Teach Secondary - Issue 13.2

deciding which areas to focus on for their professional development, based on their prior experience and knowledge of both their subject and the class in question. I’ve found that time is better spent enabling colleagues to focus on the areas they know from experience will deliver better pupil outcomes, rather than forcing changes in their focus to better reflect what SLT has decided should be the priority. Take whole school literacy for example – does it make sense to apply that focus in PE, art or music observations, when said subjects involve markedly less writing and reading? Let’s take PE. In the best-case scenario, the teacher will interpret the objective as ‘developing students’ knowledge of subject-specific terminology’. This could be evidenced in a game of football, as students call to one another to support positioning and understand strategic play. The observer will then ‘hook’ onto this ‘evidence’ of school-wide literacy throughout their subject- specific observation, thus showing how pupils can articulate what they have learnt in the subject. The problem is that in this scenario no-one benefits , only reinforcing the view that lesson observations are a fruitless exercise in time wasting. Opinion and perspective It’s admittedly hard to not observe lessons through the lens of your own experience. As a geography teacher, I decided to teachmy students using a video-based lesson during an Ofsted inspection, prompting some consternation frommy headteacher at the time. However, to ensure I achieved the desired outcome I created a set of worksheets for the students to work from, with some low, medium, and high order questions, so that they could think through and use these to interrogate the video, rather than passively watch it. I subsequently received some great feedback from the inspector. Henceforth, this approach informed my opinion of what an effective, enquiry-based lesson should look like, and continued to influence my judgements when I later observed lessons myself as a senior leader. Now apply this thinking to a non-humanities subject like maths, where outcomes are typically more black and white. If the maths teacher’s approach didn’t reflect what I thought constituted a good Q&A style, did that mean they were wrong and needed further development? It took me a while to unpack this question as a member of SLT, approaching it as I was from the perspective of having previously geography, where there’s always something new to uncover. This experience taught me that how we observe is informed by our own experiences and opinions –in ways that can generate well-meaning, but fundamentally inaccurate lesson observation narratives. Press reset Despite lesson observations often forming part of the fabric of school life, they don’t always achieve their intended purpose – which is to support teachers’ professional development and ensure that pupils receive the best possible learning experience. Frommy own experience I’ve found that removing the barrier of hierarchy and fostering a culture of self-reflection, where teachers can take ownership over their own development, is a muchmore effective way of supporting staff and maximising outcomes for students. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Matt Tiplin is a former senior school leader and Ofsted inspector, and currently chair of governors at a community primary school and the vice president of ONVU Learning IMPROVE YOUR OBSERVATIONS Shorter, more frequent observations will provide better insights into your school’s teaching and learning than one-off termly events Beware of hooking onto false proxies for progress; a student may read a passage fluently, but is this a true indicator of their understanding of key concepts? Easily identified criteria, such as group work or teacher-led questions, might tick a few boxes, but they rarely provide much insight into pupils’ learning or the quality of teaching Don’t try to shoehorn in evidence of school-wide priorities into your lesson observations; this risks making teachers jump through hoops to meet said priorities, rather than focusing on what works best for their pupils 23 teachwire.net/secondary P E D A G O G Y “Howwe observe is informedbyourown experiences andopinions”