How can school leaders use coaching to have better conversations that support growth, ownership and accountability?
Practise coaching in school leadership conversations about feedback, staff development and performance, with attention to expectations and accountability.
A colleague may need space to think, clear feedback, a firmer expectation or a decision from you. The difficulty is not simply having the conversation. It is choosing the response that helps the person and the school move forward.
This course gives school leaders practical coaching skills for development, feedback and performance conversations, while keeping expectations, accountability and professional responsibility clear.
Lead development conversations that build ownership while keeping standards and accountability clear.
Starts 14 July 2027
In person · Stockholm, Sweden · Venue to be confirmed
Registering interest is free. A course run is confirmed once at least six participants have registered their interest. Until then, neither a place nor a course run is guaranteed. Booking terms →
Run the course with your own staff, on your own dates.
Day 1
Mindset, active listening and questions, and coaching versus advising.
Day 2
Structures for purposeful conversations about development, feedback and growth.
Day 3
Performance, change and difficult conversations, and when coaching helps.
Day 4
Coaching routines for your school, and a plan to sustain them.
Every course we run is built on what research says makes professional learning change practice. Here is what that looks like in this one.
Short research-based inputs on coaching, listening and frameworks such as GROW and OSKAR.
You bring real leadership situations from your school and work on them throughout.
Listening, questioning and feedback practised in realistic conversations, with peer feedback.
An optional online follow-up lets you report back on the conversations you have had and refine your practice.
Our courses combine research-based knowledge, motivation, practical rehearsal and follow-through to support lasting change. Participants learn new approaches, see them modelled, practise them with feedback and make clear plans for applying them at work. Learning continues beyond the course through reflection, peer support and follow-up, helping participants turn new skills into lasting practice. We also check what happens afterwards to understand what was applied, what changed and how the learning can be improved.
The course draws on research into workplace and leadership coaching, active listening, feedback and adult development, alongside Carl Rogers’ foundational work on empathic listening. It explores established coaching structures such as GROW and OSKAR, translating these into practical approaches for school leadership conversations around development, accountability, change and performance. Underneath it all is the coaching mindset, active listening and powerful questions as the foundations for conversations that build ownership and support growth.
EUR 420 per participant, incl. VAT
Facilitation and all course materials, a certificate of attendance, a selection of cultural activities in Stockholm, and fika every day: tea, coffee, something baked and something healthy.
Meals, travel and accommodation.
Most courses run at our base in Vasastan, a few minutes' walk from Odenplan, with cafés and a park close by. We confirm the venue with each group before the course. Arlanda is about 40 minutes away by commuter train or airport coach, with no change needed. Between sessions there is time to walk by the water and reflect. We find people learn better that way.
Getting here and where we work →Marius Ketels is co-founder of The Nordic Learning Company, where he leads much of our work with companies and organisations, designing and facilitating programmes around leadership, teams and human performance.
View profile →Erasmus+ KA1 teacher mobility. Your organisation confirms eligibility and funding with its National Agency. We complete the Europass Mobility document for participants who request it.
You can move to another date or send a colleague at no cost. If you cancel more than four weeks before the start, we keep 30% of the fee; inside four weeks, we keep the full fee. If we cancel, you choose a full refund or another date.
What you’ll leave with
A practical coaching structure, a working set of questions and greater confidence in leadership conversations.
Pairs well with
Helping mentors have better conversations with students
Build a student-leadership programme that helps your school create meaningful routes for students to contribute.
Practical AI fluency and the professional judgement to decide where AI belongs in teaching and learning.
Writing from our team on the ideas behind this course.
2 September 2026 · 3 min read
A systematic review of a decade of research suggests the real value of coaching for school leaders may not only be the coaching itself, but the coaching skills leaders absorb and go on to use with their own staff.
24 August 2026 · 3 min read
Group coaching helped school leaders in Norway and Sweden make sense of difficult leadership problems and consider different ways of responding. But one of the study’s more useful findings is about design: how leaders prepare for coaching, and what happens at the end of it, may shape what they get from the process.
Erasmus+ is the European Union’s programme for education, training, youth and sport. The Nordic Learning Company AB is an independent course provider, not endorsed by the European Commission or any National Agency. Member of the EU Pact for Skills. Based in Stockholm.
EUR 420 per participant, incl. VAT
Starts 14 July 2027
