Reimagining Instructional Coaching: Building Reflexive, Responsive and Relational Leadership

This study examines the nature of instructional coaching to understand how a reflexive, responsive and relational approach can enable a distributed leadership model in a private school setting in India. The study was carried out at Inventure Academy, a K-12 Cambridge school in Bengaluru, India, through a year-long engagement with 13 English teachers. Data sources included weekly meeting notes, anonymised teacher feedback, manager and senior teacher feedback and a 360° appraisal shared by the school. A qualitative analysis of these datasets was conducted using the Braun and Clarke six-step thematic analysis, followed by a cross-case triangulation of the emerging themes across the datasets. Four themes were finalised: research-informed expertise, feedback-driven reflective practice, organisation and systematisation (planning and follow-up) and relational and team practice. Findings highlight an interplay between these four themes in enabling a reflexive, responsive and relational coaching model. This study contributes to understanding the nature and effectiveness of instructional coaching in supporting distributed leadership in international school contexts in South Asia, presenting insights for adapting global models to culturally specific educational settings