We had a visit by the UK Government’s educational inspection body ‘OFSTED’ last week and to say it was exhausting would be an understatement. We received the telephone call just two days before the inspection and the normal panic set in.
I asked myself the obvious questions: ‘have I marked my books properly, when will I be interviewed, will my lesson get observed… etc.’ Having experienced an OFSTED inspection before I knew what to expect but the goal posts regarding judgements had recently changed and the bar had been raised even higher. For those of you that don’t know – OFSTED now only observe a 25 minute period!
In preparation I rang around ex-colleagues and friends in order to find out as much as possible with regards to what OFSTED was looking for in lesson observations. Of course I wish I hadn’t – the responses ranged from ‘differentiation, challenging the most able, higher order questioning, focus on literacy, mini-plenaries, behaviour, marking, supporting the least able, next steps in learning, Assessment for Learning, student engagement, checking for progress’ and so on….
However, the best advice I received revolved around the following. A friend explained: ‘After our recent OFSTED those who were graded as ‘Outstanding’ were walking around as if they owned the place, whilst those who received ‘Satisfactory’ had their heads down’. He went on to explain ‘Overall my advice would be to say: don’t let 25 minutes define you as a teacher – whatever the result, its only 25 minutes and a judgement about you as a teacher cannot possibly be made in such a short time.’
Fortunately for me I’m in a position in my workplace to broadcast that important advice. I felt that it was essential to reassure colleagues throughout this process.
For those of us in the teaching profession we know that it is a roller-coaster ride. The highs are exhilarating whilst the lows can play on our minds and affect our emotional dispositions. Those who disagree with this are simply wrong. Despite what people say, we all want to be the very best teacher that we can be. If this doesn’t apply to you – find another job. After all, the commodity that we deal in are too precious for anything else.
In the end, the lesson with my fantastic Y11 students was graded as ‘Outstanding’ but I know that the lesson before was nowhere near. Some colleagues did receive a ‘Satisfactory’ judgement and when in conversation with them I reiterated the sentiments of the advice once again.
So when faced with a lesson observation – whether it’s 25 minutes or 1 hour, and the outcome is ‘Satisfactory’ or ‘Outstanding’: don’t let it define you as a teacher.
How true. Our conscientiousness as teachers is both our strength and weakness.having had satisfactory and outstandinggrades,know how u feel and howridiculous the whole system is.heads need to be morevisible to have a realistic overview of teaching and inspectors need to trustheads.hmmm now thats likely under the condems isn’t it ?! Great post.
[...] Overall however, never underestimate the power of effective relationships between yourself and your students: they act as the cornerstone of effective practice – something that the best teachers have in abundance and something that OFSTED does not mention throughout its criteria!!! Link: OFSTED: Don’t let 25 minutes define you as a teacher! [...]
What a great post and how true! Thanks for sharing