What is your program’s plan for Mentor Coaching? The Head Start Program Performance Standards state that programs must implement a research-based, coordinated coaching strategy for education staff.
Mentor coaching is a great opportunity to provide teachers with guidance and support as it pertains to successful teaching strategies. It allows teachers to receive constructive feedback as well as to see effective teaching behaviors through modeling. The feedback and modeling of high quality teacher practices is directly related to the teacher’s mentor coaching goals – which is aligned with your program’s school readiness goals.
Our mentor coaching services are based on the principles of Practice-Based Coaching. Our services will guide your Head Start Teachers toward improved implementation of best practices through observation, feedback, collaboration and goal-setting. The components of our mentor coaching services include:
- Planning goals and action steps;
- Engaging in focused observations; and
- Reflecting on and sharing feedback about teaching practices.
We provide on-site mentor coaching services for teaching staff utilizing the principles of Practice-Based Coaching. We observe teaching interactions in the classrooms and provide strengths-based mentor coaching services. We begin by developing trusting, collaborative relationships with each Teacher and we ask the Teachers complete a needs assessment. We will then use that information to create individualized mentor coaching goals with each Teacher.
We will spend time observing in each of the identified classrooms and provide the Teachers with feedback from the observation. We will provide each Teacher with the strengths (high-scoring behaviors) as well as opportunities for improvement (low-scoring behaviors) from the observations. We will then spend time addressing, problem-solving and correcting the areas of concern (as it relates to CLASS). We will model high scoring interactions and effective teaching practices. We will also provide each Teacher with guidance, support and encouragement. We provide content-specific feedback in order to build a strong partnership. Our strengths-based approach to mentor coaching allows us to have “hard conversations” with Teachers on areas that need improvement.
Each of the mentor coaching services listed above includes guidance and support that is custom designed to meet the specific needs of your staff. It builds capacity and fosters continuous support. And, finally, it raises CLASS scores.
We also offer training for Mentor Coaches on how to implement a successful mentor coaching program.
Are you looking for on-site Mentor Coaching services or training on Mentor Coaching? Give us a call at (704) 451-3255 or email us at kristinecortina@hsessentials.com.
