During the 25/26 school year, members of the AAICIS research team interviewed instructional coaches and administrators working across 11 countries and 4 continents. You can read Part 3 of our 4-part series in the TIEOnline Newsletter. If you missed Part 2, you can find it here, or Part 1, here.
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What We Learned
Diversity within international schools is inherent, and the environment in which instructional coaches function is uniquely multicultural. Our research revealed a persistent trend that supporting the growth of all educators within a school requires highly personalized, adaptable, and culturally sensitive strategies. Key themes our participants surfaced as worthy of awareness and attention are:
- Past coaching experiences need to be acknowledged.
- Coaches need to position themselves as a supportive partner rather than in a supervisory role.
- One should not assume a lack of diversity because of faculty type (i.e. not all local hires are the same, nor are all foreign hires)
- It is important to consider how shared language can both enhance and inhibit a coaching relationship.
- Coaches need to balance support for all within their scope of practice.
What This Means for Your Context
In your school, this will undoubtedly be as unique and context-specific as our participants shared. However, clarity of coaching roles is essential, along with the ability to embrace dynamic and responsive practice that honors cultural nuances and builds inclusive support systems. To evaluate this, some questions you and your team can consider are:
- Could every teacher in the building clearly explain what our coaches do—and what they don’t do?
- When we give feedback, are we considering the cultural backgrounds and communication styles of our diverse staff, or are we using a “one-size-fits-all” rubric?
- Does our coaching system catch everyone, or are there “islands” of educators (like specialists or other local staff) who feel excluded from the coaching loop?
- How quickly can our coaching practices pivot when we realize a strategy isn’t resonating with our local context?
A Helpful Resource
Beyond the individual skills of a coach, the long-term impact of any coaching program is dictated by the environment in which it operates. The AAICIS Conditions for Coaching Success serves as a vital diagnostic tool to evaluate the structural health of a coaching culture. By focusing on the systemic pillars stated, this framework ensures that coaching is treated as a core strategic function rather than a peripheral luxury and that it can support the entire teaching community. Three reflective exercises coaches might try with their administrative teams are:
- Who is on an island?
- Look at the Conditions for Coaching Success and individually reflect on the following question: Which groups in our school (e.g., local staff, specialists, or specific language groups) might not feel the ‘Conditions’ are being met for them?
- Cultural Mirror
- Prompt: “In what ways might our current definition of ‘support’ be misinterpreted as ‘supervision’ by staff from different cultural or pedagogical backgrounds?”
- Prompt: How might we be assuming our coaching is ‘supportive’ when it might feel ‘evaluative’ to a teacher who has only experienced top-down management in the past?
- Action: Look at your current feedback tools and structures. Identify similarities and differences in coaching versus administrative feedback loops.
- Barrier Analysis
Identify one “Condition” that is currently acting as a barrier to inclusion (e.g., Shared Language or Time for Collaboration).
- Action: How can we adjust this condition to be more responsive to our local context? (i.e. Changing the feedback rubric to a conversational reflection to better suit diverse communication styles).
AAICIS Is Here to Support
AAICIS is available to support you in these conversations! Connect with a member of our School Support Team to learn more! And be sure to look for the final part of our 4-part series to be published in the TIEOnline Newsletter in April!