What+is+coaching?

=__**Who are coaches and what is their role?** __=

Coaches foster professional relationships with and between teachers and leaders. Using contextual knowledge, coaches develop and maintain partnerships based on mutual trust and respect to enable collaborative relationships. Coaches support all stakeholders to review their roles and responsibilities regularly as coaching relationships develop. They promote shared accountability between all stakeholders.

The following members of staff at Eltham High School are engaged as coaches in 2012: Craig Bradley John Gioskos Melissa Hughes Rai Jones Linda McLeod Marian Stoney Chantalle Wigley

Coaches at Eltham High School are not the coaches that you read about in the media. The coaches that you read about in the papers have been employed through the National Partnership program and have been allocated to schools where a specific need has been identified. The coaches at Eltham High School have been appointed by the school to meet the needs of our school and our staff. Coaches at EHS are there to facilitate customised professional learning and to support the whole school improvement agenda.

__** Why use coaches? ** __

Teacher quality at the very centre of learning. It is based on research that consistently highlights the quality of teachers as a key determinant of variation in student achievement (Ferguson & Ladd 1996; Wenglinsky 2000; Darling-Hammond 2000). The research asserts that, in order to be effective, teachers need a deep understanding of their subject area, knowledge of how students learn specific subject matter and a range of strategies and practices that support student learning. **The research also affirms that engaging teachers in high quality professional learning is the most successful way to improve teacher effectiveness** (Greenwald, Hedges & Laine 1995; Guskey & Huberman 1995; Elmore & Burney 1997; Hawley & Valli 1999; Elmore 2002).

Coaching, when embedded and running effectively in a school is an established way of providing staff with the high quality professional learning that they need.

__** Resources: **__ Coaching Teachers in Effective Instruction has been designed to define the role of coaches within the school improvement agenda and guide the professional growth of Victorian coaches.