How to conduct purposeful observations

Insights into why we should ditch the ‘traditional’ lesson observations with guidance on how to conduct purposeful observations, from Matt Tiplin.

Where I went wrong with lesson observations

Classrooms are the engines of a school. What happens in them is crucial to school performance and pupil outcomes. It’s a given then that we need to understand what went well in a lesson and what didn’t. As a concept, lesson observations make sense. So why can they leave many teachers frustrated at best and stressed or demotivated at worst?

As a former geography teacher at one of the country’s top performing state schools, I’ve been the subject of many an observation and experienced first-hand the nerves and time-consuming preparation that leads up to them. And viewing them from the other side of the lens when I became a senior leader of a MAT, I’ve learnt they don’t always offer the authentic insight needed to improve teaching practice.

That’s why I believe it’s time to rethink how we conduct lesson observations.

Change the structure

The current format assumes because one lesson has gone well, or not gone well, that all the other lessons being taught will follow a similar pattern. But teaching is dynamic, and the way lessons are routinely observed largely overlooks this. As lessons are not one-off events then, but part of a series, it’s not helpful to view them as such. Smaller and more frequent sessions give observers a much better picture of the overall quality of the teaching and learning that took place.

Making judgements of teaching practice based on a moment in time can raise more questions than answers and damage teacher confidence and morale.

I’ve also learned an effective approach is to give teachers more opportunity to self-reflect on their teaching practice. Setting up a triad, where three teachers work together as ‘observed’, ‘observe’r and ‘mediator’ can work well and help to foster a collegiate approach to CPD and a culture of self-reflection.

Putting teachers at the front and centre of their own professional development gives them the autonomy to decide the areas for development. These can be identified through reflective practice, for example, by videoing and reviewing their own lessons. This way, teachers have the chance to analyse their own qualities and consider potential steps towards improvement. They can also see small signs of progress along the way, which is pretty motivating.

Make it less prescriptive

As an observer, we can come with a list of criteria to tick off, but criteria that are easily looked for – such as a show of hands or the teacher setting homework – are not always accurate measures of pupils’ learning or the quality of teaching.

I know from my own experience in leadership that the teachers I oversaw were almost aways far more expert in the classroom than me.

When I was a senior leader, an MFL teacher I was observing spoke to me about the complexity of observing a French lesson when I didn’t have the direct experience of teaching it. She explained that if I were to look for fluency as an indicator of the pupils’ learning, then I wouldn’t see or hear it in that lesson. This didn’t mean the pupils wouldn’t have the ability to become fluent, but they would need to be fully immersed in the language to be able to do that. The tools she was teaching them in her class would provide them with the foundation skills they needed, but not fluency. Therefore, if I had ‘fluency’ down on my list of criteria, the teacher would have been marked down. But this feedback would not have been appropriate to the class.

Having a conversation before the observation is helpful and informative, especially when observing lessons in a secondary school, because of the high percentage of subject-specific lessons. As the observer, we should acknowledge the professional knowledge and experience the teachers we are observing bring to the table and not assume we always know the most appropriate way to deliver the lesson.

Keep focussed

As a senior leader juggling multiple tasks, I often found my goals and motivations for the lesson observation didn’t always align with the teacher’s.

For example, a school-wide priority might be to improve teacher questioning, but this isn’t an individual target for the teacher being observed, as they may not need this support to refine their practice. However, knowing this is a school-wide priority, the teacher wants to demonstrate their proficiency and run a great Q&A session during the observation. Any training opportunity the observation could therefore have provided is lost, as the insight isn’t relevant to the teacher’s personal CPD.

Lesson observations can serve a fundamentally critical purpose, but I’ve learnt over time that everyone needs to be clear about what that is. It is vital therefore to have a conversation before the observation to agree what exactly both your roles are and what your observation objectives are; setting just one or two observation objectives is ideal.

Discovering evidence of learning through observation is difficult and nuanced. It’s hard to accurately gauge what good teaching looks like and this can lead the observer to look for proxies for progress. That’s why fostering a culture of self-reflection is a better way to support staff and maximise outcomes for students.