HELEN RIDDLE, DIRECTOR OF TEACHING AND LEARNING, ST DUNSTAN’S COLLEGE, UK
During a low-stakes assessment, one of my Year 10 history students, Lottie (not her real name), became visibly overwhelmed and was unable to begin. Faced with an extended question, she froze, struggling to identify how to start and needing significant teacher support. While her subject knowledge was reasonably secure, she appeared unable to tolerate the uncertainty of the task (there was not ‘one right answer’) or identify a way forward. This prompted my reflection on how to support students when learning is cognitively uncomfortable.
The cognitive demands of GCSE study require students to engage with uncertainty, extended reasoning and independent thinking. In subjects such as history, this includes constructing explanations, evaluating interpretations and managing complex written responses. For some students, these demands can lead to anxiety, hesitation or an inability to begin tasks without reassurance. Recent work, including Haidt’s The Anxious Generation (2024), claims that adolescents today may be less accustomed to uncertainty, due to reduced exposure to independent, unstructured problem-solving in digital and risk-averse environments. This resonates with classroom observations of students’ tendency to seek reassurance rather than persist through confusion.
This case study explores the use of coaching-style dialogue (Kline, 2015) to support students in navigating cognitive difficulty. Drawing on Nottingham’s Learning Pit (2017) and research on metacognition (EEF, 2025), a structured set of coaching questions was introduced to encourage students to articulate their thinking, regulate their responses to challenge and develop greater independence.
Context
The inquiry was conducted with a Year 10 GCSE history class of 21 students in an academically selective independent school. The project aimed to explore:
- how coaching-style questioning might support students in moments of uncertainty
- whether introducing students to a coaching mindset could develop greater awareness of strategies for becoming ‘unstuck’
- whether this would lead to increased independence in approaching challenging tasks.
Evidence was drawn from student questionnaires, written reflections, teacher observation and assessment outcomes. This inquiry was small-scale and exploratory. Findings should therefore be interpreted cautiously, although triangulating these qualitative and quantitative sources of information does provide a credible basis for identifying emerging patterns.
Developing a coaching approach to the Learning Pit
Nottingham’s Learning Pit (2017) positions confusion and uncertainty as a necessary stage of deep learning. However, students require strategies to navigate this phase productively. Coaching dialogue, characterised by attentive listening and purposeful questioning (Kline, 2015), offers a way of supporting students to articulate their thinking and identify next steps, without removing challenge.
To embed this approach, students were given a structured prompt sheet, ‘Coaching questions for when we are in the Pit’, which was embedded into classroom routines. The prompts focused on four areas:
- understanding the task
- recognising existing knowledge and strategies
- identifying next steps
- managing emotional responses to challenge.
This structure aligns closely with established coaching frameworks, such as the GROW model (Whitmore, 2009), which supports individuals in clarifying their goals, evaluating their current reality, exploring possible options and identifying a way forward. Examples included:
- What is the question actually asking?
- What strategies helped you last time?
- What is the next step you could take?
- What can you do to calm yourself right now?
By translating a coaching model into a practical classroom tool, the intention was to make metacognitive thinking explicit and accessible, enabling students to draw on these prompts independently over time.
Embedding coaching dialogue in classroom practice
The coaching questions were initially modelled through teacher–student interactions. When students encountered difficulty, teacher responses were framed as prompts rather than explanations, encouraging students to reflect before receiving support. Students were also encouraged to use the questions in paired discussion, particularly when planning extended responses. This shifted peer talk from seeking answers towards exploring strategies. Over time, elements of this questioning became embedded in classroom language. Students began to anticipate these prompts and, in some cases, use them independently when approaching new tasks.
Note that this approach did not replace the explicit teaching of new knowledge or skills. Rather, coaching was used to develop students’ habits of thinking, self-reflection and attitudes toward learning.
Developing metacognitive awareness
A questionnaire was used to explore how students perceived challenge and how they responded when they became stuck. This included Likert-scale statements such as:
- I feel able to start a difficult task even when I am unsure
- When I get stuck, I have strategies I can try before asking the teacher
- I can identify what helped me to succeed in a similar task last time.
