'Coaches Like Us': You Have to See It To Be It

‘You have to see it to be it,’ the quote from Billy Jean King, is a phrase we hear used a lot to challenge the lack of visible role models in society but also in our profession.

It is widely agreed that diverse representation is needed in every layer of the school system. 

Our trust boards and governing bodies, our CEOs and Headteachers, our Senior Leader Teams are all people spaces that need diversifying. Alongside reviewing representation in our curriculum and in our libraries, for our learners, we also need to review it for our staff. (This is why we host a #DiverseEd World Book Day event each year to amplify authors from our network).  

There is a lot of continuing work to be done to disrupt, to dismantle, to diversify these different spaces and to review who gets to occupy them. 

But there are other educational spaces for us to also review:

• Who recruits, develops and mentors our trainee teachers?

• Who recruits, develops and mentors our early career teachers?

• Who recruits, develops and mentors our aspiring leaders?

• Who recruits, develops and coaches our existing leaders?

When you review these spaces you will often find a homogenous team, a team who mainly hold majority identities.

So how are the trainers, the mentors and the coaches being trained to become conscious of their own identity, to become confident in addressing their own privilege and to become confident in disrupting bias in the many forms through which it can manifest?

How trauma-informed are the trainers, the mentors and the coaches in supporting individuals who have experienced identity-based harm?    

The Church of England Foundation for Educational Leadership launched a brilliant pipeline programme to nurture leaders from a global majority background called Leaders Like Us a couple of years ago, in partnership with Aspiring Heads and the Institute for Educational & Social Equity.  This programme is a gamechanger for our education system and our future workforce.

So let’s all consider what Trainers… Mentors… Coaches … ‘Like Us’ would look like.

If we put a spotlight on ‘Coaches Like Us’ as a school, college, trust, SCITT, Teaching School Hub and localities we need to ask ourselves:

• Who gets to be coached?

• Who gets to be The Coach?

• Who gets invested in?  

• Who gets nurtured to flourish? 

• Who gets supported to progress?

And most importantly, do people get to choose their coach? Or what has become a common phenomenon – does a coach get chosen for them? 

Coaching is about creating a safe space. About having a confidential conversation. About exploring how one is feeling. About being vulnerable and open. If your coach is your line manager or someone you work closely with – someone who might appraise your performance or sit on a promotion panel – we are in muddy waters.   

What difference would it make for an aspiring leader to self-select a coach who resonates with them? A coach who shares their identity? A coach who has walked their walk?

Some final thoughts:

• How might being coached or becoming a coach help diverse educators stay in the system?

• How might being coached or becoming a coach help diverse leaders climb up the leadership ladder? 

• How might being coached or becoming a coach help us tackle the glass ceiling and the concrete ceiling in the education system? 

To help our clients, who have asked for our support in diversifying their coaching pools, we have created a #DiverseEd Coaching Directory:

• You can find 25+ coaching profiles here.
• You can meet our coaches through our video gallery here.
• Get in touch if you are a coach who would like to be added or if you are looking for a coach and would like to be connected here.