 Hello, everyone Ross here at teach took it. I hope you're well. I hope you've had a good week And I've got 19 observation tips for you here So you're gonna need to keep count and make sure that I cover all 19 I'm getting into a habit of sharing a video at the end of the week So you can watch over the weekend if you want to or share it with colleagues at the start of next week So this is what I've got for you this week. Let me just put my Slide up there selfie squares This is inspired by a book written by Hannah Beach a primary head teacher in Kent, England and myself 239 ideas in here 60 second each informed by all the analytics on my website and a really really popular book with lots of teachers who've received it I'm going to talk about selfie square. So this is also inspired by the research on lesson study and You may have heard of the term teacher rounds And also inspired by some of the work that I did with Dr. Kenny Frederick who did a doctoral search in many schools Including one of my own so the teacher round model at hard to implement But let me just put this up on the screen for you here And I guess the question is how do we maximize a Teacher's potential and the team around them is the key question and you know when teachers observe each other's lessons They can probably describe what they see in here The challenge is how do we interpret that information and there'll be a huge variety of factors time pressures workload mental health lots of distractions Not a very clear focus prior to the observation starting. So what then what happens is they'll struggle to Work out what the solutions are actions to take and over time. It's going to reduce The you know a collective wisdom suppose that they'll learn to support each other on how to teach So there's lots of pressures obviously the pandemic is a massive distraction And schools, you know getting back to kind of a normality and starting to learn and share and observe from one of That is where we all want to be But that observation model is a constant challenge trying to get that across the whole school culture with all the pressures of funding and time is a Real challenge for us all but it's not impossible so Joint reflection, you know looking at culture coach in small changes over time leadership driven leadership priorities here are Kind of not the first nine. I promise 19. So here's the first one the first recommendation here I suppose is Think of a group so whether it's to your whole staff or a team Try and divide them into a group of three or four I think it's important to define the purpose of the group allocate time when it's going to happen There's always going to be a cover issue and this is always the first Achilles heel for any of this type of stuff from being successful The challenge I guess the most is you know Determining the process how the information is going to be shared collectively You're gonna have to also consider relationships hierarchy role Etc. Etc. So there's your first big challenge if you can get over this one Then you're on to a winner and the second one is called the selfie focus in 62nd CBD the observation focus Each group member of the groups going to film themselves teach a specific teaching technique now Safeguarding disclaimers the technology consent from students all those things have to be factored in You know how students will be seen in the videos how the footage will be shared Plus the position of the camera in the classroom You just watch behind student heads towards the teacher from the teacher's perspective towards the students There's lots of considerations. I guess the kind of critical thing is small five ten minute vignettes nice little video snippets If you get past that second barrier the third one is Reflection so each teacher privately reflects on what they see They choose a point of point to focus in on that will then be shared and they'll then Also reference what they would like to improve and I guess to reduce any observational bias. They must Be selected before the observation on the individual ideally and then shared with the group When they arrive to the lessons this are going to be a live video and there's loads of technology out there that can support this mention No names so to reduce that bias and have that wider approach to observation This will lead to more conclusive evaluations rather than them. Let's watch everything and not necessarily have a very reliable conclusion tip number four so we've got 19 to go and So what the teachers then do is they present a one-minute presentation to each other's in their selfie square or selfie triad Explain what they'll each aim to develop in their own practice and why and I think this is practically How much time the teachers have available and how they'll be Conduct these observations to ensure that the process is successful and sustained the process should be time-rich Methods should be used Kind of pragmatic as possible so at the end of the video I'm going to offer two or three practical tips So stay tuned and tip number five Assign roles so this is important as part of the trial of the square every court colleague in the group Adopts the role the teacher teaching the lesson the note taker someone asking pupils questions I've got lots of comments about that make sure they're Agreed questions and consistent within all classrooms and the person who will do the main Feedback so three-quarters of the square of four teachers visit the teacher for ten minutes each not all together That's going to be a real cover issue. It's a cover issue to get them all to go In one lesson at the same time anyway So maybe ten minutes lots to see different parts of the lesson and they focus in on that agreed development point before The lesson starts and so the note taker will write what's happening Alongside the focus to make some commentary the pupil question of my I am asked students all the agreed questions And record what's taking place and the person feeding back will use that information having received feedback from the other two teachers in the square and then Summarize the whole feedback and what has been Observed tip number six out of nineteen and they then have to agree What they saw agree on the feedback what will be shared So this is another challenge because you've got to find the time to also be able to do this to ensure the success of the strategy So we know these models work the Achilles heel is the time management in order to protect and facilitate these models from working and So teachers must be given those tools as well as the time in order to complete concise feedback and Agree those action points and tip number seven everybody and You know teachers of time poor as ubiquitous in all schools classrooms around the world feedback needs to be in full Direct and given to the teacher clear action points need to be provided If you're going to record your conversation, which is also good You know, I want to video record yourself a little video or an audio It's another good way to kind of condense the time But we really want that face-to-face conversation taking place So you might have a little template to follow if you want to kind of I say cautiously Promote a degree of consistency across the school But it's not going to be a laborious form to complete and certainly not used for kind of evidence in an appraisal purposes The person receiving the feedback needs to have clear actions They