Coaching as an approach to support professional and personal development towards achieving set goals, is a well-established practice in the fields of sports training and organisational management and is now one of the fastest-growing professional development methods in the education field. 

A coaching relationship fosters leadership and improves dialogue in a way that has a direct impact on the professional development of teachers and the academic achievement of students 

Professionalising coaching through an apprenticeship model will develop the skills knowledge and behaviours and create the type of culture that has a lasting benefit on the quality of teaching and a positive impact on student performance. 

By adopting this long-term apprenticeship approach, teachers are able to explore coaching models and implement strategies that could further contribute to organisational performance and high learning outcomes for all students, while also fostering leadership and accountability at the management, classroom and student levels.

In developing the coaching professional Level 5 Apprenticeship, the aspiration is that anyone who manages leads or works with others has the opportunity to become a professional coach. When a coaching culture is embedded through an organisation coaching can deliver a number of benefits. The apprenticeship won’t just be creating someone that can do a job, but actually, someone who will embed professional coaching skills within an organisation to empower teachers, to take responsibility for their own development, not just make them do more work. 

Missed Opportunities 

Almost five years after the launch of the apprenticeship levy, schools are still struggling to find ways to spend their money. 

Schools are able to use Apprenticeships to upskill a range of staff, from front office administrators, HR, IT support to classroom support staff and even senior school leaders. 

Department for Education figures estimate that around 90% of MATs and 10% of foundation schools are paying the Apprenticeship Levy, however, a huge proportion of these organisations are failing to access the funds available to them.  

What is the Apprenticeship Levy?

The Apprenticeship Levy was brought in by the Government in April 2017 as a way of creating more funds to support quality apprenticeship training and encourage employers to invest in apprenticeship programmes as a way of upskilling staff. 

Critically schools will begin to pay the Apprenticeship Levy if they have a payroll above £3million and this will be taken at 0.5% of that payroll and then stored in a digital account which can only be accessed by schools to pay for the costs of apprenticeship training. This is called your apprenticeship levy allowance.

Meeting the public-sector target

All public sector bodies with more than 250 employees must employ at least 2.3% of their total headcount as new apprentices until the end of March 2022. If a school has less than 250 staff, they don’t need to worry about this. But if a school is part of a MAT, the trust may have over 250 employees across the organisation, so there may be a requirement to upskill or recruit via an apprenticeship. 

While the public sector apprenticeships target will shortly be removed and from this date, there will no longer be a target set in legislation for public sector employers to reach, public sector employers with 250 or more staff will still be asked to report this data for the period between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023 and therefore data reporting remains unchanged. 

What roles can apprenticeships support?

Business Administration or front office roles

HR roles 

Middle Managers 

Senior Leaders