School leaders have found that
coaching skills can even be
applied to Isikkent’s youngest
citizens, the three- and fouryear-old students enrolled in
the school’s Early Learning
Center. During Isikkent’s Prism
Award interview, school officials
told the story of an ELC student
who would wander out of the
classroom without permission
during the school day. Using
skills acquired in coach-specific
training, including powerful
questioning, the teacher was
able to find out the cause of this
behavior (simply, the student
said he’d forget that he needed
to stay put), articulate her own
feelings about the behavior
(“When you leave the classroom
and I can’t find you, I feel
sad and scared”), and provide
support for a student-driven
solution (the student drew a
picture of a door with a sadlooking teacher next to it and
hung it by the classroom door as
a reminder to himself).
94.1 percent of students in Isikkent’s 2013
graduating class earned admission to one of
their top-five university choices.
Disciplinary problems in
Isikkent’s middle and high schools
have declined sharply since the
introduction of coaching. In
the 2008-’09 academic year, the
middle school reported carrying
out disciplinary actions against
approximately 16 percent of the
student population. In the high
school, administrators reported
disciplinary action against 26.5
percent of the student population.
By the close of the 2012-’13 school
year, however, these averages had
fallen to 2.08 percent and 4.74
percent, respectively.
Coaching has also empowered
students to achieve their goals
for the future, with a whopping
94.1 percent of students in
Isikkent’s 2013 graduating class
earning admission to one of their
top five university choices and
70.6 percent of students
gaining acceptance to their
first-choice school.
As a result of Isikkent’s success
in implementing a coaching
program that benefits not only
teachers and administrators
but the school community at
large, its program today provides
the benchmark by which many
organizations in Turkey measure
their own progress toward
constructing high-impact,
standards-based programs that
are sustainable over time.
Proof in Numbers
Isikkent’s leaders say their
investment in coaching has paid
off. Students who have received
coaching report improvements
in their ability to resolve conflict,
set and achieve goals, and
cooperate and communicate
with peers. Teachers who
have sought coaching provide
similarly positive feedback about
the experience, citing enhanced
communication with students
and parents and improved
goal-setting abilities as benefits.
Meanwhile, parents who have
learned coaching skills through
Parent Effectiveness Training
report that, as a result of the
program, they’re more able to
articulate their needs to their
children, more inclined to resolve
conflicts with their children
through compromise and more
likely to approach conflict with
an eye toward protecting the
relationship (versus “resolving
problems the way I like”).
Coaching World 21