Custom Claude Project: Your Personalized Coaching Assistant

What This Builds

You'll build a Claude Project — a persistent AI workspace configured specifically for your role, your school, your coaching framework, and your teachers. Unlike a standard chat, this project remembers your context across every conversation. Instead of re-explaining your school situation every time, your coaching assistant already knows your grade levels, your coaching model, your current teachers, and your tone preferences. Use it to draft observation feedback, plan coaching conversations, analyze data, and design PD — with all your context pre-loaded.

Prerequisites

• Claude Pro subscription ({{tool:Claude.price}}) — Projects require Claude Pro
• Comfortable using Claude for basic coaching tasks (Level 3)
• A coaching framework document (e.g., Jim Knight's Impact Cycle, your district's coaching model) — or a summary you can write in 1 page
• A list of your current teachers with basic context (grade, subject, coaching cycle status)

The Concept

A Claude Project is like having an AI coaching partner who already read your entire coaching handbook before you walked in the room. You set it up once by uploading documents and writing system instructions — then every conversation in that project starts with that shared understanding. It's the difference between explaining your context from scratch every time vs. having a genuine ongoing working relationship.

Think of the setup as writing a briefing document for a very capable new colleague on their first day: "Here's our school, here's how we approach coaching, here are the teachers I'm working with, and here's how I like to communicate."

Build It Step by Step

Part 1: Create the Claude Project

1. Log into claude.ai and click Projects in the left sidebar (or find it in the navigation)
2. Click New Project
3. Name it: "Coaching Assistant — [Your School] [Year]"
4. You'll see two areas to configure: Project Instructions (system prompt) and Knowledge (documents)

What you should see: A project workspace with a knowledge panel on the left and a chat window on the right.

Part 2: Write Your Project Instructions

Click Edit Project Instructions and paste a customized version of this template:

You are an instructional coaching assistant supporting [your name], an instructional coach at [school name], a [school type] serving [grade levels] in [city/context].

## My Coaching Approach
- I use [coaching framework, e.g., Jim Knight's Impact Cycle / our district's CLEAR coaching model]
- My coaching is non-evaluative — I'm a thought partner, not a supervisor
- I always lead with strengths before naming growth areas
- I focus on ONE growth area per coaching cycle, not a list of improvements
- My communication tone: warm, direct, never clinical or administrative

## My Role & Responsibilities
- I coach [number] teachers across [grade levels and subjects]
- I run PLCs every [day/week] for [teams]
- I facilitate [number] whole-staff PD sessions per year
- I report to [principal name] and attend [meetings/committees]

## My Teachers (Current Coaching Cycles)
[List 3-5 teachers with brief context — you can update this anytime]:
- [Teacher A]: 3rd grade ELA, in coaching cycle focused on questioning techniques, 8 weeks in
- [Teacher B]: 5th grade math, just starting cycle, growth area: small group differentiation
- [Teacher C]: not in active cycle, resistant to coaching, need to build relationship first

## What I Need Help With Most
- Writing observation feedback (2 paragraphs, strength + growth + next step)
- Planning coaching conversations, especially with resistant or struggling teachers
- Designing PD sessions (include learning objectives, activities, and discussion questions)
- Synthesizing research for use in PD
- Writing data narratives for teacher data meetings
- Drafting grant proposals and admin reports

## Format Preferences
- Coaching feedback: 2 paragraphs, no bullet points, ends with one specific next step
- PD agendas: timed segments in table format
- Data narratives: 2-3 paragraphs, teacher audience
- Reports: professional but readable — not bureaucratic

## What to Avoid
- Never use the word "however" — it signals evaluation, not coaching
- Never frame growth areas as deficiencies — use language of "opportunities"
- Don't recommend tech tools unless I ask specifically

Click Save Instructions.

Part 3: Upload Your Knowledge Documents

In the Knowledge panel, click Add content and upload or paste:

1. Your coaching framework summary: A 1-2 page summary of the coaching model you use (Key behaviors, coaching cycle stages, core principles)

2. Your school's instructional framework (if you have one): The instructional look-fors or teaching rubric your district uses

3. Your observation protocol: The template you fill in during classroom observations — this helps Claude understand the data structure you'll share

4. Your current assessment overview: A brief description of the assessments you use (MAP, iReady, benchmarks) so Claude knows what data to expect

You don't need all of these — even just your coaching framework summary significantly improves output quality.

Part 4: Test and Refine Your Coaching Assistant

Start a conversation in your project and test it with real scenarios:

Test 1 — Observation Feedback: "Here are my observation notes from today: [paste real notes]. Write the coaching feedback summary." → Check: Does it follow your format? Does it avoid "however"? Is the tone right?

Test 2 — Coaching Conversation Plan: "I need to plan my next coaching conversation with Teacher B. We've had 2 sessions, and she's still not implementing small groups consistently. What approach should I take?" → Check: Does it remember the teacher context from your instructions? Does the advice fit your coaching model?

Test 3 — PD Design: "Design a 45-minute PD session for my 3rd-4th grade team on using exit tickets effectively." → Check: Does it produce the format you specified? Is the length and depth appropriate?

If any output is off, refine your Project Instructions. The setup phase is an investment — 30 minutes of refinement now means months of better output.

Real Example: A Full Week of Coaching with Your Assistant

Setup: Your project has been running for 3 weeks. Your instructions include context about all your active coaching cycles.

Monday — Observation Feedback: You observed a 2nd-grade teacher. You open the project, paste your notes, and ask for feedback. The assistant produces a draft in your voice, mentioning the specific coaching cycle goals you're working on with her.

Tuesday — Coaching Conversation Prep: "I'm meeting with Teacher A tomorrow. We're 8 weeks into our cycle on questioning. She's made progress but still defaults to closed questions under time pressure. Plan my 20-minute debrief conversation." The assistant drafts a conversation plan using your coaching model's framework, knowing you've already completed 8 weeks and what the cycle goal is.

Thursday — Data Meeting Prep: "I have my 5th-grade math PLC in 1 hour. Here's their benchmark data: [paste data]. Write a 2-paragraph data narrative I can use to open the meeting." You paste the data, the assistant writes a teacher-audience narrative in 30 seconds.

Friday — Weekly Report: "Here are my notes from this week: [paste rough notes]. Turn this into my weekly summary for the principal." Draft in 2 minutes. You edit 3 sentences and send.

Time saved this week: Approximately 3-4 hours of writing, planning, and data interpretation.

What to Do When It Breaks

• Output sounds generic → Your project instructions need more specificity — add more detail about your coaching model, your tone, your school context
• It forgets teacher context mid-conversation → The information may be in your instructions but not being applied — try explicitly mentioning the teacher name at the start: "Regarding Teacher B from my coaching roster..."
• It gives advice that conflicts with your coaching philosophy → Add a "Do not" list to your instructions: "Do not recommend scripted feedback — I always personalize"
• The context limit is reached in a long conversation → Start a new conversation within the same project — your instructions and uploaded documents reload automatically

Variations

• Simpler version: Use a single long system prompt in regular Claude instead of a full Project — paste it at the start of each week's work session
• Extended version: Add a teacher-specific file for each coaching cycle — upload observation notes, cycle goals, and conversation logs so Claude has full cycle history for each teacher

What to Do Next

• This week: Build your project instructions and test with 3 real tasks
• This month: Add documents to your Knowledge panel (coaching framework, observation protocol, assessment overview)
• Advanced: Keep a coaching log document updated weekly and re-upload it so the assistant has current cycle history across all teachers

Advanced guide for instructional coach professionals. These techniques use more sophisticated AI features that may require paid subscriptions.