I can’t stomach conferences/events which are replete with platitudinous guff, peddling of all manner of gadgetry  or point out the deficiencies of education till the cows come home and offer no glimmer of hope. I want to converse, debate, share and be challenged and not constrained by veneer thin discourse or redacted notions of right or wrong. I also don’t want to be told what to do or think. I don’t think I’m alone.

ResearchED Melbourne was the second Australian visit for the UK-based outfit following Sydney in 2015. It was an opportunity for Chris Munro, Deb Netolicky, Corinne Campbell and I to meet (all together) for the first time. Ordinarily this would be difficult as we all live in different states thousands of miles apart. In such a vast country, we felt some time ago that connecting educators who coach in different contexts via a chat (#educoachOC) would be a good idea. We are keen to make the monthly confluence about sharing experiences, discussing new ideas and identifying where successes and challenges lie. We opted for a panel discussion to compare and contrast our stories and do our bit to arrest some misconceptions about coaching. We are all too aware that some might perceive coaching as something soft, placatory or, to the other extreme, conflated with performance management and/or supervision. We don’t see it that way.

Some might say we did an #educoachOC ‘live’ event – but no, we didn’t … no prizes, no educelebs, no additional ticket price, just four committed coaches wishing to share our work and research and engage with question from the audience.

It was a great honour to present as part the panel with these folk who I respect individually and collectively. The four of us have a shared belief that coaching can foster professional growth, honour and respect the identity and professionalism of teachers and can negate the need to both to be slave to, and implement the ‘performative’ apparatus (Ball, 2003) that we see many schools and systems succumbing to and which is having a crippling effect of teachers. The panel session also allowed us to wrestle with the theoretical frames and philosophical understandings implicit in coaching models, not just empirical evidence. It was our opportunity to interrogate the challenges and tensions on the individual and organisational level around reflection, identity and agency (Stenhouse, 1988, Biesta, Priestley and Robinson, 2015, Brookfield, 1995 and 2005).

Coaching, for us, as Chris beautifully puts it, ‘is NOT a cure to be administered or a tool to be manipulated’. Rather, it is an offer, a partnership that is rooted in trust, respect and objectivity. It is a great privilege to partner with colleagues to drill down and explore the granularity of practice. Speaking from our individual contexts, we have seen coaching as an entry point to accessing research, working intimately with data and naming and noticing the sometimes imperceptible effects of pedagogy, leadership and shifts in thinking and practice. Our stories gravitate around the notion of supporting teachers to ask questions of their practice; ‘what is it I would like to see work more effectively?’ ‘What do I need to do/research/observe etc. to better understand my problem of practice or area of interest?’ ‘How can a coach support me to enact interventions or protocols?’ ‘How will I know if anything is/isn’t working?’ A common theme on our panel was also that coaching is more than ‘what works’, in the truest sense it is about ‘for who, and for what purpose’.

ResearchED Melbourne was also a chance to catch up with and learn from other folk about what was ‘working for them’ in their contexts and also what is not. This is equally important. Research is very exciting, so celebrating and sharing new possibilities and exciting new developments is important.

It was wonderful to share time with Dr Linda Graham, Dan Haesler, Donnelle Batty, John Bush, and Gary Jones among others. I also regret not seeking out a few people I would have been keen to meet and sessions I would have liked to attend.

So, 2017, back here again??? Where next?