{"id":20,"date":"2025-11-22T18:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T23:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/melodybarclay\/?p=20"},"modified":"2025-11-22T18:43:53","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T23:43:53","slug":"coaching-continuum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/melodybarclay\/2025\/11\/22\/coaching-continuum\/","title":{"rendered":"The Return to Cohort"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year, I took on the role of Student Leadership Coordinator. I came to Cohort 21 as a participant with the intention of developing an already existing student leadership program. I worked through the process and landed on the question: How might we leverage student engagement and passion by creating a progressive leadership pathway that strengthens students’ sense of purpose and belonging within their community? <\/em><\/p>\n

This year, I’m returning to Cohort 21 as a coach. not because I answered my question, but to try out mentoring and continue to develop the leadership program at my school.<\/p>\n

Updates on My Original Question<\/strong><\/p>\n

I created leadership roles for students in junior grades. This school year, there was so much interest in pursuing leadership roles! Initially, I viewed this as a problem. I worried that I would not be able to include all students who were interested.<\/p>\n

However, this level of student interest is actually evidence of exactly what I was looking for: engagement and passion. The challenge isn’t managing their interest or limiting how many students can participate in something; it’s creating enough meaningful pathways to honour this passion and desire to contribute to a community.<\/p>\n

While I have seen students in grades 5 & 6 take on opportunities, I will not actually be able to have an answer to my question this school year. My question requires longitudinal tracking so I wonder what systems I could develop in order to gather data on the program.<\/p>\n

Recently, I brought students to Thrive Student Leaders Conference. While the grade 8 students were incredibly excited and many of them felt that they had taken away meaningful learning, I felt this way too. I am currently in the process of overhauling our leadership training for grade 8s.<\/p>\n

Participant to Coach<\/strong><\/p>\n

My transition from Cohort 21 participant to coach mirrors this shift in perspective. I chose coaching not because I felt ready to lead, but because I wanted to try out mentoring and develop my skills before considering leadership as a career pathway. Just as I’m working to create space for every student who wants a leadership role, I’m discovering what kinds of support I need to grow into my own leadership potential. I’m learning that leadership isn’t about having all the answers \u2014 it’s about holding space for the right questions and trusting that the pathways will emerge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year, I took on the role of Student Leadership Coordinator. I came to Cohort 21 as a participant with the intention of developing an already...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":496,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/melodybarclay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/melodybarclay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/melodybarclay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/melodybarclay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/496"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/melodybarclay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/melodybarclay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/melodybarclay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/melodybarclay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/melodybarclay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/melodybarclay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}