunities for educational change through enhanced professional agency and well-being

CollectivED Quick Guide to Teacher Coaching:

This publication is a collection of ideas about coaching to support teachers to develop teaching.

Sign up here

Our research relates to formal and informal professional learning and practice in all sectors of education.

Our research focuses on

  • Teacher education and professional learning at all career stages
  • Learning through mentoring, coaching, digital pedagogies, workplace and interprofessional practices
  • Teachers’ and leaders’ professionalism, identity, wellbeing, self-efficacy and agency
  • Educational policy and partnership

CollectivED: The Centre for Coaching, Mentoring, Supervision and Professional Learning Webinar series

Always Curious, Always Questioning and Always Listening.

SIGN UP to access four recorded webinars presented by Professor Rachel Lofthouse, Trista Hollweck and Jasen Booten.

Sign up here

CollectivED: Research Seminar Series 2023-24

Please see Schedule and Booking Form below for our forthcoming Research Seminar Series.

Event Date & Time Title Speakers
1 22nd November 2023, 12.00-13.00

Teacher Education in Tension - 3 Provocations:

  • ‘The ‘Golden Thread’ of Teacher Development as Coercive Control’
  • ‘Teachers as seconded teacher educators; transformations and tensions’
  • ‘Charting contested terrain in Teacher Education’

Prof Rachel Lofthouse

Jan Rowe (Liverpool John Moores University)

Dr Clara O'Donnell (Maynooth University, Ireland)

2 24th January 2024, 12.00-13.00

'From Enabling Collaborative Encounters to Leading Sustainable Improvement - A New Conceptualisation of Educational Change.'

Prof Rachel Lofthouse

Dr Trista Hollweck

Emma Adams

Melanie Chambers

3 1st May 2024, 12.00-13.00 

CollectivED Prof Rachel Lofthouse:

  • 'Post Erasmus Reflections'

Prof Rachel Lofthouse

Dr Diana Tremayne

Mhairi Beaton

Meri Nasilyan

Tracy Edwards

Awards

Our new award will enable educational providers to make coaching, mentoring and professional learning a guided strategic priority for school development. The award will focus on the creation of an implementation plan which will guide the whole school community through a process of building the skills and knowledge needed to bring about whole school improvements in coaching, mentoring and professional learning.

The award will provide a framework to evidence initiatives that work towards demonstrating a commitment towards excellent practice by making coaching, mentoring and professional learning a part of your core business. You will work with an allocated coach to create a personalised action plan for your organisation.

Together, you will develop a portfolio of evidence for your school set against the competencies of the framework, your evidence will then be verified against bronze, silver or gold levels. 

To find out more information click here.

Should you wish to complete the award, please complete this form: CollectivED Award booking form.

CollectivEd

Senior Fellowship

The CollectivED Senior Fellowship is part of the commitment that the Carnegie School of Education has to building connected communities of education practitioners and researchers.

We are pleased to acknowledge the success of those who have been awarded Senior Fellowship and you can find out more about their coaching experiences below:-

I have just retired as a teacher after 40 years in the profession. In that time I have been the recipient of good professional learning, but many of these opportunities have been of my own making but have enabled me to progress in my career to a co-headship.

Throughout my time as a leader, I have endeavoured to enable all staff to progress in their expertise. This has included spending time mentoring, coaching or supervising individuals depending on the need at the time. This has been a developing feature in our school appraisal process and our school development plans. As a result of this work, we were awarded the CollectivEd Award at gold level.

I have also completed the PGCert in Coaching and Mentoring at Leeds Beckett and completed a MRes, researching the co-headship that I was a part of. I hope to continue supporting schools by thinking through sustainable models in the future.

My current professional interest in mentoring and coaching is grounded in being the SCITT Director at Bromley Schools’ Collegiate for the last 10 years, training trainees and their mentors to develop their professional practice.

My current research interests are in the development and sustaining of professional learning communities and networks within Initial Teacher Training placement schools. Through building and sustaining these communities of collaborative professional learning, we can better prepare trainee teachers for the transition into employment.

