Thinking Deeply about Primary Education Film, Review, Refine: A Practical Guide to Teacher Self-Coaching With Lesson Video
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Episode 268: What if your most powerful coaching tool is already in your pocket?
In this episode of Thinking Deeply About Primary Education, Kieran Mackle is joined by Jake Cowling and Will McLoughlin to explore self-coaching: recording your own lessons to improve classroom practice with precision—without spiralling into self-criticism or turning professional development into performance management.
You’ll hear how lesson video helps you spot the tiny things that quietly shape learning: the timing of an instruction, the clarity of an explanation, classroom distractions you’ve stopped noticing, and the exact moment attention drifts. Will shares three reasons video is such a high-leverage habit (spot imperfections, understand student experience, and build shareable models for colleagues), while Jake breaks down how to keep reflection rigorous, not vibes-based—by triaging the highest-impact changes first.
They also get practical: using shared frameworks (like the Great Teaching Toolkit, StepLab, WalkThrus, Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction, and Teach Like a Champion) to anchor feedback, how to share video safely, and how to keep this work low-stakes, peer-led, and supportive.
If you care about getting “a little bit better every day,” this episode gives you a clear route to start tomorrow—camera, clarity, and all.
Key topics: self-coaching, video reflection, instructional coaching, direct instruction, classroom routines, mini-whiteboards, choral response, deliberate practice, evidence-informed teaching, safeguarding, professional development culture.