Initial responses suggested that many students relied heavily on external support, with limited awareness of strategies for independent problem-solving. Over the course of the inquiry, students’ reflections indicated a developing repertoire of approaches, including breaking tasks into smaller steps, revisiting prior learning and using prompts to structure thinking.
Impact on learning behaviours
Across the class, several patterns emerged.
- Awareness of how to become ‘unstuck’: Initially, students relied heavily on external support when facing difficulty, often asking teachers or peers for help, with some unable to articulate any strategy. Lottie exemplified this, frequently freezing on complex tasks. As coaching dialogue became routine, students increasingly described specific strategies, such as breaking tasks into steps, rereading with purpose and drawing on prior knowledge. Lottie began independently using her class folder to guide her thinking. Questionnaire data showed rising confidence in planning, monitoring and evaluating learning, with most students rating coaching questions as highly useful, indicating growing metacognitive capacity (EEF, 2025).
- Attitudes towards challenge and emotional regulation: Observations and questionnaires suggested that students became more comfortable with uncertainty and more willing to persist independently. Lottie, though still uneasy with challenging tasks, engaged more rather than withdrawing, tolerating confusion long enough to attempt strategies. Reframing teacher responses as coaching prompts helped students to return to tasks with focus, aligning with the Learning Pit concept, where struggle is a temporary, productive stage of learning.
- Independence and help-seeking behaviours: Students increasingly attempted strategies before seeking help, using peer support for clarification rather than reliance. Lottie showed greater initiative and could articulate needs more clearly. Coaching questions that were initially scaffolded became internalised, reflected in student written reflections citing self-directed strategies. This supports Passmore and Sinclair’s view (2024) that coaching builds internal problem-solving capacity rather than positioning the coach as the solution source.
- Metacognition and academic outcomes: Attainment data and questionnaires indicate a complex, non-linear link between metacognition and short-term performance. Some students with strong metacognitive awareness achieved improved outcomes; others developed strategies without immediate grade gains. Lottie’s engagement and independent task completion improved gradually, suggesting that behavioural changes precede measurable attainment. A modest positive correlation existed between awareness of strategies and outcomes, consistent with research that metacognitive interventions support persistence and strategy use, indirectly benefiting learning (EEF, 2025; Hattie and Donoghue, 2016).
Over a relatively short time-frame, coaching dialogue appeared to support the conditions for learning, particularly resilience and self-regulation, rather than guaranteeing immediate improvements in marks. These findings reinforce the view that changes in learning habits and attitudes may precede, rather than coincide with, measurable attainment gains.
Discussion
This case study suggests that coaching-style questioning can provide a practical mechanism for developing metacognitive awareness in the classroom. By making thinking processes explicit, the approach supported students in navigating the uncertainty associated with more complex tasks.
Importantly, the impact was more evident in students’ behaviours and attitudes than in short-term attainment data. This aligns with research suggesting that changes in metacognitive strategy use may precede measurable gains in performance (EEF, 2025).
The structured nature of the coaching prompts appeared to be particularly important. Rather than relying on spontaneous questioning, the use of a shared framework enabled consistency and supported students in internalising the approach.
This approach may be useful in contexts where students:
- struggle to begin complex or open-ended tasks
- rely heavily on teacher reassurance
- experience anxiety when faced with challenge.
Embedding a small set of consistent coaching questions into classroom routines can support students in developing greater independence over time. However, this requires deliberate modelling and sustained use.
Next steps
This inquiry was limited to a single class over a short period. Further work could explore longer-term impact on attainment, application across different subjects and year groups, and more systematic integration into departmental and whole-school practice. In particular, there is scope to develop a more cohesive, school-wide approach to metacognitive strategy instruction, structured as a spiral curriculum in which key strategies are explicitly taught, revisited and refined over time. Such an approach would support greater consistency in language and practice across classrooms, enabling students to encounter and apply shared strategies in increasingly complex contexts. Embedding coaching-informed dialogue within this framework may further strengthen students’ ability to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning, supporting the gradual development of independence and self-regulation.
