A big part of my work is around supporting schools to develop effective professional development programmes. I encounter a wide range of approaches to this but schools are always on a journey, looking to move forward to get their culture and systems right. One thing I often find is still something of a barrier, is an attachment to/ legacy of senior leaders feeling the need to give feedback on lesson observations in old school top-down fashion. Sometimes, this is even done in writing via email or an online platform – without ever involving the teacher in a conversation. (I’ve written about this several times!)

In my past life as a school leader, I did plenty of this. I remember all those wasted, pointless hours trying to craft well-written, pithy, insightful lesson reports to send to a teacher after a lesson observation. My office as a leader always had cabinets of years-old lesson observation reports or their digital equivalent. For a long time, doing this was part of the whole edifice of ‘effective leadership’: I am effective because I can give effective feedback.

Now, with more wisdom and understanding of what actually works and what seems right on principle, this whole business just seems utterly bizarre. To presume your feedback will be meaningful, received and understood and, welcomed or not, acted upon – it’s just weird; folly. And deeply deeply wrong. Above all it just seems, well, ….. rude.

Now my teacher view would be this: 

Don’t you dare walk into my classroom for 10-20 minutes, with all your status and biases and then presume to write to me or to just tell me what I could have done better! Like you just ‘know’. Talk to me first; ask me about my view of it and let’s discuss some solutions to some of the inherent challenges this demanding work presents. If you can help me, that’s great; if all you can do is judge – you’re not welcome.

When some leaders hear me say this stuff, I sometimes sense a tension – it runs counter to their sense of themselves. Their egos are knocked a bit. Plenty of people feel it’s entirely legitimate to just tell teachers their view of what they saw and give some direction as to what the teacher should do. But to me this attitude needs to be challenged and to change. 

When you watch a lesson it’s important to acknowledge and respect the fact that, not only are your insights steeped in biases and fragile assumptions, the teacher is going to be doing what they do all by themselves 99% of the time -without any input from you at all. Your short time with them therefore needs to be seen in that light – with the humility that demands. You’re not really all that useful so make the most of the interactions you have.

In my view, when you’re watching a lesson, you should only be preparing for the conversation you will have with that teacher or for the team session where they will be present. You will be working alongside them: (here, physically not just metaphorically).

When you meet the teacher, you then use the insights gained from your observation to support the teacher in their professional process. It’s theirs, not yours. It pays to find out from them what they thought, what they think the challenges are, what they think some solutions might be. If you agree with them, your feedback is redundant – except perhaps to provide some important affirmation. Where you have insights to share – that crucial reality check perspective you often gain from the back of the room – then you feed them into the conversation. But, at all times, you are there to help, not to judge. 

If you offer suggestions, you have to check for understanding – to make sure that your ideas make sense within their mental model; something actionable in their context. You need to gauge whether the teacher is even interested in taking your ideas on board given all the other things they have to think about – and that simply can’t be done if you are not even present when the teacher receives your emailed lesson report or drop-in feedback.. How utterly bizarre – and, I’ll say it again, rude – to finish a stretch of teaching, open your inbox or your pigeonhole (old school) and find your observer from earlier that day has pinged you their comments – without talking to you first! That kind of thing really has to stop.

Increasingly I’m convinced that observers have to view the idea of feedback as something that has to be co-constructed to have any value at all. The only feedback that matters has lead to concrete actions a teacher actually takes. A teacher can’t merely receive feedback; they have to generate it themselves, taking account of the observer’s offerings. Even if you ignore the rudeness angle, I’d suggest that the chances of this happening successfully in the absence of dialogue is ultra low. The person who gets the most from writing a lesson observation comment or report is the observer – it satisfies their professional ego; their sense of a job well done. But that’s not the point is it?

I really think that this detail in the wider frame of professional culture is important to address, not least given the current state of retention. We want teachers to be valued, to feel part of a strongly supportive professional learning culture and to be motivated to sustain a strongly reflective approach to their practice. All of that is counter to a drop-in, fly-by, top-down, scrutiny-orientated written feedback culture.

So, I’ll say it again: Lesson feedback: don’t send it, don’t give it – co-construct it. Otherwise, it won’t be worth it.