#nobservation

[noblegiraffe]

If you haven't seen the nobservation hashtag on Twitter yet, you should check it out. Teachers sharing their truly crap observation feedback. My favourite so far:
"#nobservation. A lesson on Gandhi adjudged to be insufficiently Welsh. Suggestion: call Mahatma "Geraint" instead."

I seem to have blocked out years of observation feedback but I do remember being told years ago my lesson would have been better if I'd got 34 year 8s out of their seats and moving around the tiny classroom. Pretty sure it would have been chaos! That was back when kinaesthetic was a thing.

My biggest bit of PGCE crisicsm was that the writing on my whiteboard was organised poorly.

#helpful

I can assure you as a PGCE student, I- like most had an awful lot still to learn about behaviour management and you know, actual teaching. However, it was the whiteboard that really interested my mentor

For the record, nearly a decade of successful teaching later I still haven’t got a farking clue what was wrong with my whiteboard...

My first observation in my PGCE I was absolutely pulled apart for not redoing all the displays to match the focus of my lesson! I’d been there for two weeks - can you imagine if you had a student who ripped down all your displays and redid them for their one observed lesson!

I just failed an observation because I talked for 12 minutes when ofsted guidelines state you can only talk for ten. Sorry for answering questions on a topic the kids were enthused about

I once had a #nobservation where an unruly pupil, chased by 3 adults (including my HoY), ran into my classroom and attacked one of my class, rolled around the floor and destroyed a display before being physically carried out.

I got RI, because while it was all going on, the children were watching what was happening rather than making progress. No shit, they were trying not to get hit!

I was penalised in an observation for not using the interactive whiteboard despite the observer (also ict leader) knowing that my whiteboard and computer had been broken for over a month and I had spent a lot of time trying to get them to sort it

@pieceofpurplesky - please tell me that wasn't recently. OFSTED say no such thing...

My oh a few years ago decided some topic to teach a to set maths
GCSE class while being observed by Ofsted.
Can't remember the topic.
The kids grasped it, and were all secure by end of lesson.

He was failed as he had " failed to stretch the group ". He explained it was an A* topic, and you couldn't go any higher at GCSE. He was still failed.

*top set

I was observed teaching Mandarin when the observer had no knowledge of this language. We conducted almost all of the lesson in Chinese and the observer sat there baffled.

Feedback included 'You should use proper full stops in written work on the board, not little circles'.

I had to tactfully inform the observer that 'little circles' are actually the way full stops are written in Chinese...

@Applekatie I've had the same feedback. Aside from that it was good, everyone made progress and even the painfully shy girl who never talks answered a question, but my whiteboard observation dragged it down.

I got my first ever ri in an observation where the observers were having a full scale verbal argument over my data in the middle of the classroom whilst I was trying to teach. I’m in no hurry to return to the chalkface.

So there’s either two whiteboard enthusiasts or we had the same mentor @Bobbiepin 😂

@Applekatie unfortunately this wasn't as a student (my mentor was awesome, or I don't think I would have made it through the year). This was 5 years into my career. The guy who said it just got fired though so I'm taking his professional opinion with more than a pinch of salt!

Ha! No idea if my #noobserver has been fired but wouldn’t be at all surprised...

@EvilTwins just last month. The week before OFSTED came an refused to give feedback to a colleague as she talked for 10 minutes

@pieceodpurplesky that’s outrageous! Get on Twitter and tell Sean Harford!

What the hell, piece!! Did you tell the observer they were talking crap?!

WTAF?? They can make judgements on that!

*can't. Even my phone is against me!

Y10 French - the imperfect. Class made the expected progress in a lesson, but it is a tense that always tries some of them.

Observer - Head of PE...

“Do they need this tense? It seemed very difficult for some of them. Perhaps you should just do it with the higher achievers?”

Me “err, yes, it’s crucial to a grade above D”

Observer “seems unessecary to me, but what do I know... I didn’t see the point of French at school”

Oh, I also once didn’t get outstanding because... “You didn’t take the register”

There were only 13 students in the class. All present.

Years ago, PGCE observation feedback. We went from classroom to classroom rather than having base rooms.

"You should carry a damp, soapy sponge in a takeaway box as the board could be WHITER." It was perfectly fucking legible and she was (nuts) reaching.

Have you ever wiped a board with a damp soapy sponge and then tried to write on it with whiteboard marker? Doesn't work!

I so want this to become a thing. 'How was your observation?' 'NOBservation more like. Said I didn't cater for my kinaesthetic learners'. 'OMG, that's so a decade ago, what a nobserver'.

I had two in the same lesson in a Mocksted (from an actual inspector):

1. I think your starter went on rather too long. 'That wasn't the starter, love, that was the ACTUAL lesson'
2. Do you think you could have signposted more clearly to me how your lesson covered elements of SMSC ? 'Ummm... the lesson is on a South African post Apartheid film. Is that not obvious enough for you?' (he was Geographer by trade...)

I also got (different nobserver, this time the head) . I can't give the lesson outstanding because I can't see any marking since July 15th (it was the 5th of September)