Cultivating coaching cultures in schools: insights from school leaders

Purpose – Despite extensive literature on the benefits of schoolwide coaching cultures, such cultures often
remain aspirational, elusive and difficult to sustain. This study aims to investigate how school leaders foster
collaborative coaching practices across primary, secondary and special schools. It draws on insights from
leaders in Ireland, the UK, Spain and New Zealand, providing a comparative perspective on how coaching is
interpreted and enacted to enhance teacher practice in varied educational settings.
Design/methodology/approach – Situated within an interpretivist paradigm, this qualitative study employed
chain-referral sampling to recruit nine participants across four jurisdictions. Data collection followed a twophase,
divergent pathway. All participants completed qualitative questionnaires, followed by either semistructured
interviews or a focus group, depending on school context. Themes were constructed using a reflexive
thematic analysis approach.
Findings – The analysis generated four themes: varied interpretations of coaching; its role in fostering a positive
school culture; the influence of leadership through agency, action and affirmation and the challenges leaders
encounter, requiring creative and localised responses. Drawing on accounts from nine leaders across five
schools, the study illustrates how they navigate systemic barriers such as limited resources by investing in staff,
building relational trust and addressing resistance to cultivate sustainable coaching cultures.
Originality/value – This paper contributes to coaching research by including under-represented international
perspectives, such as the Irish context, where limited empirical work exists on coaching cultures in schools. By
drawing on diverse experiences across jurisdictions, the study identifies context-sensitive strategies for
leadership and offers practice-informed insights that may inform future comparative research and support the
development of coaching cultures internationally.
Keywords Coaching, Coaching cultures, Reculturing, Professional learning, Distributed leadership