I’ve been a coach on the SBPA and CMDAS programmes for almost two years. There’s no such thing as a typical day for a coach. The role is as varied as the schools and the individuals we work with and so I’m amalgamating visits to give a brief flavour of what’s involved.
It’s an early start as I’m visiting a school two hours from home (my choice, I enjoy the drive and catching up with music and podcasts). I arrive before school starts and I’m relieved that once again, it’s a setting where everyone offers you a cuppa on sight. It’s the first meeting with the apprentice so after introductions, she takes me on a tour – a really valuable part of visit one when the facts and figures are brought to life and the sense of pride each school business professional takes in their school/college is strongly conveyed.
The coaching conversation covers a lot of ground. With next steps identified and agreed, it’s on to Visit Two. This is our third point of contact and so we’re discussing progress on the units, possible project areas and the range of evidence being uploaded to the electronic portfolio. As a coach, rather than providing answers to questions (although there is still quite a lot of that required), I see my role primarily as one of posing questions of the apprentice, supporting them to draw the learning from their experiences and reflections.
We were doing exactly that, exploring the complexities of staffing cover for lunch breaks, when the apprentice’s new watch thought it could make a helpful contribution, saying “here are some recommended places for lunch near you”! The final visit of the day finds the apprentice and me meeting with the headteacher during a Forest School session for the Nursery. We felt conspicuous by our lack of wellies but enjoyed admiring the mud pies and stick utensils in between discussing objectives for the next phase of the apprenticeship. These visits illustrate why I enjoy this role – each one is different, each highlights new possibilities and each reinforces how the programme benefits pupils and communities.
