Coaching, Culture, and the Quiet Revolution in Teacher Development

When schools talk about building high-performance cultures, coaching is usually near the top of the agenda. Few would dispute that great coaching—grounded in trust, dialogue, and relational warmth—can transform teaching practice. Yet despite decades of evidence, coaching remains patchy, inconsistent, or fragile in too many schools.

Why? The barriers are not simply logistical but cultural and strategic.

The Cultural Challenge

Teachers value their autonomy. Professional pride means many feel wary of coaching when it’s framed as oversight or performance management. Even the most supportive feedback can carry the weight of judgment when it comes from a colleague or senior leader. Too often, coaching is reserved for those deemed to be “struggling,” reinforcing the perception of deficit rather than growth .

The Strategic Challenge

Schools want consistency but are constrained by budgets and bandwidth. Sustaining a whole-school coaching programme means dedicating time, training, and people—resources that are already stretched . Leaders must balance the aspiration for regular coaching against the hard reality that there are only so many hours in the week.

The Human Paradox

Relationships remain the lifeblood of professional growth. A skilled coach who knows the teacher, their context, and their aspirations will always add value. But here lies a paradox: in our pilots, we’ve seen that removing the human from the day-to-day feedback loop can actually lower the temperature. Teachers describe transcript-based or AI-generated feedback as less threatening—an objective mirror rather than a colleague’s opinion. It provides a safe entry point into reflection, before or alongside relational coaching .

This doesn’t diminish the human element—it protects it. When teachers arrive at a coaching conversation having already reflected on neutral, evidence-based feedback, the dialogue is richer and less defensive. Coaches can spend less time proving what happened in the lesson, and more time exploring what it means.

Towards High-Performance Coaching Programmes

For senior leaders, the challenge is to hold these tensions together:

• Culture: framing coaching as universal, not remedial.

• Strategy: embedding it sustainably within tight budgets.

• Human element: preserving relationships while reducing threat.

It’s here that new tools have a role to play. Platforms like Starlight—developed inside working schools—use lesson audio and AI to generate neutral transcripts and feedback. This doesn’t replace the coach; it amplifies them, providing evidence that is consistent, timely, and private. Teachers choose when to engage, and leaders gain a scalable way to sustain professional reflection across a whole staff body.

The future of CPD may not be about choosing between human and AI, but about finding the balance: human relationships for meaning and motivation, supported by technology that lowers the barriers to entry and keeps the feedback loop turning. That balance is where high-performance coaching programmes will be built.

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The Insight Engine is written by Adam Sturdee, co-founder of Starlight—the UK’s first AI-powered coaching platform—and Assistant Headteacher at St Augustine’s Catholic College. This blog is part of a wider mission to support educators through meaningful reflection, not performance metrics. It documents the journey of building Starlight from the ground up, and explores how AI, when shaped with care, can reduce workload, surface insight, and help teachers think more deeply about their practice. Rooted in the belief that growth should be private, professional, and purposeful, The Insight Engine offers ideas and stories that put insight—not judgment—at the centre of development.