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Original poster

Observations. I hate them

45 replies

Orangeanddemons · 16/09/2015 17:51

Why why do we have to do them. I find the whole thing humiliating, stressful and degrading. It's just shite.

Back to work, love being with the kids, forget about observations, but up they pop, and it reminds me why I hate the job. But actually I love the job, it's the observations I just can't hack. I'm an introvert, and not a show off, so I find them even more stressful. I must have had about 30 in my life, if not more, and I'm not sure any of them have had a real impact on my teaching or results.

OP posts:
temporarilyjerry · 16/09/2015 18:29

this

First one for me one Tuesday. I teach perfectly good lessons every day,children make progress over time blah, blah, blah. As soon as there is an observation, I'm all "I don't know what to do."

temporarilyjerry · 16/09/2015 18:30

I meant ^this - not italics. Grin

Olivo · 16/09/2015 18:40

I agree. It is easy to make the necessary noises during your feedback, but if your lesson is actually good or outstanding, why can't they just leave you alone and not realise that tiny action point is probably not going to happen? I also hate being observed by a non specialist in a very specialist subject.

PurpleAlerts · 16/09/2015 19:08

I also hate being observed by a non specialist in a very specialist subject.

How true!
I work with a particular area of Special Needs. My old Head teacher made some ridiculous suggestions for areas of development in her feedback which just showed her ignorance.

I have been graded as outstanding for the last three years.

Ofsted leave outstanding schools alone... I suggested my head did the same with me.

That went down well... Hmm

I also made the suggestion that her staff would respect her more if she was prepared to deliver an outstanding lesson to show how it was done.

Not a popular comment either... Grin The one time I ever saw her teach (I was supporting in the class at the time) her teaching was very average and the children ran amok.

Thankfully I don't work for her any more and at my new school my head lets us do all our observations in house and with a specialist teacher from the local authority. Finally observations and feedback are useful and areas for development relevant.

Doowrah · 16/09/2015 21:06

Have spent over two hours PPA today planning a 30 minute lesson observation....could have been spent putting more quality into the rest of the week.They will go through the motions of feedback and so will I of interest in CPD. They will tick regulation obs in a year box and I will carry on teaching and developing the same as always....regardless of the observation. Not to mention the ten days mind hogging taking up by thinking and planning of it.Times that by 3 that is 30 days of brain activity taken away from children and core planning in one academic year....

leccybill · 16/09/2015 21:48

I firmly believe about 80% of mainscale teachers are just gritting their teeth, and doing the graft, so they can get into SLT and sit back, making up soundbites and action points, half of which are copy and pasted from the whole-school action plan and bear no regard to the teacher in question, while lurking at the back of your lesson.
Meanwhile, the mainscale teacher metaphorically begs and pleads for their paltry payrise via the pathetic PM cycle.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 16/09/2015 22:07

This is really depressing reading. I honestly believe that observations, done well, can be a really important part of developing as a teacher. The problem is that too often they are not done well, and most of the blame for that lies with Ofsted, I think. When schools manage to create a climate of observations being about discussion and development within a supportive climate, I think it can be really powerful.

miaowroar · 16/09/2015 22:51

This made me laugh! Grin

Observations. I hate them
ImperialBlether · 16/09/2015 22:54

I have never, ever been observed by a subject specialist, and I taught for 30 years. I have never, ever seen a lesson (of any calibre) taught by someone who observed me.

Keeptrudging · 16/09/2015 23:03

The best observation and feedback I ever had was from an inspector (during dreaded inspection week) who had carried out inspections in many different ASN/Special Needs settings over his career. He really knew his stuff and made me feel so much more confident. Sadly, most of my other observations have been carried out by people with less teaching experience and poor understanding of my job. They've not helped me be a better teacher.

temporarilyjerry · 17/09/2015 06:12

I had an observation once where the main point of development was to consider the colour of the background and text on a powerpoint I used.

rollonthesummer · 17/09/2015 07:15

Remus lupin-are you/were you SLT?

