How Coaching Conversations Can Improve Your Relationships With Students

By Anita Shakya

Beginning with the end in mind is a core component of being efficient, and when we have conversations with any student we always have a destination we want to reach. However, the gap between student understanding and teacher intention can be a tricky thing to navigate. With the time pressures that teachers and students face in a day, how can you have the most effective conversations with a student in such a small space of time? And, what does an effective conversation look like? Many of us may have engaged in conversations with students that have felt one-sided: where teachers have done a lot of the talking and don’t seem to get strong answers to questions such as, “Why do you think we are here?” and “Do you understand what needs to happen now”? oftentimes we leave those conversations with a compliant student but may feel uncertain as to whether the student really understands what their role is with their peers, in the classroom or within the school. Any conversation with a student needs to be valued: it’s an opportunity to teach and it’s an opportunity to listen. Doing both of those things will help build relationships with students that will in the short term and long term make them feel seen and safe, and also help to improve the behaviour for learning across the school.

What is a coaching conversation? Coaching conversations are a shift from telling or giving advice to enabling the student to take responsibility for their own challenges and reach their own conclusions. They can be seen as a guided discussion where your role is to listen and provide questions following the ‘Heart’ (what’s important to them), ‘Head’ (what are their thoughts and observations about the issue) and ‘Step’ (actions they can make) model. Following this model helps a student to realise their own role in a situation before thinking about change. When something is made relevant to them, they are more likely to make changes that stick. How coaching conversations improved my practice: The first thing I stopped doing was asking ‘why’? The word ‘why’ creates a judgemental tone in the conversation and can lead to the student growing defensive instead of open. Why questions can also lack focus and may neglect the structured thinking students sometimes need. Structuring my questions with ‘what’ and ‘how’ meant that the students started doing more of the talking and my contributions to the conversations were minimised. I have adopted a hybrid approach where I do some talking towards the end so that the conversation feels organic. I have also become more comfortable with silences; allowing the student to think about what they would like to say and taking ownership. How can I have a coaching conversation? Every conversation is unique and the main idea is to listen and then respond but here are some examples of WHAT and HOW questions, following the heart, head step model. If you feel a student has understood the value, you can move on to the thinking and when you feel as though the student understands the situation at large, you can move on to the actions. Here are some examples of questions under each step: HEART (Emotive and Intrinsic) What do you want to achieve? What is important to you in regards to ________ I heard you say “_______” what made you feel this way? How are you feeling about ________ (if they are silent) what’s your greatest concern at the moment? HEAD (Analytical and Critical) What were you prioritising at that moment? How do you see yourself progressing at the moment? How do you see yourself in relation to this? I noticed you said _______ earlier, how does that impact ________? What has contributed to your approach/feelings? What does success look like for you? (if they are silent) What are some of the thoughts you’re having? STEP (Action-based) What options do you have available to you? What do you need in order to be successful What could you do differently next time? How can you achieve ________? How can I start?

Perhaps try a hybrid next time: communicate the goal of the conversation; swap ‘why’ with ‘what’ and ‘how’ and do more active listening. By noticing what students say and guiding questions from this students will feel like they’ve been heard and feel like they’ve contributed to the solution.