There is a question that has accompanied me throughout my years as a coach educator:
How do we truly learn coaching?
We can study the ICF Core Competencies. We can read books, analyse transcripts, watch demonstrations, memorise markers, practise questions and prepare for assessments. All of these things have their place.
But coaching itself is not a body of knowledge that can simply be transferred from one person to another.
Coaching is a way of being, relating, perceiving and responding.
And if this is true, then coach education cannot be reduced to the transmission of information. It must become an environment in which people can experience what professional coaching looks and feels like, observe it in others, practise it themselves, receive feedback, reflect, make mistakes, try again, and gradually embody a different way of being with another human being.
This conviction is at the heart of the educational approach we have developed at SunLight Academy.
It is also deeply connected with the values of the International Coaching Federation (ICF): Professionalism, Collaboration, Humanity and Equity. ICF describes these as values that are not merely aspirational statements, but foundations for how members and credential-holders live and work. (ICF Core Values)
For me, education is where those values must become visible. Not only in what we teach, but in how we learn together.
From a class of students to a community of learners
One of the distinctive elements of the SunLight Academy educational model is what we call the Super Group. The idea is simple, but its implications are profound.
When a new learner joins SunLight Academy, they do not enter a closed classroom made exclusively of people who have started their coaching education on the same day and are all at exactly the same level.
Instead, they become part of a wider learning ecosystem.
They may meet people beginning Level 1.
They may interact with coaches working through Level 2.
They may listen to conversations with students at Level 3.
They may encounter people preparing for credentialing, experienced coaches refining their practice, and alumni who continue to participate in the community.
The classroom therefore becomes multi-level, multi-perspective and relational.
A beginner does not simply hear from the trainer what coaching at a more advanced level might look like.
They see it.
They hear the questions.
They observe the distinctions.
They notice the language.
They experience the quality of interaction between more experienced coaches.
And, perhaps most importantly, they begin to develop an internal sense of what becomes possible.
This is very different from saying, “First you learn Level 1, then one day you will become a Level 2 coach, and eventually perhaps a Level 3 coach.”
Instead, the learner is continuously exposed to the journey itself. The future is present in the room.
Why this resonates with Montessori thinking
Although Montessori education was developed in a different educational context, several of its principles resonate strongly with the way I understand adult coach education: autonomy, observation, self-directed exploration, learning through experience, individual development and the importance of a carefully prepared learning environment.
Contemporary discussions have also explored connections between Montessori principles and adult learning theories, including Knowles’ andragogy and Mezirow’s transformative learning.
The point is not to claim that SunLight Academy is a Montessori school.
It is not. Rather, there is a philosophical resonance that I find extremely meaningful.
In a traditional classroom, learning can easily become hierarchical: the educator knows → the student receives.
In a more developmental learning environment, the relationship changes: the educator creates the conditions → the learner explores → the community contributes → experience becomes the teacher.
This distinction is particularly important in coaching.
Because the coach educator cannot simply give someone the ability to coach.
I can explain presence. But explanation alone does not create presence.
I can explain partnership. But a definition does not create partnership.
I can teach someone about listening. But knowing the theory of listening does not necessarily mean being able to remain deeply present when a client says something unexpected.
At some point, the learner has to experience, practise, reflect and embody.
Andragogy: adults do not simply need more information
This is where adult learning theory becomes particularly relevant.
Andragogy, most strongly associated with Malcolm Knowles, was developed as a framework for understanding how adults learn and has remained influential, while also being debated and refined over the decades. Contemporary scholarship continues to regard it as an important contribution to adult education while recognising that adult learning is more complex than any single model can capture.
Adults bring something fundamentally different into a learning environment.
They bring professional experience
They bring assumptions.
They bring previous successes and failures.
They bring identities.
They bring habits.
They bring stories about who they are.
And they bring a very important question: “Why does this matter to me?”
For this reason, adult learning becomes powerful when knowledge is connected with lived experience, meaningful practice, autonomy, reflection and real-world application.
That is precisely why our approach is not built around simply “covering the curriculum”. We want learners to encounter themselves as coaches.
A question in a classroom can become a moment of self-awareness.
A peer coaching conversation can reveal a habitual pattern.
A trainer’s recognition can help a learner notice something they could not previously see.
A more experienced student’s intervention can open a new perspective.
A mistake can become a learning resource rather than a source of shame.
And a difficult coaching session can become the beginning of a much deeper level of professional development.
Coaching is learned through osmosis — but not only through osmosis
I sometimes use the word osmosis deliberately.
Not because coaching magically transfers from one person to another.
It does not. But because when we spend sustained time in a community where coaching is consistently demonstrated, discussed, questioned, practised and embodied, something happens.
We begin to notice what previously escaped our attention.
