Q and A

What are the intended educational outcomes of Solutions Focused coaching?

Sf coaching is designed to promote resilience, self-motivation, raised self-esteem and wellbeing on the part of the student being coached. Increased wellbeing and mental health, resilience, metacognition are the goals, are to develop and strengthen resilience

Why use Solutions Focused coaching to support children’s inclusion and wellbeing and to prevent exclusion?

SF coaching brings a new and positive dimension to pastoral work with children where previously support has been limited to rewarding children in the hope of tying in good behaviour and punishing them when they fail to do as expected.

Solutions Focused coaching develops an empathetic relationship between the coat and the client and it is known that this type of relationship strengthens inclusion. Solutions Focused coaching is non-directive; the coach and client engage in the process of learning and change together. The coach asks open ended questions, listens actively, encourages reflective thinking and independent action on the part of the client.
(In contrast, directive coaching is where the coach offers solutions, tools and techniques for moving forward. This can result in the client not being committed to the process because the coach’s solutions may not match their personal situation and needs.)

How is Solutions Focused coaching different from conventional behaviour management?

Solutions Focused coaching taps into the resources and the natural drive children have make the most of themselves, to be the best they can be. Change is seen as happening from the inside, by engaging a child’s intrinsic motivation, their resources and strengths, leading to new learning and new action.
In contrast conventional behaviour management puts responsibility for change in the hands of the adult, using reward and punishment to make it happen. The child’s feelings, their experience of being managed and how it affects them emotionally are seen as being irrelevant. This type of behaviour management is not designed to promote the mental wellbeing of vulnerable students because it focuses on failures and deficits and how to put a stop to them.