What Is the SIMPLE Blueprint for Instructional Coaching?

“I’m an instructional coach now, but where do I even begin?” I can’t tell you how often I get asked this question.

The S.I.M.P.L.E. Blueprint (for short) is a model that I have been implementing for years. It’s not bogged down in just theory but it is something that I actually implemented while working in a fast-paced Title I School.

Most of my work was coaching and guiding new, uncertified, or struggling teachers. As much as I would have loved to spend days and weeks building relationships, the situation caused for me to help these teachers get classes under control so that instruction could happen IMMEDIATELY! If we (the teacher and I) were going to make an impact on instruction we had to get to work!

Finally, in 2021, I introduced the S.I.M.P.L.E. Blueprint for Instructional Coaching™ to over a thousand instructional coaches during a two-week-long Simply Coaching Camp. Since I had been doing this model for YEARS in my building, I finally felt like it was time I shared it with everyone. It has kept growing since then. What started as a way for one coach to organize a year has become one cumulative schoolwide implementation plan that leaders, teacher leaders, and coaches build together. What follows is the current version, the same sequence that runs through the book, the online course, the workshop, and the planning guide.

What is the S.I.M.P.L.E. Blueprint for Instructional Coaching?

The S.I.M.P.L.E. Blueprint is a six-step plan for strengthening Tier 1 instruction across a school. Each letter stands for a step, and each step adds the decisions the next step needs, so the plan is cumulative. You finish with one document the whole building works from, and every piece of coaching and professional learning in the year points back to it.

1. S: Study the Current Reality. Before anyone names a priority, the team gathers what is true right now: student data, patterns from Snapshots (short, focused, non-evaluative classroom visits), teacher input, and the systems already in place. This step keeps the plan grounded in the building you have, never the building you wish you had.
2. I: Identify the Priority Anchor. The 13 Anchors are the whole-school instructional priorities, from Classroom Environment and Routines to Rigorous Tasks and Application. The team chooses the Anchor the evidence points to, and that choice establishes the schoolwide instructional direction for the year.
3. M: Map the Implementation Plan. With the Priority Anchor set, the team maps which strategies within that Anchor teachers will learn, in what order, on what timeline, and what evidence will show the strategies are being used.
4. P: Prepare the Conditions and People. This step assigns responsibilities to the leaders, teacher leaders, and coaches who are available, protects the time for PLCs and coaching, and gets the adults ready before the strategies reach classrooms.
5. L: Launch Strategy Implementation. Teachers learn the strategies and begin using them, supported by weekly PLCs or collaborative grade-level team meetings, small-group coaching for shared needs, and Coaching Sprints (coaching cycles) for the teachers receiving one-to-one support.
6. E: Examine Evidence and Evolve. The team returns to the data and the Snapshots, decides what is working, and adjusts the plan. The evidence from this step becomes the current reality for the next round.

A dedicated coach is helpful and never required. The Blueprint assigns the work to whoever is available to lead it, which is why a principal, an assistant principal, and two teacher leaders can run it in a building with no coach on staff.

Why the S.I.M.P.L.E. Blueprint changes what happens in classrooms

Most schools have no shortage of strategies. Teachers sit through a session in August, nod along, and by October the strategy is gone. I call that distance between learning a strategy and using it consistently the Strategy Implementation Gap, and closing it is the whole point of the Blueprint.

The Gap closes when a school does three things at once. The Priority Anchor gives everyone the same instructional direction, so the coach, the principal, and the third-grade team are all talking about the same practice. Weekly PLCs or collaborative team meetings keep that practice alive by looking at data, co-planning, and working through implementation of the Priority Anchor strategies together. Small-group coaching picks up the shared support needs that surface in those meetings, and one-to-one coaching, guided by the Simple GrowthPath, goes to the teachers who need it most. Teachers outside one-to-one coaching never complete a GrowthPath, and that is by design. The Blueprint carries the whole staff; GrowthPath carries the few.

When those pieces line up, strategies stop living in a binder. They show up in lessons week after week, because the structure of the building keeps bringing them back.

How do you put the S.I.M.P.L.E. Blueprint to work?

Start where the Blueprint starts, with the current reality, and resist the urge to jump to a strategy you already like. The download walks a leadership team through each of the six steps with the questions to answer at each one, and it includes the SIMPLE Blueprint Self-Assessment so you can see which steps your school already has in place and which ones are missing. The step names are below. The full steps, with the tool, are in the download.

One plan, built in order

The Blueprint is a lot to take in at first, so take it one letter at a time. Each step hands the next one what it needs, and the school ends the year with a plan it built together and evidence that the plan moved instruction. Simple Strategy Classroom explains the Anchors and the strategies within them, Simple Strategy Coaching guides the coaching support, and CoachPath develops the coaches, and every one of them runs on this same six-step sequence.