Writing key messages

Copyright © 2016 Deborah McVey Ltd. All rights reserved.
Observation key messages
This document is intended as a guide for lesson observers to follow when they are writing
their judgements / feedback / key messages. On its own, it does not explore the many
potential pitfalls of observation, the different ways to observe or how to have post
observation conversation with teachers. It is purely for the purpose of supporting observers
when writing up their findings.
It is important to note that the guidance here is for observers who have participated in training
with me. Without this, the guidance may have little meaning. For those trained observers it
serves as a reminder to help them write their findings. It’s the coaching voice to support the
ever-developing skill, preparing for a post observation conversation with a teacher.
Following an observation of a session, and once you have gathered all the evidence including
observing learners, analysing their work, taking note of the environment, looking at learner
records, speaking to learners and speaking to the teacher, it’s time to pull together your key
messages. You might call these key judgements, and for a long time I did too. But I’m not
sure it’s a friendly enough word and so here, I will refer to them as messages. That’s what
they are.
These key messages are really the most distinguishing features about the session. They are
the important aspects that you want to make sure the teacher is aware of (whether they
identify these through reflection or you sharing your findings with them). Put together, when
you read the key messages, they should paint a picture of the learners’ experience that you
witnessed. This should be a picture of their experience on their learning journey detailing the
progress they have made over time, not just what happened in the session.
To support you to write and share the key messages, ensure that there is sufficient evidence
and that each message really is key. In other words, if something happened just once, it might
not be key. Of course there will be exceptions to this, but in general and to ensure you really
are sure, have at least three pieces of evidence that support a single key message.

Read through your notes about what you noticed in the session and from your
conversations. It might help to highlight certain information. This can help you to see what
the key messages are.
A key message needs to be a clear, evaluative, relevant statement. To write a key message
clearly and help paint a clear picture of the learners’ experience, you can use the following
guidance.
Writing key messages
1. What learner focused aspect is the message about?
Make clear the aspect that the message is about. This might be for instance, development of
knowledge of the cardiovascular system, development of chopping skills, learner enjoyment,
improvements in confidence or research skills, ability to calculate percentages etc.
Note: This aspect must be about learner impact. It answers the ‘So what?’ question. If you
were to make a statement about a teaching process e.g. ‘Good use of directed questioning’,
the question to be asked would be ‘So what?’, asking ‘So what was the impact on learning?’
It’s the answer to this that you should be stating clearly in your key message. This might be
‘All learners made a valuable verbal contribution when questioned which challenged them
well’. Remember of course it could also be ‘All learners slept throughout the directed
questioning!’ This is the difference between process and impact. It doesn’t matter what
process is used, it’s the impact we judge. The same process can be used in different situations
with different results. Judge the result.
2. To what extent?
An evaluative word must be used to say what the quality of the aspect is. Without this word
the statement does not tell us the extent of the development or skill.
Note: This answers the ‘To what extent?’ question. Saying ‘Learners made progress towards
their understanding of the endocrine system’ does not tell us how much progress. Look at
the difference a word can make here:

 Learners made excellent progress towards their understanding of the endocrine
system
 Learners made little progress towards their understanding of the endocrine system
Additional note: You can use evaluative words to describe teaching or processes used if you
want to but you need to ensure there is an evaluative word about the impact on learning.
Look for the difference here:
 Learners complete a wide range of interesting activities
Here the evaluative words are about the processes
Or
 Learners demonstrate high levels of interest in the activities, which challenge them
well
Here we get to find out about extent of the impact of activities. This is what we want to know.
3. How can you be sure?
Although much of the evidence will be written in the ‘what was noticed’ section of the form,
a little convincing evidence should be added to the statement to really make it clear why that
key message is being stated.
For example:
 Excellent development of practical skills
does not convince as much as
 Excellent development of practical skills with all learners making outstanding progress
towards their ability to complete a handstand. To begin, no learners were able to
complete a full handstand for 5 seconds or more, two learners were reticent to
attempt a handstand at all and another three could not reach the required position.
By the end, all learners could hold the position for 5 seconds or more.
Simply, the second one gives clarity and it makes you believe it.
Note: This answers the ‘Are you certain?’ or ‘How can I be sure you’re judging this right?’
question.

