Workshop Overview 

As the retreat is designed to be responsive to participants' needs, the content may be adapted accordingly.

Friday 31st October 2025 

Workshop 1: Leading with purpose

Clarifying your vision and leadership priorities

Start by stepping back to reflect on your leadership journey so far. Through guided reflection and facilitated dialogue, you'll identify your current priorities, challenges, and the impact you most want to make.
Outcome: A clear, values-driven leadership focus that will anchor your decisions throughout the retreat and beyond.

Workshop 2: The foundations of Instructional Coaching

Why coaching works and what it looks like in the early years

Explore the core principles of instructional coaching, with reference to Jim Knight and Tom Sherrington’s frameworks – then examine what it means to apply those principles within the context of play-based, developmentally appropriate practice.
Outcome: A grounded understanding of how coaching can drive improvement without compromising early years pedagogy.

Workshop 3: Building a coaching culture

Creating conditions for growth, trust, and reflective practice

Dig into the organisational and relational elements that make coaching successful. Explore how to nurture psychological safety,  explore the dynamics of adult learning, and identify practical ways to cultivate the conditions where coaching can flourish.
Outcome: Strategies to strengthen your team culture and prepare your setting for successful coaching.

Saturday 1st November 2025

Workshop 4: Designing your model

Adapting Instructional coaching for play-based pedagogy

Map out a model of coaching that fits your school. This practical session supports you to define coaching cycles, focus areas (e.g. quality interactions, enabling environments), and how to integrate observation and feedback into the daily flow.
Outcome: A flexible coaching model aligned with your pedagogy, team structure, and priorities.

Workshop 5: Quality Interactions as a coaching focus

Using the playbook to deepen practice

Explore Quality Interactions: An Instructional Coaching Playbook for Early Years and how it can support professional learning conversations. Unpick video examples, discussion prompts, and techniques for building practitioner confidence and depth.
Outcome: Clarity on how to use the playbook to support coaching conversations and drive practice improvement.

Workshop 6: Linking coaching to professional development 

Linking coaching to ongoing professional development

Learn  how instructional coaching can become a cornerstone of your wider professional development strategy. You’ll see how the Patana School have linked the Quality Interactions playbook directly to bite-sized training seminars on The Place to Learn platform, making it easier to scaffold growth and embed reflective dialogue into everyday practice. We’ll also explore how to use coaching data to inform staff development priorities across the year.

Outcome: A clear strategy for using coaching not just to improve individual practice, but to shape a responsive, evidence-informed CPD programme across your setting.

Sunday 2nd November 2025 

Workshop 7: Your personal coaching blueprint

Planning next steps with confidence and clarity

In this final session, you’ll create a personalised plan to take your coaching vision forward. Draw together your learning, identify key priorities for implementation, and outline the supports you need to sustain momentum.
Outcome: A clear, confident action plan – your personal blueprint for leading coaching in your setting.