This document provides typical features of more and less successful lessons based on feedback from recent lesson observations. It summarizes key elements of lessons like learning intentions, success criteria, tasks/activities, feedback, inclusion, and literacy. Stronger lessons tend to have clear learning intentions, well-defined success criteria and models, engaging tasks aligned to the learning, specific feedback, appropriate challenge for all students, and explicit literacy instruction. Weaker lessons often lack focus, have unclear or absent success criteria, include superficial tasks and feedback, provide inappropriate challenge, and do not explicitly teach relevant literacy skills.

1. Reflections on the Learning and Teaching policy – typical features of more / less successful lessons
The following is designed to help colleagues identify areas of strength / areas for development, with reference to the key elements of the Learning and Teaching Policy:
1. This must not be treated as a ‘tick box’ of expected practice; instead, it is a summary of typical features of more / less successful lessons, gathered by scrutinising feedback on recent lesson observations
2. Clearly, it is not expected that all of these features will be witnessed in a single lesson – these are typical observed features rather than criteria.
Core Element from policy Typical features of stronger lessons include... Typical features of weaker lessons include...
Learning Intention - what is
the focus of the lesson? Is the
choice of skill / knowledge
appropriate and well-judged?
● Learning intentions are appropriate / clear / challenging /
focused / understood by the students / interesting /
important / simply-expressed / linked directly to the
activities in the lesson
● Learning intentions are over-complicated / too wide or unfocused /
focused on task not learning / jumping between skills / not linked
to the activities in the lesson
Success Criteria / Modelling – do
they know how to do the lesson
tasks well? Are students helped to
see what excellence in each task
might look like?
● Success Criteria are sharply focused on and relevant to the skill
or process being taught / used by students to help them make
progress / differentiated / supported by effective models / referred
to repeatedly during activities / explicit and clear.
● Models are shared and students understand how they hit the
criteria/ differentiated so that all have appropriate model to aim
for / ‘micro-modelled’ so that a small part of the larger task is
modelled and students complete the rest.
● Each activity the students do is accompanied, at some point, with
a sense of how they might do the task to a high level of quality.
● Students are given tasks to complete without a sense of how to be
successful in doing so
● Success criteria are provided for the lesson as a whole, but not the actual
tasks that the students do
● Success criteria / models are reserved only for the longest task in the
lesson - other tasks have little or no sense of quality attached
● Success criteria are lacking challenge / limiting /unclear / present but not
used in the lesson / un-modelled / overly-abstract or complicated to the
extent that students don’t understand them
● Models are absent / present but links to success criteria are not clear
(why is this a successful / unsuccessful response) / shared but not
explored, so students don’t understand what they show
● Models are too close to the task or too detailed, so that they effectively
complete the task for the students
Tasks / Activities - What are
they doing, and is this helping
them to make progress towards
the learning intention?
● Tasks and Activities are effective in helping students to think
deeply about the learning in the lesson
● Tasks and Activities are focused on well-judged learning
intentions and success criteria / challenging/ modelled /
accessible for all / low-access and high challenge / differentiated
appropriately
● Whole class and individual questioning and discussion is well-
judged / structured so as to encourage high levels of participation
/ pushes student thinking and understanding
● Direct Instruction from the teacher is well-judged in terms of
length, style and content, so that students learn well during
periods of ‘teacher-talk’
● There is some variety in tasks, and this helps students to think
deeply about the learning
● Tasks and Activities are superficial and lack challenge / low in
purpose or value
● Questioning technique (e.g. exclusive reliance on initiation -
response - evaluation) means that very few / only more confident
students take part in discussion / student answers are limited in
scope, depth and detail
● Direct instruction from the teacher is not well-judged in terms of
length, style and content, so that students don’t learn well during
periods of ‘teacher-talk’
● Too many tasks and activities are set during the lesson, so that
little time is available for students to be challenged / find depth in
the work

2. Feedback - do the students
receive useful feedback in
lessons as to how they are
doing and how they can
improve?
● Feedback gives students clear and helpful advice as to the
extent to which their work meets criteria for success, and
ways in which they can improve further
● Feedback is positioned in the lesson so that students have
time and opportunity to take action on the advice they’re
given
● Feedback in the lesson is focused on well-judged learning
intentions and success criteria
● Feedback promotes a growth mindset by praising effort
and progress
● Various techniques are used to generate feedback, such
as effective peer and self-assessment, so that the number
of students receiving and acting on feedback in a lesson is
high
● Feedback on student work during lessons is vague / superficial/
imprecise and unspecific in identifying what the student has done
well and how they might improve work still further - ‘that’s great,
well done’
● Feedback makes no reference to the stated learning intention and
success criteria for the task
● Feedback promotes a fixed mindset by focusing only on praising
high levels of attainment, rather than progress and effort
Inclusive teaching - is this
lesson working for all students?
● All students in the lesson are able to access the learning to
a suitable and appropriate level of challenge - students are
given ‘hard work they can do’
● Use of TAs and other adults is planned for and effective in
helping the class make progress
● The teacher actively engages with and teaches SEN/D
students during lessons
● Learning intentions and tasks in the lessons contain inappropriate
levels of challenge, being too difficult for lower attainers and / or
too easy for higher attainers
● Use of TAs is ineffective, because their work is not planned for by
and with the teacher/ all TA time is spent with the same students /
Literacy - are the relevant
literacy skills explicitly taught in
the lesson?
● Appropriate literacy skills (i.e. those which are required for
the learning intention to be delivered) are taught explicitly
in the lesson so that all students can
● Students are prompted, taught and expected to provide
developed, detailed and thoughtful answers when
providing spoken contributions in the lesson
● Attention is brought to key words of the subject; they are
expected and taught to spell key words correctly
● Reading / Writing is required in order to complete the tasks, but
students are not taught to read / write in ways which help them to
be successful. As a result, students with existing higher levels of
literacy make quicker progress.
● Spoken contributions by students are usually limited and brief,
and they are not expected / prompted / taught to extend their
contributions.