The other key questions to answer are:
4. How much (of the time)?
5. How many (learners)?
Thinking about how much: There is a big difference between:
 Learners’ behaviour was good throughout the whole session
and
 Learners’ behaviour was good for the last 2 minutes of the 5-hour session
Thinking about how many: Are you talking about just one learner, two learners? Can you say
who the specific learners were or at least where they were in the room to help the teacher
recognise this? Again, there is a huge difference between:
 Two learners did not engage sufficiently in the activity (3 minutes) and instead were
texting on their phones
and
 All learners with the exception of one did not sufficiently engage in the activity and
were instead using their phones.
Tie these things together and you really can start to paint a very different picture. Is it:
Two learners did not sufficiently engage in the 3 minute warm up activity
or
Almost all learners did not sufficiently engage in learning activities for the entire session?
Big difference. Huge.

But!
Do bear in mind that often you won’t be able to quantify exactly how many or how much.
Why? Because you can’t possibly have noticed everything, and if for instance you are judging
progress in a session it’s unlikely you’ve been able to judge the absolute progress of every
single learner. If something is the case for much of the time for most of the learners and there
don’t appear to be times when it’s different, don’t feel the need to say how much and how
many. If you think you can it’s more likely that you are making assumptions.
Important point: Assumptions are unfair
Other considerations
6. A session with ups and downs
Sometimes we feel the need to wrap key messages up and come to overall decisions about
certain aspects such as progress or contributions etc. However, there might be a mixture of
good and not so good bits.
It’s important not to worry about contradiction here. Saying learner contribution and focus
was good at a certain point in the session and less good at another is not a contradiction, it is
simply indicating to the teacher were the better experience was and can help them to reflect
on what made it so.
To make these judgments, simply say exactly when and where it was good and when and
where it was not so good.
7. Over time versus in session
Often there is confusion about commenting on aspects that are important but we might not
‘see happening’. Bear in mind that key messages should be about development over time
rather than just what happens in a single session. This particularly causes uncertainty when
it comes to key messages about English, maths, ILT and understanding of equality issues. We

are stating whether there is meaningful development of these skills as appropriate over
time not superficial embedding of activities in a single session.
This means that it might be perfectly acceptable that there wasn’t any maths development in
a session. The observer needs to then just look at other evidence that tells them about maths
development over time. This might include asking learners about their maths skills and how
they are developing them.
If, however, the session had some obvious opportunities to support learners with the
development of their maths skills, then a key message about that might be included.
8. Could have should have would have
Saying you could have, should have, or if you would have is NOT a key message (it isn’t an
actual judgement). It’s your idea about what could have happened. ‘Could have’ is unfair.
This is why: If you took 100 observers and let them watch the same session, they might all
come up with lots of different could haves throughout the session. Of course, there are so
many ways of doing things they could end up with 1000 could haves between them easily.
You then give all these could haves to the teacher. Whilst it might be useful for the teacher
to think about other ways they might have done things, if the way they did them worked, it is
unfair to use ‘could have’ as a key message.
If something didn’t work well, state this in a key message. Leave your could haves out.
‘Should have’ or ‘if you had’ is a form of prediction. There is no way of knowing that if a
teacher used a certain strategy it would have a particular result. Every situation, teacher, and
learner is different.
The other sin is ‘I would have’ or ‘what I normally do’. Nobody needs to know what you would
have done! Just judge what you saw. Your way might not be appropriate here.

9. Findings not suggestions
Areas for improvement / areas for development should still be judgements. You still need to
state what didn’t go well. Often observers skip this process and tell teachers what to do
instead.
Example:
 Use differentiated activities for learners
This doesn’t tell the teacher what was wrong. You have to ask yourself, why would someone
change their practice to a different suggested practice if they didn’t know there was anything
wrong with their current practice?
The key message instead might simply be:
 Some learners were insufficiently challenged by the word search activity; with many
completing early and sitting waiting and others not completing at all stating it was a
waste of time. A few learners found some of the word search to be useful, and had
to consult their notes, supporting their development of the topic
Through conversation and coaching, the teacher might then see that learners need varying
tasks at times.
10. Sufficiency
Once you’ve ensured all your key messages have this kind of detail as far as possible, check
that you’ve got sufficient key messages about all the key aspects of the session so you’ve
painted that overall picture.

Writing guidance: 10 Simple checks
So to help out with all of this, here are some prompts:
1. Is it clear what aspect of the learners’ experience you are commenting on?
2. Have you used an evaluative word (at least one) to tell us the extent that the aspect
is developing?
3. Also have you made sure that evaluative word is on the impact part of the key
message and not the process part?
4. Have you included a bit of convincing evidence that helps paint a picture?
5. Have you said how much and how many as appropriate?
6. Have you differentiated the ups form the downs?
7. Have you commented on progress / development over time?
8. Have you left out could have, would have, should haves?
9. Have you left out suggestions?
10. Have you included sufficient key messages to paint a clear picture of learners’
experience?

Writing key messages

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