Steplab
Who we are
Steplab is built by teachers, for teachers.
As either former or serving teachers and school leaders, we acutely understand the challenges of improving teaching. Steplab has been built to help schools and trusts tackle these challenges, and systematically improve teaching.
We’re deeply passionate about serving teachers, and work closely with schools to keep improving our platform.
In the last 6 years, we’re proud to have helped over 1000 schools and trusts to get better. We currently work with over 88,000 teachers in the UK and internationally, and have enabled coaches to set over 500,000 precise, actionable improvement steps to help teachers develop their practice.
At Steplab, we believe in three core principles:
1.Growing effective teachers is the most important thing that school leaders and the education system can be doing to address educational disadvantage and improve the life chances of all students in the UK and around the world
2.Instructional coaching which is flexible and responsive is the best way to make this happen. Every teacher should have access to a great coach
3.At Steplab, we are willing to do whatever it takes to help schools make this a reality.
What we do
Steplab provides a suite of tools and content which have been developed with schools over a number of years to systematically improve teaching. At its heart, Steplab is focused on helping schools implement flexible and responsive instructional coaching (IC) because evidence suggests this is one of the best ways to improve teaching. Steplab offers everything schools need to be successful in instructional coaching with thousands of precise, actionable steps to develop practice; hundreds of videos of effective teaching and the facility to record lessons, along with a full suite of training for coaches and leaders. Steplab’s intuitive platform also supports analysing trends and patterns to help develop school improvement strategies.
What is Instructional Coaching?
At the most basic level, instructional coaching is where one teacher helps another teacher to improve, through regular cycles of lesson visits and feedback, focusing on one small improvement (or 'step') at a time. Instructional coaching can be formal and structured or more flexible and responsive, providing a powerful approach for all teachers at any stage of their career and expertise.
Can we customise Steplab to align with our school values and priorities?
Yes, the customisation of Steplab’s content and approach is important to the success of instructional coaching in a school. Steplab enables schools to adapt all the improvement steps and sequences and to upload their own videos of effective practice. This means that schools can use the best bits of the content provided by Steplab whilst ensuring the language and approaches used align with the culture and priorities of the school. This is fully supported by the Steplab team who will take you through each step of the straightforward customisation process.
How much support will we get from Steplab to make it work in our school? Can Steplab help us develop our staff into great coaches?
We have been helping schools to implement whole-school instructional coaching for over 6 years and we share our experience and expertise as former and serving school leaders to provide support at every stage of implementation. Our support packages include helping schools design flexible, responsive programmes suitable for their specific school contexts and provide solutions to common barriers and model implementation plans to support the success of instructional coaching whether for one small primary school or a trust of thirty schools. To support the development of great coaches, we provide a suite of online training materials and resources which can be used at any time to help train up coaches in your school as well as a number of synchronous webinars and training courses available throughout the year. In addition, we have partnered with a number of schools across the country who act as Coaching Hubs so leaders and teachers can see instructional coaching in action.
Can Steplab help us to see what's going on in our school and so help continually improve teaching and school culture?
Steplab has a powerful database which helps school leaders and coaches to see exactly what kinds of professional development is happening in school, by whom, and when. These analytical functions help to inform school improvement strategies by identifying trends in teacher development. Alongside this, there are a number of tools which schools can use to create a positive open-door culture through 'drop-ins' and 'shoutouts' to celebrate the great teaching happening in classrooms across the school.
We use Steplab as part of an Ambition/TeachFirst programme. Can we use Steplab for our other staff?
Absolutely. Whilst Steplab supports national providers with their programmes, our core work is helping schools and trusts to implement instructional coaching and professional development in ways that are specific and sensitive to their contexts.
How we help
At Steplab, we believe in three core principles:
1.Growing effective teachers is the most important thing that school leaders and the education system can be doing to address educational disadvantage and improve the life chances of all students in the UK and around the world
2.Instructional coaching which is flexible and responsive is the best way to make this happen. Every teacher should have access to a great coach
3.At Steplab, we are willing to do whatever it takes to help schools make this a reality.
All of the tools on Steplab have been developed as a direct result of the work of the Steplab team when coaching teachers, leading professional development in schools, and leading school improvement at MAT level. 80% of the Steplab team have led teaching and learning or professional development in schools or across MATs, and many of our staff are currently working to train teachers in schools or in other innovative educational organisations. As a result, we have a really good understanding of what schools need to help develop their teachers. We direct 100% of our development resources towards doing and building what matters most to schools.
We’re also committed to providing free support to the sector. The Steplab resources page contains many high-quality free articles, case studies, implementation guides and evidence summaries that can support schools to build great professional development and coaching programmes. Click here to see for yourself at: https://steplab.co/resources/ or download our free Beginner’s Guide to Instructional Coaching by following this link.
