Coaching with CoachBright supports students’ work ethic, improves their attitude towards their studies, and boosts their confidence in their learning. The students are able to nurture their academic abilities and receive a helping hand to reach those higher grades.
However, being a coach goes beyond school. It involves being a role model to a younger student to enable them to see that they can become reflective, independent and strong spirited learners and pave their own path for the lives they want to steer.
Consequently, being a role model for the younger generation is an extremely important role to play in our society. This is even more significant for students from disadvantaged backgrounds such as low-income families and young people who are on free school meals [1]. The attainment gap in education identifies the concern that in secondary education young people from low-income backgrounds do not perform as well as students from other backgrounds in the UK [2], thus reflecting the social mobility issue. Therefore, it is vital for these young people to have a role model who is able to guide them and boost their results and self-belief. This kind of support provides them with new opportunities to take a further step towards closing the attainment gap.
The qualities of being a role model as well as a coach are inherently intermingled in the very nature of the programme. One-to-one coaching allows university students to share their personal experiences, revision techniques and advice from when they were in school. This motivates their coachees and helps them realise that hard work really does pay off. Such guidance is tailored for the student as the relationship blossoms throughout the seven weeks of the programme. With 89% of CoachBright pupils going on to study at university in 2018 and progressing by more than four times compared to their non-coached peers [3], it is clear that CoachBright has been life-changing for young people.
Coaching is therefore about merging the direct academic support of a tutor with the life skills and encouragement of a role model. These life skills cannot be taught in the classroom. They can only be learnt through experience, with CoachBright’s programmes generating a platform for these opportunities to grow.
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Blog post by Reema Chauhan, Coach on our Erdington Programme, Birmingham