I feel that this work matters as without a sustained pipeline of new teachers into the profession, supported by expert mentors, our education system will not be able to provide the best start in life for the young people in our communities.

Through developing the internal infrastructure within our schools to develop the practice of trainee teachers and their mentors, we can maximise the impact of the professional training we provide through school placements.

As a cross-domain leader, both in the military and also education, it is incumbent upon me to develop the professional experience and capability of those who co-create our workplace. Coaching underpins that development and allows for divergent thinking, enhanced and profound conversation and illuminated problem solving. This empowers people and creates a high-performance team culture.

I always bring my authentic self to work in supporting others as a coach mentor and leader. As a writer, I try to find both the words and the media to create opportunities for others to reflect on educational practice, empathetic engagement. In an educational landscape shaped by neoliberal ideology, I try to switch the narrative from market-place competitive rhetoric to human-centric self-reflection and personal growth. The work of investing in others and ourselves is crucial to rethinking and reworking educational policy, practice and lived experience for all stakeholders.

For the last 11 years, I have been a Whole School Leader of Professional Learning.

In this time, I have supported staff to collectively create a culture of professional learning for our wide community that is staff and student led, sustainable, built on our core values, allows for choice, and celebrates our skill as professionals.

I believe it is the role of school leaders to create a climate of trust, spark curiosity, make connections and empower others to ultimately make a difference to everyone’s experience of learning.

I am confident that as fellow practitioners and educators that we all want to learn and have the knowledge and skills to collaboratively support each other in doing so.

I trust that by working together, we can learn from each other’s passions, give agency to our voices, and enjoy our professional roles to prepare the next generation of learners to be equally active participants in shaping the world around us.

I am Associate Head – Staff Development at the Crowther Centre for Applied Educational Research and Adjunct Lecturer at LaTrobe University. I have received multiple teaching awards and consults internationally to schools on culture, belonging and coaching. I completed my Doctor of Education and Masters in Education Policy (International) at the University of Melbourne. I am the author of ‘The classroom management handbook’ and currently lead the staff development program and team of 14 coaches at a large school in Melbourne, Australia.

To support mentoring, coaching and professional learning in Australia, I also facilitate the Australian Staff Development Network and run the online coaching lab. These projects are designed to improve the quality of education for students in Australia and overseas.

I am an Instructional Coach based in an international school in Germany.

I have worked with numerous colleagues on goals or challenges that are important to them. Additionally, I have delivered coaching workshops at conferences and worked with other schools, and helped my current school achieve the CollectivED Coaching Bronze Award. Coaching is personalised professional development.

This work matters because (to quote colleagues I work with):

  • “[It] provides time to think through and shape ideas. Having dedicated time to solve a problem makes a huge difference”
  • “My regular meeting with my coach forces me to set time aside, to stop working, and to reflect. It’s a bit of an oasis time really”
  • “My coach shows me the positives that I forget”
  • “It's allowed me to value my own efforts (I was always self-critical)”
  • “To focus on my own goals and aspirations”

In summary, coaching helps people grow.

CollectivED Fellows may apply for Senior Fellowship following the 2nd anniversary of their initial fellowship award.

For further information on how to apply for CollectivED Senior Fellowship please contact collectived@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

Supervision in an Educational Context

Join Professor Rachel Lofthouse and Anne Turnbull as they discuss Supervision in an educational context and answer the following:

  • What is Supervision?
  • Who is a Client in the context of education?
  • What does the term ‘Supervisor’ mean in the context of education?
  • What is the benefit of Supervision?
  • Who most benefits from Supervision?

Please contact us for more information on our supervisor offer.

  • Amanda Bennett
  • Andrew Mears
  • Andy Mellor
  • Bethan Hindley
  • Charmaine Roche
  • Jackie Moses
  • James Pope
  • Katie Chedzey
  • Kelly Ashley
  • Liz Dawson
  • Lou Mycroft
  • Mhairi Beaton
  • Natasha Armitage Evans
  • Peter Hall-Jones
  • Rose Blackman-Hegan
  • Stefanie Wilkinson

Research outputs

Get in touch and work with us