Mentor Coaching Education for Experienced Mentor Coaches

Your mentor coaches have been doing this work for years, and now there is a qualification to match.

Experienced mentor coaches in your school already know what good mentor coaching looks like. They have supported coaches through their ACC, PCC or MCC journeys, given feedback that shifted someone’s practice, and held the space for vulnerability, challenge and growth.

The new ICF Mentor Coaching Specialisation (MCS) recognises that experience through the Credit for Prior Learning Pathway. To complete an application, each coach needs 10 hours of mentor coaching-specific education. This programme is aligned to ICF requirements and provides those hours for your cohort.

What this programme offers

The programme is designed for experienced mentor coaches who want to look closely at their own practice, so it starts from what they already know about mentor coaching. It gives them space to reflect at a depth that day-to-day work rarely allows. Through reading, video observation of live mentor coaching, and structured reflective writing, they examine how they create safety, how their feedback lands, and where their development edge sits. They then come together as a cohort for the kind of conversation that happens when everyone in the room has real practice behind them. Because they share a school, they can carry that conversation straight back into the way your school mentors.

How it works

The programme blends 7.5 hours of asynchronous (self-led) learning with two 1.5-hour facilitated sessions on Zoom. Each coach works through the asynchronous modules in their own time and at their own pace. The synchronous (live online) sessions are co-created with the cohort, so the agenda reflects what matters to the people in the room.

Each coach receives a copy of Mentor Coaching: A Practical Guide (Clare Norman) as part of the programme, along with curated video content including live mentor coaching demonstrations and guided reflective prompts for each module.

Who it's for

This programme is for coaching schools that want to offer their experienced mentor coaches a route to the ICF Mentor Coach Qualification (MCS). I run it as a closed programme for a single school’s cohort, so it is available to schools rather than to individual coaches.

The mentor coaches in your cohort will each hold an active ICF credential (ACC with at least one renewal, PCC, or MCC) and will have prior mentor coaching experience. They will also need 10+ hours of mentor coaching education to complete their MCS application via the Credit for Prior Learning Pathway, and this programme provides those hours. Because the cohort comes from one school, the group learns together within a shared context and can carry what they discuss

What else you'll need for your MCS application

Schools may find it useful to check these requirements with their mentor coaches before confirming a cohort, so that everyone arrives with the same understanding of what remains to be done alongside the programme. For full details on the MCS application process, including the Credit for Prior Learning Pathway requirements, please see the ICF’s published guidance: https://coachingfederation.org/blog/introducing-the-mentor-coach-qualification/