2. Session Aims
• To evaluate the effectiveness of our areas
of responsibility – in relation to T&L
• To consider the importance / role of
assessment
• To look for ways we can develop T&L in
our areas
3. Ofsted Handbook
Read through the section on Teaching and Learning
and how Ofsted will determine their judgement.
• What are you responsible for?
• How can you affect this judgement?
• What can you do to support this across the school?
4. Evaluating the Effectiveness of T&L in our
Areas
What do I lead /
monitor well? How do I
know that?
What area of leadership
do I need to develop?
Action Points?
5. Assessment and Teaching and Learning
• If you are a year leader – why might it be useful to know a department’s
long term plans and assessment points?
• If you are a year leader – how can you promote student engagement
with assessment in tutor time?
What role should assessment play? What role does it currently play in
your department? How do you moderate your assessments and data?
How can we use assessment as a starting point
for teaching and learning?
Do you use SIR marking well in
your departments?
How do you use your exam
data?
What makes a successful scheme
of work?
How do your schemes of work
connect year on year?
6. How can you QA and develop T&L in your
areas?
What do you do in your meeting times?
How do you develop your staff?
How do you deploy your staff?
What is your role in your team?
How do you promote GREAT T&L?
How do you monitor T&L in your team (delivery of the tutor
programme)?
How do you use student voice / parent voice?
7. Consider the following statements:
• By receiving weekly observation and feedback, a teacher develops as much in one
year as most teachers do in twenty
• The primary purpose of observation should not be to judge the quality of teachers,
but to find the most effective ways to coach them to improve pupil learning
• Teachers are like tennis players: they develop most quickly when they receive
frequent feedback and opportunities to practice
• We learn best when we focus on one piece of feedback at a time. Giving less
feedback, more often, maximises teacher development
• Action steps need to be bite-sized changes that teachers can make in one week.
Effective feedback makes big shifts in teacher practice by focusing on small
changes in quick succession
Patrick Bambrick-Santoyo (2012)
8. Some of the benefits of observation
• Learning from each other
• Developing new ways for working
• Celebrating achievement
• Enhancing motivation
• Generating new thinking
• Quality assuring standards
• Resolving teachers’ issues and concerns
• Identifying areas for development
9. Five stages of lesson observation
Planning
Observation
Brief feedback
Feedback discussion
Conclusions and actions
10. Evaluating the Effectiveness of T&L in our
Areas
What do I lead /
monitor well? How do I
know that?
What area of leadership
do I need to develop?
Action Points?
What other action points
can you add to support the
development of T&L in
your areas?
Ask participants to reflect on the statements listed on the slide. To what extent do they agree with them? Do they relate to their own experience of observing colleagues and being observed?
Patrick Bambrick-Santoyo (2012) Leverage Leadership: A Practical Guide to Building Exceptional Schools, Jossey Bass
Use this slide to explore the purpose and benefits of lesson observation. Focus particularly on those themes that did not arise during the preceding discussion.
Try to draw out the different ways that observation is perceived amongst participants. Perceptions might vary depending on their own experience of observation and feedback, the impact of Ofsted and/or the culture of the school.
Ideally, the discussion on the benefits of observation will lead to reflection on how to best organise and implement it. Middle leaders’ observations should have the outcome of promoting better teaching and learning, and a strong focus on improvement
Image source: https://pixabay.com/en/check-correct-green-mark-tick-157822/
Brief participants on the five stages of effective lesson observation:
Planning
Discuss the focus of the forthcoming lesson with the teacher who you will be observing. Are there any issues concerning the class you will be observing which need to be addressed?
Consider whether the teacher you will be observing has any specific development priorities. How might you allow them to establish the development agenda which will underpin the observation? Would there be any benefit in jointly planning the lesson with the teacher?
Observation
The observation itself may focus on a range of teaching standards or it may have a specific focus. This should have been agreed at the planning stage.
Brief feedback
This is an opportunity to provide brief immediate feedback. In most cases, this will involve thanking the teacher and agreeing when a more detailed feedback discussion will take place. Try to put the teacher at ease about the more formal feedback discussion.
Feedback discussion
This stage of the process will be covered in more detail in the role-play activity later on during this session.
Conclusion and action
At the end of the feedback discussion, it is important to ensure that the development priorities have been heard and can be articulated by the teacher. To ensure the process is developmental, there must be a commitment to action and improvement.
Whilst it may not always be possible to establish a clear time frame for actions, it is important for the teacher to have an understanding of how things could be improved, and to be aware of action points which would address any development priorities.
The key point is that as a middle leader (or any type of leader), any observation must have a plan and conclude with actions that are monitored for embedding.
