Foundation In Coaching Practice
Internal training options available to organisations
i-coach is based in London and offers Foundation in Coaching Practice programmes across the UK and online. The programme is structured to support you to blend professional coaching skills with your existing activities as leaders and professionals. This programme will also support you to assess your appetite for further professional development to become a business coach. The programme ‘demystifies’ coaching, introducing the core concepts, models and approaches, while supporting you to practice your professional coaching skills within and between each module.
Who is it for?
Anyone within your organisation that is looking for new ways to motivate and empower others, there is no "typical" participant. Previous programmes have included participants who are psychologists, consultants, teachers, lawyers, professionals within HR and IT, doctors, journalists and has been delivered across all sectors.
This programme is the first step towards a career as an accredited business coach, although a key focus is on applying the skills learnt to your individual context.
Learning journey
At i-coach academy, we believe that coaching is entirely unique to the individual. So rather than encouraging you to memorise rigid models and behaviours, we support you to construct your own views. Find out more about the i-coach learning philosophy. This way of learning is supported through the use of an individual coaching framework.
On successful completion of the programme you will be able to:
- Confidently use appropriate professional business coaching skills and techniques
- Engage in effective formal and informal coaching conversations
- Have established the foundations for building a career as a Coach
- Understand the importance of a path of professional development to evolve your practice further
Traditionally this has been delivered as a face-to-face learning programme in seven days over approximately seven months and combines classroom based activities, online skills practice, practical application, self-study and reflection.
Module One – Coaching Foundations
The purpose of this two day module is to introduce you to the core coaching concepts and skills. By the end of the module you will have a deeper understanding of the boundaries between coaching and other types of helping roles (for example mentoring, consulting and therapy) and appreciate how to apply a coaching style in your day-to-day interactions. You will explore the role of adult learning principles in coaching and be introduced to the GROW model along with the foundation coaching skills of building trust, listening, questioning and feedback. You will also have an enhanced awareness of your preferences, style and approach to conducting coaching conversations.
Modules Two, Three and Four
These one or two day modules offer an opportunity to bring your field work to the group for reflection and support, to receive input on additional approaches (e.g. Person Centred Coaching, Solution Focused Coaching and Working with Values) and to engage in further skills practice and receive feedback.
Module Five – Skills Benchmarking
The purpose of this final day is to draw all your learning together through a formal opportunity for benchmarking and feedback. You will be asked to deliver an observed coaching session as well as participate in peer review and feedback. There will be an opportunity for an individual coaching conversation with faculty to reflect on your learning journey and to consider your next steps
Four online multi session skills practice between Modules for two hours each session
Since 2021 the programme is also offered as an online/virtual blended learning programme, which delivers the same content but with a different learning flow.
Download the programme flow here
To complete our professional coaching programme, you will need to complete the following requirements:
- Active participation in face to face/webinars, calls, learning groups and online programmes over around 38 weeks
- Deliver a minimum of 36 hours of coaching with individuals in formal coaching programmes
- Practice your coaching style and skills in informal conversations including team meetings for at least one hour per week during the programme
- Receive a minimum of five hours of coach mentoring
- Work independently for approximately one hour per week on activities such as journaling and reading
- Transcribe and reflect on one coaching session
- Successfully complete the Skills Benchmarking activities in final module
- Successfully complete a reflective assignment which includes a 2,000 word essay, development plan, individual profile, coaching logs, feedback from your transcript and ethics statement
Programme accreditation
The i-coach academy Foundation in Coaching Practice is an open programme with a professional pedigree; accredited by the EMCC (EQA Practitioner level).
Find out more about Accreditation.
Student stories
The programme is structured to support you to blend coaching skills with your existing activities as leaders and professionals. This programme will also support you to assess your appetite for further professional development as a coach. The programme ‘demystifies’ coaching, introducing the core concepts, models and approaches, while supporting you to practice your coaching skills within and between each module.
"I really liked the i-coach approach – you learn something and then you go and practice it. It’s the perfect experiential cycle of learning. That was brilliant because that’s exactly my learning style."
"I engage with people in a different way now – I feel I’m better at following the individual’s issues and needs and better at helping them explore them without direct input from me. In my career now there are more circumstances where I can have a coaching conversation rather than a managerial one to help people through an issue."
"I chose this course because I wanted something with real depth that really challenged and pushed me. i-coach's approach fundamentally really sat well with me because their philosophy is that there is no singular way of doing coaching. You've got to discover your own signature coaching style and it's got to be something authentically you."
“I have rarely come across a team of educators so passionate and caring about their "pupils" together with being technically excellent and unafraid of challenges. I loved it!”
Meredith