Business · Intermediate
A structured self-study programme for practising coaches: the eight core competencies, the ethics behind them and the markers assessors listen for.
You have been coaching for a while. Clients stay with you, sessions feel useful, and people leave the conversation with something they did not have when they arrived. By any practical measure you are already doing the work. Then you read the requirements for the next credential level and something tightens: the language is formal, the criteria are specific, and it is no longer enough to be a good coach in the room.
The gap most coaches hit is not skill. It is observability. A credential assessment asks whether the competencies can be heard in a recording by someone who was not in the conversation — whether the agreement was genuinely established, whether the listening was active rather than polite, whether the questions evoked awareness or quietly steered the client towards your own answer. Coaching well and demonstrating a competency in a way an assessor can point to are two different disciplines.
This programme exists to close that gap. It takes the eight ICF core competencies and the PCC markers that sit under them, and turns them into something you can study, practise and hear in your own session recordings. Each module pairs a short explanation of what the competency actually means with the behaviours assessors look for, the mistakes that read badly on a recording, and a practice assignment that puts the competency to work in your next client session.
It is a self-paced programme built for working coaches. There are no live calls to rearrange, no cohort timetable to keep up with, and no requirement to travel. You work through recorded lessons and written materials at your own speed, and you can return to any part of the programme as your assessment date gets closer.
By the end of the programme you will have a working command of the competencies and a repeatable way to check your own coaching against them.
Not recite them, but describe what each one looks and sounds like in a real session.
Establish what the client wants from this conversation and how you will work together.
Reflect, paraphrase and summarise in ways an assessor can hear and name.
Recognise the moment a question starts leading the client and correct course.
Work through confidentiality, boundaries and referral decisions with confidence.
Use a structured checklist to find what is missing before an assessor does.
A realistic schedule of practice, review and knowledge revision you can actually keep.
Understand the education, practice and evaluation components and where this programme fits.
Most preparation material explains the competencies in the abstract. This programme does the opposite. Each competency is broken down into the observable behaviours that sit beneath it, and each behaviour is paired with the marker language used in assessment. You learn what a marker is pointing at, what evidence satisfies it, and what evidence quietly fails it even when the session felt good.
The lessons then move from description to recognition. You work through annotated coaching exchanges that show a competency being demonstrated well, being demonstrated partially, and being missed altogether. Hearing the difference between a genuinely open question and a question wearing a disguise is a skill, and like any skill it improves with repeated exposure and a shared vocabulary for what you are hearing.
Finally, the programme turns the lens on your own work. Practice assignments ask you to record a session, listen back with the marker checklist in hand, and write a short self-review. That cycle — coach, record, review, adjust — is the engine of the whole programme. It is also the closest thing to assessment conditions you can create on your own, which is exactly why it works.
The programme is delivered as recorded video lessons with accompanying written materials. Each module opens with a short orientation, moves through the competency content in focused lessons of a few minutes each, and closes with a practice assignment and a reflection prompt. There is nothing to attend and no schedule to synchronise with anyone else.
A comfortable pace is one module per week over eight weeks, which works out at roughly three to four hours of study and practice weekly. Some coaches move faster because they already know parts of the material; others slow down on the modules that expose a real weakness. Both approaches are fine. The programme is designed so that each module stands on its own, and you can jump directly to the competency you want to work on.
Everything is available immediately after purchase and stays available. You can work on a laptop at a desk, watch a lesson on a phone between clients, and download the workbooks and checklists to keep alongside your session notes. As your assessment approaches, you can return to the modules you flagged and re-run the practice assignments with fresh recordings.
Eight modules, thirty-six lessons, and a practice assignment at the end of each module.
Everything is delivered digitally and is yours to keep.
Short, focused lessons across eight modules, each mapped to a core competency.
A printable reference you can use while listening back to your own sessions.
Structured prompts that turn a recording into specific, actionable notes.
Realistic dilemmas with worked-through reasoning, from confidentiality to referral.
A curated set of coaching questions organised by the kind of awareness they evoke.
A fill-in schedule for the month before your assessment date.
Revisit any lesson or download whenever you need it, including future updates.
Read the material, try the practice assignments, and decide.
By the end you will have a vocabulary for your own practice that you did not have before. You will be able to listen to a recording of yourself and name, marker by marker, what was present and what was missing — and you will know what to change in the next session rather than simply feeling that something was off.
You will also have a preparation routine in place. Instead of rereading competency lists the night before an assessment, you will be working from a 30-day plan built around your own recordings, your own weak spots and the specific behaviours you have decided to strengthen. That is a far more stable position to be in than last-minute revision.
Finally, you will understand the pathway itself: what the education, practice and evaluation components involve, what the assessor is doing in the room, and where the boundaries of your own responsibility lie. That clarity removes a lot of the anxiety that surrounds credential preparation, and it lets you spend your energy on the coaching rather than on guessing what is expected.
Around three to four hours is a comfortable pace: roughly one module per week across eight weeks, including the practice assignment. The programme is self-paced, so you can compress it into a few intensive weeks or spread it over several months.
Yes. The programme assumes you already coach clients and can record sessions for your own review. It is preparation for credential-level assessment, not an introduction to coaching, and the practice assignments only make sense if you have real conversations to work with.
Access is granted immediately. After checkout you receive an email with your login details, and the full programme — all eight modules, the workbooks and the checklists — is unlocked in your account from that moment.
You have 14 days from purchase to request a full refund. Work through the material, try the practice assignments, and if the programme is not what you needed, contact support within that window and the payment is returned.
Recorded video lessons with supporting written materials: workbooks, checklists and templates you can download and print. There are no live sessions to attend and no fixed timetable.
Indefinitely. Your access does not expire, and updates to the programme are added to your account at no extra cost, so you can return to the lessons before a later assessment or when you want to refresh a specific competency.
No. Credential decisions rest entirely with the ICF, and requirements change over time, so always check the current criteria for your pathway. This programme prepares you for the knowledge and performance side of that process; it does not issue anything itself.
No. This is a self-study programme: you review your own recordings using the marker checklist and self-review workbook. Mentor coaching and any supervised hours required for your pathway are separate and should be arranged independently.
Level 1 preparation targets the entry credential and focuses on foundational competencies. This programme works at the next level up, where the same competencies are assessed with far more depth, precision and attention to what happens moment by moment in a session.
Yes. The lessons play in any modern browser on a laptop, tablet or phone, so you can watch a short lesson between clients and do the written work later at a desk.
Eight modules, thirty-six lessons and a review routine you can use on your very next session — available immediately, with 14 days to change your mind.