To be annoyed by this or am I overreacting?

[BerryCheesecake]

The head will sometimes come and do classroom observations. I work in a school with 2 classes per year group. The year group leader was too last Friday that she (and I) were being observed this week.

She didn't tell me till lunch time the day before so I had very little time. (The planning etc was already done so I didn't have to Prepare anything special as extra) but I was a little annoyed she had all weekend to prepare and have me less than 24 hours notice.

She had prepared all sorts of extra stuff that we don't normally do and she didn't tell me about so I stayed late doing extra things too doing similar for my class.

AIBU to be annoyed she didn't tell me sooner?

Yes, I would be. She's obviously seen this as her chance to shine, and isn't going to risk being outdone by you. Very juvenile of her. Is she normally very competitive? You'll just have to pull out all the stops and play a blinder, hope you get a great report . Good luck!

YANBU to be annoyed.

However YA both BU to put on a show for the heads observation when the HT clearly wants to gain a clear picture of typical classroom performance.

If you can pull out more stops for the HT, you should be pulling out more stops for the children on a daily basis.

Why are you doing something "extra" just because you are being observed - your teaching is either good enough or not! There should be no "extras" - so teach what was planned, and if the head wants to know why the other teacher has whistles and bells and you don't you can say "because I assumed you would want to see how I teach every day and not just when I know you are observing"

Personally I think observations, and ofsteds should be no notice - a teacher or school is either up to the job of educating our children or not.

Sorry for being thick, but why do you need to prepare? What needs to be done differently when a class is being observed?

I think yabu to want to put on extra's for the head makes it look like you aren't putting in your full effort the rest of the time.

as a fellow teacher I think this warrants a meeting with the head to discuss the lack of communication as this has clearly put you on a back foot.

For those of you not in education - an observed lesson is different to an every day lesson. Whereas sometimes my students have to complete coursework (vocational subject; exam board requirements etc!) there is no way on this planet that I would get anything higher than a 'requires improvement' due to the ridiculous requirements in anything higher. Therefore if I was being observed, I would need to ensure that I planned a 'learning lesson'.

This does not mean to say that any of my students do not get/deserve outstanding lessons every time, but there are times when the needs of the students (no matter what age/stage) override 'Ofsted's latest fad'.

YABU for wanting to do things differently when you're being watched. That's just sneaky.

I think both of you are being dishonest as you are putting on a false front. You are wrong to put on all these extras if it is not something you normally do.

I hope the headteacher can see through the pair of you.
HTH

The extra things prepared included activities for parent helpers to do ( we usually use patent helpers to hear readers) but for the observation she won't be!

The other extra thing is writing and displaying a learning objective for every child-initiated activity in the room ( we are foundation stage and do not normally display a learning objective for every activity - its purely for the head's benefit and we wouldn't have time to write and display 15 each session!

I'm thinking of it like an OFSTED at my place of work.
We shouldn't act any different, we shouldn't need pep talks on how to address the inspector and so on.
All the paper work should be in place and not run round on the weeks running up to it to put on special work to make sure we get a satisfactory rating.

Same when I worked in Learning Disability. Staff used to go mad and do extra cleaning and other stuff because the manager was coming round. The place should either be good enough and then you carry on being yourself or if it is not up to standard why not?

Why is do you have to put on extras for the headteacher?

Upahill - I don't know why she is changing things... Parets always hear readers yet she has got hers doing activities. I am in two minds whether to do this and put learning objectives for everything available in the room or just do what I normally do and if the head asks, do as someone here suggested and make a sneaky comment letting the head know what other teacher did is not normal practice.

In response to people's comments, I am not planning on doing anything different in terms of teaching and learning. I have a range of patent helpers throughout the week and could vouch that what the head will see is what I normally do!

Lesson observations often require much more detailed lesson plans to give to the observer as they often only see 20 minutes of an hours lesson. As such the more detail you put on the plan the better idea the observer has of progress etc.

These plans are not used for everyday teaching as most of use work to medium term plans/know what we are doing without having to spell it out in minute detail.

YABU. At the school where I am a governor, the Head and Deputy Head observe and "rate" lessons on an unannounced basis and frequently. How else can they be absolutely assured of the quality of the teaching?

YABU. At the school where I am a governor, the Head and Deputy Head observe and "rate" lessons on an unannounced basis and frequently. How else can they be absolutely assured of the quality of the teaching?

anna that is actually quite dodgy territory. Official observations should amount to no more than 3 a year on average.

Learning walks can happen but these are not meant to have the full blown OFSTED ratings on them.

I just read this out to my primary teacher DH - he wants me to tell you that you're MASSIVELY NBU!

Yes, he knows that but all the staff are happy with it so it goes on.

Yes, he knows that but all the staff are happy with it so it goes on.

Gosh it must be a very nice school to work in if all the staff are happy being over observed to such an extent.

Thanks Pom! Good to know someone in the same field feels that way! :)

Are you sure about the staff being happy Anna or do they just put up with it? I don't know of many teachers that would actually 'be happy' about being observed to such an extent so many times - in fact it is one of the biggest causes of stress in the profession (you could be opening yourselves up to a big legal issue) and you are not keeping with the nationally agreement so that is another area where your school could be in serious trouble if staff decide to stand up for themselves.

As other and myself have pointed out - every lesson can not be up to Ofsted standards 100% of the time due to the requirements of Ofsted. No one is saying that we don't use previous data/assessment/differentiation etc in our lessons all day everyday, but Ofsted ratings requires a lesson being delivered in an unrealistic manner to the every day requirements of the students in the room

Official observations at no more than three a year. Really? I'd be very surprised if this is the case but can't say I know for a fact that it isn't. Could you provide a link to such legislation please? My personal feelings are that regular observations by head/SMT/subject co-ordinators are essential for a good overview of teaching strengths and weaknesses and for an overview of individual subjects. Also, the more frequent the obs, the less of a stress they are.

The Education (School Teacher Performance Management) Regulations 2006 state that the total period of classroom observation allowed per performance management cycle should not exceed three hours and, in many cases, will be less, depending on individual circumstances.

Each performance manageent cycle is 1 year.

This of course does not cover NQTs, HLTAs and those on capability proceedings as they may experience a higher rate of observation.

www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/2661/regulation/17/made

Although Gove is currently trying to abolish all limits so anna's school may not be that unusual soon.

That's for performance management purposes though, not for the purposes of subject monitoring. Lesson observations and learning walks carried out for any purpose other than performance management are totally different. Legislation states that they can not be used towards perf management. The link you gave is specifically for performance management purposes.