If you are new to the idea of a coaching classroom, this is a good place to begin.

You don’t need to understand everything at once. Start with one 'coachable  moment', one idea, and one small step.

In many classrooms, the teacher does most of the thinking.

In a coaching classroom, students are more involved: thinking, responding, and taking responsibility for their learning.

This shift often begins in small moments. The difference between reacting and responding, is one slow intake of breath.

Choice

In the middle of a lesson, something unexpected happens.

You have a choice.

Do you react immediately…
or pause and choose your response?

What would you do?

Here's is my epiphany moment, when I realised that even as a teacher, I could coach.

Superman’s Underpants 

Curiosity instead of control

When I was a newly qualified teacher in my first job at a secondary school, I was enthusiastic about Mathematics and wanted to pass that enthusiasm on to my students.

One day, while writing on the blackboard, I heard laughter behind me. One of the taller boys was clearly enjoying attracting the attention of the class and distracting them from what I was teaching, the Noble Art of Maths.

Some of the students were taller than I was. Along with their size came a growing interest in impressing one another. In this mixed class, there were plenty of opportunities for boys and girls to show off.

From the laughter, I realised I had lost the class.

In that moment, I had a choice: continue with the mathematics, or shift to something else.

I turned my attention to the boy at the back. Somehow — and I still don’t know how — he had managed to take off his underpants without removing his trousers, and then put them back on over his trousers, like Superman.

I could have reacted. I could have shouted, demanded he leave, insisted on an apology.

Instead, I found myself asking, not “Why?” but “How?”

I was not angry. I was curious.

Standing beside him, asking “How?”, we shared the attention of the class. It became an opportunity to talk about the difference between private and public behaviour, what is appropriate in a classroom, and how to get attention without taking your pants off.

I asked him to stand and adjust his clothing. The attention he received now was rather less glamorous than before.

Being a novice, I still felt the need to assert my authority. It felt slightly ridiculous looking up at this giant of a boy and saying, “Don’t do it again”…

So I grabbed a chair, stood on it to make myself taller, and in an over-dramatic voice said:

“Don’t… do that… again!”

“No Sir,” he replied, smiling, and accepted the 'telling off' in good spirits.

I sent him out to adjust his clothing.

Coaching Perspective

In a moment where control would have been the obvious response, curiosity created a better outcome.

The situation became a learning opportunity, not just about behaviour, but about awareness and choice.

The Coaching Move

Stay curious. Replace reaction with interest in what is happening.

Something you can try

The next time a student disrupts your lesson:

• Notice your immediate reaction

• Pause, even briefly, one breath will be enough

• Instead of giving an instruction, ask a question based on honest curiosity.

Afterwards, reflect, "How easily did you find a question to ask?" and "What changed when you chose curiosity?"

This is just one moment.

There are many others,  some light, some more challenging, all real. All of them are recorded in my published books, but more about that later. For now I invite you to...

→ Explore more classroom stories.