Why bother?
Aside from Performance Management, you will want to see your colleagues at work and for them to see each other in order to disseminate good practice and to ensure that pupils are making the progress they should. This should not be randomly organised. It is far better if you all agree to look at one aspect of your teaching which features on the department improvement plan. If you all work at the same issue and have agreed success criteria then lesson observation is seen as an important and valuable piece of evidence for the department to have.
What sort of foci do departments choose for observation?
Typical examples might be:
- Attitudes and progress of lower-attaining students at KS4
- Level of challenge for gifted and talented pupils in Year 8 mixed ability classes (this would generally involve pupil interviews and work sampling (see separate files for handling these aspects)
