Lesson Observations

There are times when I think I do my job despite my love of my subject, not because of it. One of the reasons, almost certainly, is the college observation scheme. I’ve experienced this in a few institutions now and the rigmarole that goes with it increasingly resembles Monty Python and the Spanish Inquisition although, as I recall, this was based on ‘fear and surprise’. With the college observation it’s more a case of fear and extended expectation in order to ramp up the tension.

In my current institution, this tension has been building since September, with a stream of really annoying emails with subject lines like “Observations (sorry J!)” from someone who chooses to use an email name that includes not one but two middle initials. I know I’m just an irascible old bat, but I find this sort of thing a deeply worrying personality trait, unless you happen to be part of a Welsh rugby team where everyone in the team is called Jones or Williams.

Anyway, back to the observation, and the first challenge is to get the paperwork right.  Fill in the record book and get my lesson plan done. As I am teaching HE, it appears that I don’t need a dreaded Scheme of Work and a mere line plan will do…which feels terribly sloppy, a bit like turning up to class in your PJs, so I decide I’d better have one for backup. Anyway, on to the lesson plan. My first encounter with this thorny little beast was on an early teacher-training course, where we were set to admire a one hour lesson plan explaining how to sharpen a pencil. Great…but can someone please tell me how this relates to explaining the rules relating to the defence of provocation?

At this point I really shouldn’t be moaning. At least I find myself being observed under the HE criteria, which means there isn’t the same relentless obsession with ‘activity learning’ as there is with FE, so at least I’ll get away with not spending the session making a lentil collage of Lord Denning…

Anyway, my real gripe is that I have a sneaking doubt as to whether these institutions really care about the quality of delivery offered to students. With observations, the pressure is on to perform to grade 1 or grade 2 standards (grade 3 is supposed to be ‘satisfactory’ but it is made exceptionally clear that this is anything but). The irony is that, whilst these rigorous standards are enforced at observation time, I have it on good authority from my students that they were quite surprised by my way of doing things when I started, because they were used to having someone read directly from the book!

It’s well known that savvy teachers often have a special ‘inspection lesson’ they keep up their sleeves for observation time. I understand that it works a treat, as long as you can do something to divert attention from the startled look on the students’ faces when they wonder what’s happened to their usual lecturer. A far better way of honestly assessing standards in such places, in my opinion, would be to lower the unrealistic expectations of endless perfect paperwork and wonderful activity based lessons and conduct no-warning inspections that see it as it really is…week in, week out.