Bridging the gap from current to effective professional development: A journey towards instructional coaching

Imogen Fletcher-Blackburn, Assistant Principal for teaching and learning at Trinity Academy, London There is strong evidence to suggest that instructional coaching can improve teacher instruction, the quality of teacher–child interactions, pupil behaviour, motivation and attainment (Kraft et al., 2018; Basma and Savage, 2018; Allen et al., 2011, 2015). I was first introduced to instructional coaching in 2019, when I joined the Teacher Education Fellows with Ambition Institute. It created my long-term mission statement to establish a professional development programme that was one-to-one, frequent, sustained, context-specific and focused on individualised behaviours (Kraft et al., 2018). In Impact issue 13, Steve Farndon wrote an article titled ‘Implementing instructional coaching: A guide for school leaders’ (2021). This article follows my honest experiences of doing just that. How do I even start? This was a question that plagued me for a long time. Within my context, a relat