October 25, 2014 by cherrylkd 1 Comment
This blog stems from one of those early morning twitter conversations that I keep involving myself in. This one was on Friday 25th October and was started by a tweet from @GlynYOGIPotts
‘Today I will launch our ‘no grades’ observation policy in school. Nervous about how it will be received. Puts development above judgement’.
I responded with ‘Well done you. Good luck’.
A few other tweeters joined in and the conversation was a positive one. All good, I’m happy to report. Glyn said he wanted his school to be transparent and this was incremental change rather than fear. One of his reasons for going down this road was that he felt school had hired the staff and it was their role to reflect, support and develop them. I agree wholeheartedly with this. Eventually we were joined by @rrunsworth, the founding member of @UKGovchat. Raj was curious about this from a Governance perspective and asked some searching questions. Her basic question was ‘As a Governor how do we obtain accurate assessment of quality of teaching? Glyn stated that Governors would be more intelligent and would see the improvements, not just the grades. The conversation continued with Raj playing devil’s advocate to attempt to get to the nitty gritty for Governors. I replied that I would answer later as I was off to work. I was confident I’d blogged about this previously. It seems not! This is an attempt to rectify that.
Just in case there is anyone who is unaware Ofsted ran a pilot in June and July 2014 to see if the quality of lesson observations could be effectively judged without grades being assigned to individual lessons and teachers. In September 2014 Ofsted published a leaflet ‘Information for Teachers about Inspection: Lesson Observations’. This leaflet explained that Inspectors will not grade the quality of teaching or enter such a grade on the form for individual lesson observations. They will only feedback any evidence they have seen from teaching, books, talking to children and observing.
Prior to this my school, like most schools graded teachers during observations. I have long felt that lesson grading was unreasonable. It is far too subjective, one person’s Outstanding might be another person’s RI due to a dislike of the teaching style. My personal view is that grading should have been consigned to the scrap heap many years ago. The problem was that Ofsted used to ask for the HTs judgements on lesson observations. There really was not much choice. It had to be done. It was also a safeguard against a teacher having a bad day during an inspection. So maybe there was something positive to be gained from it.
So, the original question, how will we show evidence of the quality of teaching. For me the best way to assess the quality of teaching is to talk to the children while observing. Children are brutally honest! It will be apparent in an instant if they have got it. It is also possible to tell if the lesson was not challenging enough or too challenging by talking to children at either end of the ability spectrum.
Second is the books, look in the books. I’m not suggesting excessive marking, or triple marking, or different coloured pens or any other gimmicky type of marking. Just a clear showing of the work and if it is right or wrong with suggested improvements as feedback. From the marking you can also tell if the work was pitched at the right level. I don’t even think children should be slavishly copying out the lesson objective. The idea is to show knowledge and understanding rather than the copying skills of the child.
My third indicator is the data. As data leader I’m big on data. This is your strongest indicator of progress over time. You can see how each child in the class is doing in the subject you are observing. Any problems with the quality of teaching will be apparent with a glance at the data.
So that’s my answer to showing the quality of teaching for governors. Talk to the children, look in the books, check the data and triangulate this evidence on the lesson observation form. If any areas for further development are thrown up these can be shared with the teacher during feedback. This is a far more supportive, far less threatening model than grading lessons. I for one applaud Ofsted for driving the change on this.
Of course it is up to individual Head teachers how they run their schools. I told @mcladingbowl in August at the meeting that I thought that many Headteachers would continue to grade lessons as they are in fear of Ofsted. Just because Ofsted no longer require a whole file full of graded observations there is no guarantee that Heads will not do it. I can only hope that HTs listen and take their lead from Ofsted on this one. This culture of fear is not healthy and is not conducive to school improvement.
I am pleased to say that my Headteacher doesn’t grade lessons and as a result our teachers have no fear of observations. Well maybe a little!
BekBlayton said:
This is great discussion starter, it’s interesting how many heads are afraid of not grading. It does make me wonder how much our judgement has been eroded over the years. I haven’t graded, and it feels great to just discuss a lesson, free of the need to justify a grade.
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cherrylkd said:
Thats what I think too. I’d rather be supported to improve my teaching than be told a grade. Also, if you know a grade is coming you don’t listen to anything else until it is given.
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@htphil said:
…..errr. So you are grading? ……by talking to the children, looking at books etc?
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cherrylkd said:
No grade given. We observe but do not judge.
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Philip Mooney said:
I wasn’t being funny Cherryl. My point is, is there anyone in the school that is able say which teachers are role models (ie outstanding or simply very good if the word is unpalatable) and which teachers need to develop aspects of their work? I totally get that when you give a grade teachers don’t focus on the areas for development as they perhaps should. My point is that within the organisation surely someone holds a record which illustrates where each teacher is? Having been HT at Cardinal Allen now for 10 years and having had the pleasure of watching well over 250 lessons I almost intuitively know where each colleague is. It is a joy to see individuals develop in different ways and it can be frustrating when others seem to stall. I do get concerned that schools/HT’s tend to get painted as Neanderthals for grading. It’s all in the quality of feedback and the attention to detail following through after that. As you know, Cardy is just up the road. Would love to do some work with you involving my T&L Coordinator.
@htphil
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cherrylkd said:
Ah right. Now I see your point. Yes you have a point. I took that completely the wrong way.
Our HT has a firm grasp of what is going in school re teaching and learning. Myself & the other AHT do too. When Ofsted came in April myself & AHT were able to speak confidently about who needed extra support and how we had supported where needed. We haven’t graded since Rosie took the headship and to be honest it’s a much more supportive model. We do peer mentoring and coaching.
Pop over and have a look. It’s a different school these days. Still fabulous, if anything I’d say more so. Come & visit, we’d love to work with you.
Apologies for my earlier manner.
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cazzypot2013 said:
Reblogged this on The Echo Chamber.
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chemistrypoet said:
Good, clear blog. The only issue I see is the meaningfulness of the data. A consensus appears to be settling on the inappropriateness of much of the data as currently arrived at, with respect to its relevance for making judgements of progress. To a certain extent this will depend on where you are in the system (primary, secondary etc), but absolute judgements between schools appears to be impossible with the current approach to data. So, how do you use the data as part of the triangulation process?
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cherrylkd said:
I use the data before the lesson observation so that I can see progress over time. It helps me to decide how progress is coming along rather than just the snapshot of that lesson. I think when we are observed we don’t always perform our best so it’s not a good judgement at all. Progress over time gives a much clearer picture of how the teaching is normally. Hope that helps.
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chemistrypoet said:
I was wondering more what the data actually was? (within cohort data, data trends, standard tests)
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cherrylkd said:
As we are a special school we have lots of data. We have to show progress in tiny steps for our children who are on P Levels. The data I use is cohort data to see how they have been progressing in that subject over the time in that class.
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chemistrypoet said:
Thanks. That helps contextualise the situation. In cohort progress (where there are ways of measuring it) are probably the only meaningful data (still possibly subjective in places, but consistently subjective). Where the data is attempted to be linked and compared to national, supposedly objective data…that’s when the limitations of the data seriously compromise the attempt at comparison, I think.
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