“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 explores the beliefs and habits that are necessary to promote better communication leading to positive change. Gray talks about the benefits of better communication and how our new program, Better Conversations, is based on this book.

Coaching in Education Podcast Series

Better Conversations with Dr Jim Knight and Gray Ryan

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.

The School as a Conversational Community

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.

Students as Peer Coaches

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 approach to safety and changing the conversation to be more solution-focussed has helped Laing O’Rourke. In this podcast, Rob Mitchell, Coaching Lead at Laing O’Rourke and Suzy Ivy, Training Coordinator at Laing O’Rourke share the impact coaching has had on their organisation.

Case Study - Laing O'Rourke

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 learning.

Instructional Coaching and Growth Coaching International – New Partnership

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.

Case Study Santa Maria College WA

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 this interview, Richard Goater, Director of Staff Development, explains how Hale uses a coaching approach to enable a platform for trust, development and growth

Case Study - Hale School, Perth, WA

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 in which they build the capacity, cooperation and confidence in the Far West.

Building Capacity, Cooperation and Confidence through Coaching

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 her comfort zone and explore her own resourcefulness, taking her transformation beyond the experience of the journey itself. 

Impactful Transformation Begins With Small Steps

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 changed her default approach from mentoring beginning teachers to coaching them, allowing them to take greater ownership of their practice development and maintain their energy and enthusiasm for their important role.

Using a Coaching Approach to Grow the Capacity of Beginning Teachers

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 are being supported in a way that encourages them to accept responsibility for their learning goals.  

Case Study - Woonona High School NSW

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 Consultant to GCI, believes it's important to get some clarity on these terms and what they mean to schools.

How your Professional Conversations can Lead to New Learning

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 conversations.

Performance Development Conversations

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 in STEMM to influence climate change. You’ll hear how Elena came to be involved in this project and how working with a coach has been invaluable in helping her to prepare for her role on board, giving her the best chance of a successful journey.

How Coaching is Helping a Science Teacher Achieve her Antarctica Dream

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.

Using a Strengths-Based Approach in Education and at Home

Welcome to the Coaching in Education Podcast Series – an inspiring series of interviews with practitioners, thought-leaders and research academics in the field of coaching within education. Hosted by respected broadcaster and journalist, Leigh Hatcher, these Growth Coaching International's podcasts are free for education-sector leaders. GET IN TOUCH: Head to http://www.growthcoaching.com.au to subscribe to our free Coaching in Education e-newsletter. Email us at info@growthcoaching.com.au. You can call us on +61 2 9201 8000.

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Coaching in Education Podcast Series

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