We begin to hear language differently.
We begin to recognise the difference between a question that is genuinely in service of the client and a question that is simply a technique.
We begin to experience the difference between doing coaching and being with a client as a coach.
The more experienced coach becomes a living reference point. Not an ideal to imitate. Not a model to copy mechanically.
But a possible future version of oneself.
This is why I believe that a powerful coach education community should contain different levels of development. A learner needs to see where they are.
But they also need to see where they can go.
The “Super Group” creates a living learning architecture
The Super Group therefore serves several functions simultaneously.
- It creates belonging
The learner does not feel that they are travelling alone.
They are part of something larger than their individual course.
They know that others have struggled with similar questions, that others have had moments of uncertainty, and that development is a process.
This is Collaboration in action.
ICF defines Collaboration as a commitment to developing social connection and community building. For us, community is not an accessory to learning.
Community is part of the learning architecture.
- It provides models
Advanced students naturally become reference points for newer learners.
Not because they are positioned above them, but because their journey makes visible what development can look like.
A new coach can listen to a PCC-level conversation and think: “I don’t fully understand how they are doing that yet — but now I can hear the difference.”
That moment matters.
- It normalises the learning curve
When a beginner sees that even experienced coaches continue to question themselves, refine their practice and receive feedback, learning becomes less about proving competence and more about developing competence.
This connects beautifully with ICF’s description of Humanity, which includes humility, openness to other points of view, self-awareness, acknowledging mistakes and avoiding behaviours that suggest superiority.
- It creates horizontal learning
Learning does not flow only from trainer to student.
It also flows:
student → student
experienced coach → emerging coach
emerging coach → experienced coach
community → individual
And sometimes, unexpectedly: student → trainer.
That is one of the things I treasure most about adult education. When people bring their lived experience into the room, everyone can learn.
The trainer’s role changes too
This approach also requires something from the educator. The trainer cannot simply be the person who possesses the answers.
My role is much closer to that of an architect of learning conditions.
I create the structure.
I introduce concepts.
I challenge assumptions.
I demonstrate.
I ask questions.
I notice.
I interrupt when necessary.
I offer distinctions.
I bring the ICF standards and professional framework into the conversation.
And then I create space for learners to think.
A significant part of our classroom time is therefore devoted not to me explaining what a learner should think, but to asking questions that help them discover what they themselves are seeing.
Sometimes the most important question in a class is not: “What is the correct answer?”
It is: “What are you noticing?”
Or: “What changed for you when you heard that?”
Or: “What do you hear now that you did not hear five minutes ago?”
This is where coach education itself becomes coaching-informed.
Blended learning: community plus individual accompaniment
There is another essential element. A community is powerful, but community alone is not enough.
Every learner has a unique history, unique strengths, unique blind spots and a unique developmental rhythm.
That is why our educational approach combines group learning with one-to-one accompaniment.
The group provides breadth.
The individual work provides depth.
In the group, learners encounter multiple perspectives.
In individual sessions, we can slow down and look at what is specifically happening for that person.
A learner might understand intellectually what PCC-level coaching requires and still struggle to embody it in a real session.
In a one-to-one conversation, we can listen to their recording, explore their choices, identify patterns, examine assumptions and determine what they are actually ready to work on.
This is where education becomes genuinely developmental.
A learner who needed to stop trying to “sound like a coach”
I remember working with a learner who had a very strong professional background. She was intelligent, articulate and highly committed. Her difficulty was not lack of knowledge.
It was almost the opposite. She knew too much. She had learned many coaching questions and was trying very hard to demonstrate that she knew how to use them.
Her sessions were technically busy. Question after question. Reflection after reflection.
And yet something essential was missing.
We did not tell her, “You are doing it wrong.”
Instead, we explored. We listened together. We slowed the session down. We examined what happened when she stopped preparing the next question.
She began to notice the client differently.
Eventually, she said something that stayed with me: “I think I have been trying to prove that I am a coach instead of actually being a coach.”
That was the turning point. Her development did not come from learning another technique. It came from seeing herself differently.
The community helped because she could hear other coaches working.
The classroom helped because questions opened new perspectives.
The individual accompaniment helped because we could work specifically with her pattern.
And repeated practice transformed insight into behaviour.
That is the kind of learning I believe in.
Another journey: from uncertainty to professional identity
Another learner arrived with considerable insecurity. She was committed and thoughtful, but every time she coached, she questioned herself.
Was that the right question?
Was I doing enough?
Should I have challenged more?
Did the client really get something from that?
Her attention was constantly moving away from the client and towards herself. Again, the solution was not simply to give her more information.
We worked on presence. We used peer coaching. She observed more experienced coaches. She received feedback. She brought questions to class. She listened to different interpretations from other learners.
