Why Teachers Deserve High-Quality Coaching

When we think about coaching, our minds often turn to elite athletes or high-performing executives. Top footballers, Olympic runners, Premier League managers, CEOs of global firms — none of them would dream of working without a coach. Coaching isn’t seen as remedial for them. It’s an essential part of sustaining and elevating performance.

And yet, in schools, the very professionals entrusted with shaping the next generation are too often denied the same expectation of high-quality coaching.

At STAR21 we define effective coaching through our STAR framework:

• Specific — focused on clear, targeted areas of practice.

• Timely — arriving close enough to the moment of teaching to make it meaningful.

• Actionable — offering practical next steps a teacher can apply straight away.

• Regular — sustained over time, not just a one-off observation.

Every professional deserves this kind of support. For teachers, it’s not a luxury. It’s a necessity.

The challenge schools face

School leaders want to provide great coaching, but the barriers are real:

• Time — packed timetables leave little room for observation and feedback.

• Consistency — feedback varies depending on the coach’s experience and availability.

• Culture — too often coaching is reserved for those judged to be “struggling,” which makes it feel punitive rather than developmental.

• Scalability — ensuring every teacher has access to high-quality, sustained coaching is difficult without additional staff capacity.

• Funding — stretched budgets mean schools struggle to prioritise coaching when faced with competing demands, leaving professional growth vulnerable to cuts.

The result? Coaching risks being seen as something that “happens to you” when performance slips, rather than something that helps you stay at your best. That mindset is dangerous. In sport, in business, and in education, coaching should be about growth at the top as much as support at the bottom.

Flipping the perception

We need to flip the perception of coaching on its head. Coaching should never be a mark of underperformance. It should be the foundation of excellence. If we only coach those we think are struggling, we create a culture of fear and stigma. But if we coach everyone, we send a powerful message: every teacher deserves to grow, reflect, and get even better.

The truth is that the best teachers — like the best athletes — actively seek out coaching because they know that sustained excellence doesn’t happen by accident.

A new approach with Starlight

This is where Starlight comes in. Built inside a working UK school, Starlight harnesses AI to give every teacher the kind of feedback they deserve: specific, timely, actionable, and regular. By analysing lesson audio and providing coaching insights directly to teachers, it scales support without adding to senior leaders’ workload.

Teachers can use it entirely on their own terms — once a week, once a day, or even after every lesson if they wish — giving them complete autonomy over their professional growth.

Rather than coaching being rare, inconsistent, or reserved for the few, Starlight makes it accessible, private, and professional for all. And in doing so, it helps shift the culture: from punitive to empowering, from scarce to abundant, from fear to growth.

Because we believe coaching shouldn't be a privilege for the few. It should be a right for every teacher.

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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.