OK, so you're visiting a school to watch a geography lesson.
Perhaps you have a clipboard.... what are you looking for ?
What's becoming clear is that you're probably looking for something that doesn't reflect the everyday experience of the students, and are also asking for something to happen during the short time that you are there that may in fact take many hours or days to happen.
OFSTED have apparently been asked to consider (as perhaps they always did anyway) the exent to which the lesson they are seeing is 'typical' of the experience of the students, in addition to the other things they're looking for.
From the TES forum:
It will be virtually impossible to achieve outstanding under the new framework and with no-notice inspections. A lot of schools are in for a reality check with Ofsted looking for 'typicality' and checking with students that what they're seeing is not just for show.
A few Fridays ago in the TES, there was a useful read from the head of OFSTED, as reported HERE
This is not going to encourage teachers to take the longer view, plan involved enquiries, take pedagogical risks or (as the feedback from the delegates at the GIS event that I ran earlier in the week made clear) risk doing a lesson where the technology is not guaranteed to work. This will further curtail any efforts to change what happens in the classroom. Typical...
Perhaps you have a clipboard.... what are you looking for ?
What's becoming clear is that you're probably looking for something that doesn't reflect the everyday experience of the students, and are also asking for something to happen during the short time that you are there that may in fact take many hours or days to happen.
OFSTED have apparently been asked to consider (as perhaps they always did anyway) the exent to which the lesson they are seeing is 'typical' of the experience of the students, in addition to the other things they're looking for.
From the TES forum:
It will be virtually impossible to achieve outstanding under the new framework and with no-notice inspections. A lot of schools are in for a reality check with Ofsted looking for 'typicality' and checking with students that what they're seeing is not just for show.
A few Fridays ago in the TES, there was a useful read from the head of OFSTED, as reported HERE
This is not going to encourage teachers to take the longer view, plan involved enquiries, take pedagogical risks or (as the feedback from the delegates at the GIS event that I ran earlier in the week made clear) risk doing a lesson where the technology is not guaranteed to work. This will further curtail any efforts to change what happens in the classroom. Typical...
Comments
I was recently inspected for ITT - when the inspector called it wasn't the expected session - as trainees and self were not quite ready to do that yet as we too busy were exploring interesting perspectives and issues on people who are considered 'others'. Cue Ray Mears clip on the Hadza tribe - some great stuff about the way he admires the skills and ingenuity of 'undeveloped' people in Tanzania. The inspector didn't see what they wanted - and it probably didn't fit what my Senior Management would have liked me to put on, but all the same it was typical and it challenged the trainees and made them engage in thinking how about tackling teaching about 'development' with students through critical enquiry - or so said the inspector. Hurrah for 'typicality'!
Delegates at GIS event earlier in the week were saying that embedding GIS takes time, and that they wouldn't have that time - or a second chance - if they had a visitor during a lesson with GIS and the technology let them down...