State Funded Professional Coaching: Interferences and obstacles to school leaders’ engagement with the process.
Coaching in Education has been gaining notable traction in schools in many countries over the past two decades. It has now become a feature of the Irish education system thanks to the coaching programme for school leaders offered through the Centre for School Leadership (CSL) and fully funded by the Department of Education (DE). The responsibilities of school leaders at primary and post-primary levels have experienced quite radical change since the introduction of the Education Act (1998). Today, due to a heavily increased workload, the role has become less desirable and less tenable leading to serious issues with recruitment and retention. For this research, a qualitative approach to data collection was adopted to garner existing perceptions of coaching from school principals. Using semi-structured interviews and subsequent thematic analysis, the data gathered provided some interesting insights into how coaching is perceived by principals. Specifically, this research was intended to help reveal any reluctance on the part of principals to engage with professional coaching. The benefits of coaching and any barriers to participation that exist were explored. Principals who had already engaged in the coaching process revealed deeper and more complex understandings than their uncoached counterparts. All participants, however, including some who believe they do not need coaching, expressed an openness to engage with a professional coach and were very receptive to the possibility of cultivating a coaching culture in their schools. Several barriers to coaching in education and educational leadership were unearthed. The findings are specific to coaching in educational leadership in the Irish context. This research will serve as a gateway to understanding the knowledge and coaching needs of school leaders and to further academic research in this soon to blossom field of growing and considerable interest.
Key words: Coaching, leadership coaching, school leadership, principal, perceived reluctance, barriers, performance