Our first ‘Lessons Learned’ post is live. This series captures our rough and ready insights supporting disadvantaged pupils during Coronavirus. We will be sharing what we’ve learnt as we’re going through it in the hope it supports school leaders and other education providers. See our first post in this Lessons Learned: moving digital series by Trish Mbangui our Head of London.
When COVID-19 struck, we at CoachBright had to consider the ways we could continue to support the pupils for whom this period would be full of uncertainty and anxiety around learning and aspiration. What followed was perhaps the most innovative period for us this year, as we continued to expand our support from in person to online delivery. Virtual coaching has not only been key to the way that we have supported disadvantaged pupils during coronavirus, but is also something that we are now looking at to support areas of the UK that are harder to reach.
This month, we reached a milestone. We have had 140 sessions so far, 164 pupils who have or are being coached and 214 university student tutors/coaches trained.
By the end of our pilot, we should have worked with over 230 pupils during Covid-19 lockdown.
It is apt that we now reflect on what it is that we have learnt, what the challenges are but also the benefits of online delivery.
Key things that we learnt
1) The training is not the same
What we couldn’t do and what we realised whilst creating virtual coaching is you can’t just lift the in person programme and put it online as there are so many things about in-person delivery we could not do the same. So for example the training itself was not the same. We had to adapt what is usually an interactive training session into something less interactive but ultimately more comprehensive. We also as we moved over from Zoom to Bramble, we had to help coaches understand how to use that platform and how they could deliver successful sessions online.
2) Relationship matters even more
One of the things that I am proud to say that we do well is fostering great relationships with coaches and their coachees. It is what really makes the programme work and the challenge there was how do we ensure that is not lost online. When delivery sessions are online, you lose the in person reading of body language, of tone, of person to person energy. At first, we used our welcome to the programme booklet as a way of engaging pupils. However, some pupils were still daunted by the idea of meeting a random person online. So we moved to having launch webinars giving pupils a chance to familiarise themselves with Bramble but also us as staff. We encourage coaches to ask their pupils questions, ask them about their day, not rushing into the academics but taking the time to know them, ensuring they are using praise regularly and creating those sessions as a space of comfort, challenge and joy for those pupils. For some pupils, it is one of the reasons that they have really enjoyed these sessions and moving forward we hope to prioritise this even more.
We are considering doing even more during our set up to ensure that the relationships are held to task and remain firm.
3) Prepare to have your tech hat on
One of the key things when setting up something online is that you need to know the tech inside out. Admittedly many of us and speaking for myself were not as tech savvy but recognise that coaches, pupils and teachers do look to you as those who delivering the programme. So spending time getting to know the platform, for us that was Bramble, but getting to know the platform in all it’s intricacy would have enabled us going forward to have better supported our coaches and pupils
4) Expectations need to be made crystal clear
With everything happening online, it is important that you are explicit as possible even to the point of it feeling over the top. This we learnt very early on when having conversations with partner schools, pupils and coaches and often there were small details that were missed out which would lead to an issue later. What worked really well was having a webinar training for our coaches where we were explicit about what we expected. A similar approach existed for pupils where in their introductory emails, we tried to essentially have a step by step guide which gives them all the information needed to start their sessions successfully.
Going forward, we are excited to start collecting pupil, parent and teacher feedback which we will collate and share whilst also iterating our online model so that it is just as effective as our in person model and prepared for partner schools next term.
Watch this space - digital is here to stay!