Philip Stainton suggests ways that school leaders can use lesson observations to give effective feedback to their teachers
When the discussion regarding lesson observations arises within a leadership meeting, I have sometimes heard the following phrase “There is no need to do more than 20mins, I can judge the lesson quality within that amount of time”.
This is a phrase that I quite strongly disagree with. Not because it is untrue, some experienced middle and senior leaders are able, through a snapshot of 20 minutes, judge the quality of a lesson, and come to the same outcome as the observer who stayed for the whole lesson. That is not what I am disputing. The reason why I disagree with the statement comes down to the question “What is the point of lesson observations?”. If the strategic goal for a round of lesson observations is to agree an overall grading of the teaching and learning within a department/faculty/school, then this short approach is a feasible solution for leadership to undertake. However, I counter that argument to say, with an open-door policy, trained middle leaders and regular learning walk opportunities, wouldn’t the school already have a sense of the level of teaching and learning occurring?
Can a middle or senior leader give robust and effective feedback when only viewing a snapshot of a lesson?
If the reason for the lesson observation is to give constructive feedback to staff and agree actions with the aim of helping to improve through a culture of professional development, then I challenge the notion, can a middle or senior leader give robust and effective feedback when only viewing a snapshot of a lesson? It is for this reason that I try to stay for the length of the lesson when observing a member of staff. This allows me to have all the information regarding the teaching and learning to deliver constructive and support feedback for the staff member to action upon.
From my experience, there are other intangible benefits. As much as schools try to foster a culture of learning and sharing best practise through an open-door policy, teachers do tend to become more stressed regarding lesson observations, particularly if they are linked to performance-related pay or the observations are ill-planned in terms of the whole school calendar. In staying for the length of time for a lesson, teachers often report that they feel they have time to showcase their skills without worrying that the only part of the lesson observed was the ‘only part that went wrong!’
My final point is linked to the value of integrity. In outstanding schools, we ask our teaching staff to take great care and attention over the planning of lessons to allow the information and skills to be shared with pupils in an outstanding way. In only staying for a snapshot of a lesson, what message am I sharing with the teacher? If a pupil created a presentation on your request, but on arrival you decided you’d only see the first 5 slides, how would that make the pupil feel?
It is for these reasons, I urge middle and senior leaders to take time out of their busy schedules and really give due care and attention to the lesson observation process, for we all want the pupils to improve, so let’s give the teaching staff the same chance.
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