Exam practice

I imagine most of you are here today because you want to find out more about the job of a coach. Some of you will be sceptical about its benefits, others will have already started making a career out of coaching.

I myself have been a coach since the late 90s, but our academy was set up more recently in 2004 in response to a demand for more formal training in the field. We are a private institution and don’t rely on any government funding. Our aim was to try to professionalise an industry which until then had been, in this country at any rate, a rather disorganised and unregulated industry. We now have over 450 members and run twelve courses a year in various types of coaching. These range from day seminars for people who are already practising as coaches to four-week courses or the beginner.

So what is a coach exactly ? Well, there are many different types of coach offering help in many different aspects of business and personal life: from financial or management coaching through to parent coaching and work-life balance coaching. But the basic principles remain the same whatever the field: using simple psychology and simple direction to help people to believe in themselves and to achieve their goals.

The great thing about coaches is that not only do they help you to identify your goals and the obstacles to achieving them, but they stay there cheering you on from the sidelines. In other words, they always help the clients to look forward. This is very unlike traditional counselling, which tends to focus more on past events and mistakes and helping the person to get over these before they can move on.

I’m going to show you a short film of a coaching session in a moment, but before I do, I will just mention something about the rewards of the job, and the qualifications and resources that you need for it because these are questions that will be concerning many of you.

The rewards: Well, job satisfaction is , of course, very high. I mean, how often do you come home from work and are able to say, ’ wow, I really made a difference to someone’s life today ’?As to financial rewards, sessions with coaches usually start at about ￡70 per hour but experienced coaches can earn anything up to ￡400 per hour. As to qualifications, you will need to follow an accredited coaching course, such as the ones we run here at the academy, and also you will need considerable experience in the field that you are coaching in. If you don’t have this background it will be difficult for the client to have confidence in you.

What else do you need to set up as a coach ? Most coaching is done at the client’s office or home, but some coaches also see people at their own homes. In fact there’s no need always to meet face-to-face. I know of several coaches who conduct session by phone or online, even sometimes by text message ...