Is The End Nigh For Graded Lesson Observations?

When I was training to be a teacher all those moons ago, lesson observations were generally a pretty positive experience. They were essentially pass or fail, and would have to be pretty awful to fail. They would focus on the following:

• What went well (where have I heard that before?);
• Even better if (Groundhog Day?) I did a couple of things - how I could have improved the lesson;
• My target is (Deja vu?) to try some new stuff to improve my teaching.

I actually quite liked lesson observations, although I wouldn't say that my day was made by one, but I saw them as a positive way of improving my practise.

Nowadays, in the era of "performance related pay" and express capability procedures brought in during Michael Gove's watch as Secretary of State for Education, although I suspect others would have brought it in as a desperate attempt to tighten education's belt, lesson observations can make or break a teaching career or a school, depending on who the observer(s) is. They have moved away from their supportive nature and become a threatening entity in education.

For those (presumably few, if any) of you who don't know, lessons are graded by management or Ofsted inspectors on a scale from 1 to 4:

1. Outstanding.
2. Good
3. Requires Improvement
4. Inadequate

In order to avoid "action plans" or "capability" procedures, a teacher must be consistently a 1 or 2, although the odd 3 is acceptable as everyone has a bad day, but expect to be seen again pretty quickly and make sure you get a 1 or 2 or else! You'd think that's fair enough, and so would pretty much every teacher as we all, as educators, want to produce lessons that encourage and enhance learning. And actually you knew where you were when Ofsted had a particular style of lesson/teaching that they wanted to see, because ultimately the observation was a box ticking exercise.

Now I'm not saying that I agree with Ofsted wanting to see a particular type of teaching, in fact I actively oppose it, but if a teacher's livelihood depends upon lesson observation gradings, then I don't see that you there is any fairer way. The problem is that now Ofsted have actively said that they don't want to see a particular style of teaching as long as learning is "rapid and sustained".

This therefore leaves observers in a bit of a dilemma when grading lesson observations, because it now becomes a personal opinion, which is anything but fair. One would hope that observers could set aside personal opinions regarding the teacher and just grade the lesson, but in my experience, this is seemingly impossible. Comments such as "I would have done it this way" and "I didn't like that" in the feedback are fairly commonplace, and surely it's irrelevant what the observer thinks; what the children in the class think is the important thing. Gradings that are linked to pay or, at worst, capability, become a personal opinion; expect numerous lawsuits for wrongful dismissal

So, as a result, some schools are abandoning lesson observation gradings to make teachers more comfortable and allow them to try to improve their practise without fear of reprisals if it doesn't go to plan straight away. It's brave but actually sensible. My school won't do it (for many reasons, most based upon the personality of the person at the top of the tree), and the fact that we now have numerous leaving speeches every term seems to be the modern trend (I personally find this cut-throat attitude towards staff/people unpleasant). The fact that children don't respond well to constantly changing staff seems to be ignored now, and please don't think that if a teacher is not up to the job then they should not be moved out, but many teachers who are "forced" (I did use the correct word there) out are actually pretty good in the classroom, but not liked by the person/people making the decisions. And what is rarely taken into account is whether the teacher being forced out can be replaced with somebody as good or better - often this isn't the case.

But what this also should mean is that Ofsted inspectors will no longer need to observe lessons, making an Ofsted inspection less stressful for classroom teachers, and ensuring taht leadership in schools actually earn their hefty pay packets. A "learning walk" (I hate that name too, but you all know what it means) will be sufficient to judge the atmosphere for learning in a school. Consistently good lessons will deliver consistently good results in exams. Inspectors therefore, will just need to look at the data of the school, aided by some informed words from SLT, to judge the school. This won't happen as I get the impression that inspectors like going into classrooms and making teachers uncomfortable; maybe I'm wrong.

The trouble is that I think that Messrs Gove and Wilshaw like threatening teachers, so the status quo will remain and the DfE budget will soar as thousands of teachers face capability based on the whim of SLT, or possibly because that particular member of SLT finds separating personal and professional feelings difficult.

This is without mentioning the potential exodus from the profession that already has a huge shortage ,in certain subjects, of adequate staff. Politicians and suits in large offices really are working wonders in education...