And, over time, something shifted.
Her attention gradually moved from: “Am I doing this correctly?”
to: “What is happening for this client right now?”
That is a profound developmental shift. It is also one of the reasons I believe that professional identity cannot be manufactured through certification alone.
Credentialing can recognise development. It cannot substitute for development.
From Level 1 to Level 3: development as a continuum
At SunLight Academy, therefore, I do not see Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 as three disconnected educational products.
I see them as stages in an unfolding developmental journey.
Level 1 introduces the foundations.
Level 2 deepens professional practice and prepares coaches for a more sophisticated level of partnership and credentialing.
Level 3 moves further into mastery, nuance, presence and the subtleties of professional coaching.
The learner should be able to look back and recognise: “I am not simply someone who completed three programmes. I have become a different coach.”
This is also why the Super Group matters.
The person beginning Level 1 can see Level 3 happening around them.
The Level 2 coach can hear conversations that challenge their current understanding.
The Level 3 coach remains in contact with the beginning of the journey and, in doing so, can remember how much development has occurred.
Learning becomes spiral rather than linear.
We return to the same fundamental principles at deeper levels of understanding.
Listening.
Presence.
Partnership.
Trust.
Awareness.
Client autonomy.
Learning.
Growth.
Each time we return, we see more.
Professionalism without hierarchy
There is an important distinction here.
A multi-level community does not mean creating a hierarchy of human value.
A PCC is not a more valuable human being than an ACC.
An MCC is not a more valuable human being than a new coach.
Experience creates different levels of professional development, not different levels of human worth. That distinction is fundamental to Humanity and Equity.
ICF describes Equity as using a coaching mindset to understand people’s needs and practise equitable processes that create equality, while its ethical principles explicitly emphasise dignity, fairness and partnership across coach-client, trainer-student, mentor-coach and supervisor-coach relationships.
This is precisely the culture I want to create. Expertise should create generosity, not superiority.
The more experienced coach has an opportunity to contribute.
The newer coach has an opportunity to bring fresh eyes.
Everyone remains a learner.
The deeper purpose: becoming, not performing
Ultimately, this is why I have continued to develop this approach throughout my years as a coach educator. I am not interested in producing coaches who can merely reproduce the language of coaching.
I want to contribute to developing professionals who can think, feel, perceive and respond as coaches.
There is a profound difference.
One is performance. The other is embodiment.
One asks: “What should I say?” The other asks: “What is happening here?”
One searches for the right technique. The other remains curious about the human being in front of them.
One wants to demonstrate competence. The other wants to serve the client’s development.
And this is where I see the deepest connection between our educational philosophy and the ICF values.
Professionalism asks us to commit to competence, integrity, responsibility and excellence.
Collaboration asks us to build connection and community.
Humanity asks us to bring kindness, compassion, respect and humility.
Equity asks us to create fair, dignified and inclusive processes.
These cannot be taught effectively as four definitions on a slide. They have to be experienced. They have to become part of the culture.
A different question for coach education
Perhaps, then, the question we should ask is not: “How much coaching knowledge have we delivered?”
But: “What kind of environment have we created for people to become coaches?”
At SunLight Academy, the answer is our community.
It is the Super Group.
It is the peer coaching.
It is the individual accompaniment.
It is the questions.
It is the feedback.
It is the observation.
It is the challenge.
It is the laughter.
It is the moments of uncertainty.
It is the courage to say, “I don’t know.”
It is the opportunity to watch someone more experienced.
It is the possibility of helping someone who is just beginning.
It is the repeated return to the competencies, each time with greater depth.
And it is the understanding that becoming a professional coach is not an event that happens when a certificate arrives.
It is a developmental journey.
Over the years, I have seen learners move through that journey—from their first steps into Level 1, through the deeper professional development of Level 2, into the refinement and mastery of Level 3, and towards ICF credentialing. What makes me proud is not simply seeing them complete programmes. It is seeing the moment when the work begins to belong to them.
When they no longer need to reproduce someone else’s way of coaching.
When they begin to trust their own presence.
When they can hear the client more deeply.
When they become less attached to performing and more available to the person in front of them.
When coaching stops being something they are trying to do and becomes something they are increasingly able to live.
That, for me, is education.
And that is why I believe that the future of coach education will not be built by putting more information into learners.
It will be built by creating richer environments in which people can become more capable human beings and more mature professionals together.
Because coaching is not something we simply study. We learn it by living it. And sometimes, the most powerful teacher in the room is not the trainer.
It is the community itself.
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This article reflects the educational philosophy and experience of SunLight Academy.
The references to ICF Core Values are based on the International Coaching Federation’s current published framework: Professionalism, Collaboration, Humanity and Equity.
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