Understanding what went well and what didn’t in a lesson is mission critical to school improvement. It helps teachers develop their teaching which in turn improves children’s outcomes.
Lesson observations are meant to be the tool to enable this process – to help teachers improve their practice. But instead, observations too often add to the pressure many teachers already feel. Even experienced teachers’ nerves ratchet up when their turn under the microscope arrives.
As my own experience attests, carrying out a lesson observation can be stressful for senior leaders too. I carried out many when I was a senior leader. Over the years I have learnt that if we want to use lesson observations as a training opportunity then there is room for improvement. So, where do lesson observations go wrong?
Over-complicating things
As a senior leader who wore multiple hats, I often found my goals and motivations for the lesson observation didn’t always align with those of the teacher. They could inadvertently morph into a way to find evidence to support wider school performance objectives. This could then make it difficult to provide meaningful feedback to the teacher.
For example, a school-wide priority might be to improve teacher questioning, but this is not an individual target for the teacher being observed as they don’t need support to refine their practice.
However, knowing that this is a school-wide priority, the teacher wants to demonstrate their proficiency and so runs a great Q&A session during the observation. As such, any training opportunity the observation could have provided or identified in another equally vital area is lost.
If the purpose of the lesson observation is to also double up as an end of year performance review this can further complicate the picture.
And of course, a teacher who knows their pay and progression is linked to the observation is more likely to “play it safe” and deliver a lesson to reflect their strengths and not an area they want to refine.
In this case, the lesson observation is not fulfilling its intended purpose as a genuine opportunity for the teacher’s development.
Lesson observations can serve a fundamentally critical purpose, but I learnt in time that everyone needs to be clear about what that is. A conversation before the observation to agree what exactly both your roles are and what you are coming to observe is important. One or two objectives is the sweet spot. Any more and confusion sets in.
There is value in encouraging teachers to take a more active role in their own development too. Can you agree the objectives together? Can they also evaluate their own performance against the objectives you have agreed?
Making assumptions
An enduring criticism of lesson observations is that they can’t truly capture what they are meant to be seeing – namely, learning.
As educationalist Professor Dylan Wiliam (2023) has observed: “One of the enduring myths in education is that we know good teaching when we see it.”
Prof Wiliam cites evidence showing that even school leaders are unable to accurately gauge what effective teaching looks like, including those trained in lesson observation.
What happens instead is that the person observing the lesson, me included, looks for what we believe are proxies for learning. A show of hands could be one, as we can assume this shows that lots of the pupils have understood the question, but if the same question is asked and observed in next week’s lesson this might not be the case.
Or we might assume that an SEN pupil who is looking out of the window is not engaged in the lesson, when they might well be but simply need a visual diversion to be able to actively listen at the same time.
And consider this scenario: a pupil is asked to read aloud a passage about the First World War, which they do brilliantly. An assumption could be made about the child’s understanding of the key concepts based on their performance. If a senior leader makes the same assumption – that being able to read the passage fluently was the appropriate indicator to measure the pupil’s understanding – a false proxy could be reinforced which may potentially lead to suboptimal results.
It could be that gaps in the child’s knowledge of the topic may only become apparent later, when they complete a piece of work designed to examine their understanding of the subject in more depth.
I spent some years as an Ofsted inspector and it taught me that sometimes how we observe is informed by our own experiences and opinions and this can drive well-meaning but fundamentally incorrect lesson observation agendas and narratives, too.
As observers we therefore need to be aware of bringing our own experience of teaching a year group, class, or subject and inadvertently using it as a benchmark to assess how the teacher is conducting a lesson.
For example, we might prefer group work, but the teacher, knowing the dynamics of the class, understands that this is not the right approach to take. As observers it is important to acknowledge the teacher’s direct experience with their class.
Structuring the lesson observation incorrectly
Traditional lesson observations are often infrequent and as such are not compatible with assessing how effectively a teacher delivers the curriculum.
Teachers don’t tend to plan standalone lessons, but instead plan a sequence of lessons incorporating different activities from week to week to build on children’s knowledge.
But if an observation takes place during lesson one at the start of the topic, where it is appropriate the teacher takes a low-level introductory approach, it could lead the observer to falsely conclude that the teacher is not challenging pupils enough. If they observe lesson six, they may reach another conclusion.
This represents two typical challenges: one being the insight of the observer and the second being the construction of the curriculum.
Making judgements of teaching practice based on a moment in time can set the greyhounds running in the wrong direction. I learnt as a senior leader to consider the individual needs of different teachers, pupil groups, and classroom dynamics over time to make lesson observations more effective.
The snapshot approach to lesson observations doesn’t work, as no two lessons, days or cohorts of pupils are the same.
Also, if a one-off lesson observation leaves a teacher feeling rated, checked up on, or judged, they can end up demotivated and discouraged. A school where supported and informed self-reflection is encouraged instead can encourage teachers to feel more empowered and in control over their own personal development.
If you focus on supporting teachers’ reflections and improvement then what senior leaders hope to evaluate through the process will come naturally.
The Hawthorne Effect
A key aim of traditional observations is to gather a valid set of evidence that can be used to inform a view on what’s likely to happen when there isn’t an observer in the room. But lesson observations often fall victim to the Hawthorne Effect, where an observer in the room influences the way people behave.
A few years back, the Guardian’s secret teacher described how his normally engaged and enthusiastic year 9 pupils were intimidated by the presence of their head of year observing the class, which left the teacher unable to drag his pupils out of their “self-imposed mutism” so the planned discussion and paired work was “dead in the water” (Guardian, 2013).
I learnt after some time that for an observer, things are rarely ever as they seem. I have certainly observed lessons that didn’t appear to go well, but the teacher still got great results at the end of the year. And vice-versa, there were times when the observation itself uncovered some great teaching, but the end of year results didn’t match expectations.
If we want authentic teaching and learning to occur, then we need to stop observing lessons in the way they have typically been observed up until now.
The current format assumes that just because one lesson has gone well, or not gone well, that all the other lessons being taught are likely to go the same way. But teaching is dynamic, and the way lessons are routinely observed largely overlooks this.
As I have found from my own experience, observing a lesson in isolation is not a great way to identify effective learning or improve teaching practice. Smaller and more frequent sessions reduce the likelihood of false learning proxies and gives observers a much better picture of the overall quality of the teaching and learning that takes place.
That is why I believe it is time to consider alternative approaches to traditional lesson observations that empower teachers and drive genuine improvement.
Matt Tiplin is a former senior leader in a MAT school and an Ofsted inspector. He is also currently chair of governors of a community primary school and the VP of ONVU Learning. Visit www.onvulearning.com and find his previous articles for Headteacher Update via www.headteacher-update.com/authors/matt-tiplin/
Headteacher Update Spring Term Edition 2024
- This article first appeared in Headteacher Update's Spring Term Edition 2024. This edition was sent free of charge to UK primary schools in January. A free-to-access digital edition is also available via www.headteacher-update.com/content/downloads
Further information & resources
- Guardian: Secret teacher: schools have got lesson observations all wrong, 2013: https://tinyurl.com/4ah7pauy
- Wiliam: Teacher quality: What it is, why it matters, and how to get more of it, Impact, 2023: https://tinyurl.com/5n7rp52h