CSM Directory

Biography:

Mr Metacognition - providing metacognitive training and consultancy to schools and Universities across the UK. Also supporting with ITT delivering and NPQ projects around metacognition.
Former Head of Maths - moved to a collaborative, mixed attainment mastery curriculum.
Former Assistant Head of Maths
Former KS3 Assistant Pastoral Lead - in change of behaviour and data monitoring.
Former More Able and Talented Coordinator.

My experience has been in the form of
A) being an in school mentor
B) the coaching that I have received
C) the coaching I will do through my roles in the next year

(A) I have been a mentor officially for one new member of a Maths team, and unofficially for several other Maths teachers. I have sat in on mentor meetings and supported with documentation.
(B) I have previously received high quality coaching - the best CPD of my life - which I will look to repeat as a coach.
(C) I will be coaching, mentoring and supporting this year when I am delivering ITT provision and supporting around NPQs and with my work as a Maths Hub lead.

My approach is to listen. Often, educators need a space to talk to someone impartial - someone outside of their usual circle.
This allows criticality. The best CPD I have ever had is an outside voice asking deeply penetrating questions. Why do we make certain assumptions? Are we sure that that is the case? What is our evidence for that? Have we triangulated that?
This is all built from having a strong relationship, as without this there can be pushback. Equally, this style of coaching needs to be contracted, otherwise there may be issues that arise down the line!
As important as this first part of coaching is, all around issue diagnosis and having an area to vent, the importance of coaching is to identify next steps.
Crucially, as a coach, you are not determining these next steps. Instead, experience can be shared where suitable or requested, but the aim is to identify reasonable targets that the individual can work towards. What do they want to achieve? What is the time frame? What does success look like? Is any further support required? Any, criticality is important here to really drill down into what needs to be done and when it is going to be done.
As with all of my work, including coaching, there needs to be an actionable outcome, otherwise time can often feel wasted. Therefore, each session should come out with clear aims, even where those aims are to clarify issues, consider solutions, and re present them in a few weeks line.
Progress along the journey, with criticality and a supportive coach, will have been made.