What observations have you had that have been a positive experience? I would love for it to not be do negative-it creates or exists in a total climate of fear in many schools.

Original poster
Orangeanddemons · 17/09/2015 09:29

How is something that could potentially lead to capability be supportive?

OP posts:
GingerDoesntHelp · 17/09/2015 17:34

Observations are crap because they are just a snapshot. If an observer really wanted to see how effective a teacher was, they would observe a series of lessons. I can't teach the whole of the perfect tense and get the children to use it in a meaningful way in 45 minutes. That's at least a week's worth of lessons so I will have to dream up some ridiculous lesson plan that makes it look possible but that will confuse the kids and mean that I have to go back and teach it properly when no one's looking.

GingerDoesntHelp · 17/09/2015 17:36

And the really sad thing is that I'll probably get graded good or outstanding for a very silly lesson that's all fur coat and no knickers.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 17/09/2015 18:32

Roll I am, but I felt this before I was SLT, too.

The best and most useful observations I've ever had (and what I try to emulate in my own work when observing others) are where the observer has taken time to get to know me and the kind of teacher I am, based not just on a couple of formal obs but over an extended period - by chatting to me about my work, popping into lessons to say, 'Hello' and being a sounding board for my thinking when I've needed it. Observation feedback then becomes a conversation about refinement and reflection, rather than a list of 'goods and bads'.

I've also lived through the climate of fear stuff - and agree that it is soul destroying.

TheTroubleWithangels · 17/09/2015 18:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BrendaandEddie · 19/09/2015 06:59

our place has just binned them

we are now devising our own departmental standards and are doing peer obbos

NO lesson plan

BrendaandEddie · 19/09/2015 06:59

and no grades

ChinchillaFur · 19/09/2015 07:41

My school seem to have scrapped the formal annual one-off observations and now seem to be doing more 'learning walks' and 'popping' in. I've had 3 x SLT in my lessons for 15-20 mins each time since we went back on 8th Sept.

In many ways I think this is better. You don't get worked up about having to plan and deliver a "perfect" lesson once a year, no lesson plan required and you don't get nervous in advance. I also feel it stops those who are rubbish day in day out, doing an "outstanding" lesson purely for their once a year obs. They have always annoyed me as I feel like I do a good enough job, enough of the time - which is much more important.

I suppose if on one of these short visits things weren't going well, they would just come again and things would likely be better, we all have lessons which go a bit wrong or the kids aren't in the mood. This week I had one lesson destroyed by a wasp for 10 mins, and one where the atmosphere just felt wrong as the girls had had their HPV jabs half an hour before!

echt · 19/09/2015 11:20

In a school in special measures back in the mid -90s.

My lesson downgraded from excellent to OK because the video didn't work. I'd checked it before school, and it worked then. I got another one from the next room and all OK, but too late for me.

Lesson graded unsatisfactory because one pupil was off -task. I dealt with it and got them working. Too late. The LEA inspector was utterly mortified to tell me this but said these were the criteria and he had to apply them, as OFSTED would when they arrived. My lesson had failed to engage all pupils.

After 35+ years in the job, I still am not myself with an observer.

Imperial raises an issue I have never considered before, I too have never seen a lesson observer teach.

rollonthesummer · 19/09/2015 20:48

I too have never seen a lesson observer teach.

Absolutely-I haven't either.

On the odd occasion they have had to do an assembly or stand in a class to briefly cover me whilst I meet the SENCo or EP-there's been chaos.

This makes me think that people who were crap in the classroom, get to swiftly leave the stresses of classroom teaching behind them, to sit in judgement of teachers and dictate things that they have never, could never and will never do to other people.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 20/09/2015 00:10

I'm an observer and a bloody good teacher too! Grin

BrendaandEddie · 20/09/2015 08:16

All my observers have taught. You lot work in weird schools

echt · 20/09/2015 08:42

I think the point was that although the observer had taught in the past, the observed had never seen them teach.