can work on them and they're kind of clear and agreed and there's time lines before the end of meeting That would be my top tip there tip number eight So give it all that feedback that takes place the teacher reflects meaning film that feedback whether with the group Ideally, you know that teacher rounds bottle or after also and then they seek further support they might Know kind of questions you might want to ask is what resources do you need? What support do you think you will need? How likely is it that you will take action? What are the risks of it not happening? And this is a really good question How committed are you to taking the next step? And that's a really good kind of self-contract to myself rather than somebody else Set in the the target for me. Then the final one is you just swap roles So the member of the squares, you know switch roles each person taking on the role of the other person It's all this time to practice you want to take it further. You could then introduce a moderator to review this kind of Squares of the triad. So that's your no middle leadership senior leadership type stuff There's a tenth tip there. I haven't planned for but you have good protocols in place The school has to make it a priority And I know we've got the pandemic pressures at the moment But that raising the culture getting teachers to learn from one another is where? The heartbeat of school success lies and so there's your Nine or ten now I'm going to give you two practical techniques. The first one is I'm just gonna swap slides actually so just give me a moment and The first one is this so I hope you can yes You can see that people this is from Paul Bambrick's son Toyota No, he's actually got a second copy this but this is one I was being referring to It's on my desk over here since 2014 it's a big book loads of practical resources This is a great methodology for observations for difficult conversations for feedback conversations with the children And I always advocate this this is now part of my DNA praise probe identify plan lock really good What we saw today on the agreed focus? Question why did you do X? We identify two or three possible actions to take we then narrow it back down to one that's manageable We identified the planned time frame and then we asked them to repeat back and summarize the conversation So, you know with a teacher fine It might be a five to fifteen minute conversation with a child in the classroom 30 seconds Ross you're doing really good work today Why do you keep calling out in class and ruining the feedback to the rest of the group XYZ? We identify that he's missed a lesson or he's sat in the wrong place Okay, let's make a plan. What are you these are your options? What are you gonna choose? Okay, repeat back to me what you're gonna do before you go back into the classroom with practice It can become part of your DNA scripts. There is your official 10th technique tip number 11 This is an academic framework And it's called the tuning protocol so you can get all this on my website And and it's an academic framework for developing critical friendships or working in teams. It's a great appraisal model I would say it's probably I Wouldn't necessarily use it unless you've got a good strong teaching culture in place And if you want to use it for appraisal or for conducting research appraisal inquiry led questions It's a really good methodology And in summary and I got a lot more resources behind the scenes and I actually model this with schools quite regularly and 20 to 30 minute process And and it's a public group four or five people and it's confidential One person presents the issue They should they talk about all things they've shared Sorry, the successes the challenges this what they want instead of the problem Then the other group then ask clarifying questions until that exhausts itself The presenter can only say yes or no in response Lots of things happen here. It forces the presenter to jump off the fence Number two it also forces the rest of the group to think very carefully about succinct questions Rather than add living and describing etc. Really punchy and concise Stage three The group have to have a forced silence couple of minutes where they all write their thoughts before they have a group discussion This ensures that Ross doesn't go off in a tangent and dominate the discussion They can all filter the kind of things that they want to say to summarize Tip number four here in this critical friendship Methodology and this is called the tuning protocol if you're interested Tip four the person in the group in a circle might turn away From the circle. I've done this virtually. It works just the same you mute or hide your camera on zoom So you turn away it forces me to use my ears While the group have a discussion about me and that critical friendship Supporting challenge emotions all those kind of factors at play The group start to talk about the person in the room who's there with their back turned to us And they want to help rather than criticize and they'll have that discussion will thrash it out And the person then turns back the presenter from the start and reflects on what's been said and nine times out of ten It elicits lots of new thinking provocations and it also is a really interesting process for people taking part in the group So there's your tip ten Okay, moving on I'm going to go to and this which is inspired by a good friend of mine Paul Ainsworth So I hope you're watching Paul and how we bring all this to life And so let me just unpick this now. I've shared this before And Somewhere else on a YouTube video somewhere and let me just introduce kind of things that skills need to do To unlock the monitoring aspects of teaching learning towards Developing teachers. So this is your kind of official. I'm losing count. So I hope you promise 19 I'm probably on on tip number 11. I hope and Teaching and learning policies. I do a lot of work with skills on policies and I teach and learning policies not statutory although we need one for kind of clarity and coherence Across a school organization, whether you're working with six teachers or over a hundred I think it highlights to everybody, you know, if you rename the policy whether it's assess plan teach or It's a assess plan teach methodology or CPD guidance It outlines what you're trying to achieve one page summary hyperlink with lots of resources videos References reading materials, etc It also makes you more accountable For what you're trying to do and if you want to translate the whole school policy into department or your teams It allows teachers a bit feel a bit more autonomous and we know that that Kind of bottom up approach power from the floor is a much more effective way to Change school culture rather than top-down And teachers will tell you if they feel the focus has slipped from developing to monitoring a guarantee that they'll let you know And tip number two here at who's the lead person So in every school you need the driver of teaching and learning who facilitates maybe an immediate teaching and learning team and then Brings the middle leaders along in terms of policies procedures critique how it works in different subjects different age groups and Constantly refines this before it's shared with all staff And then once the policies there we start to live and breathe it and test it and report back through you know That kind of show-and-tell methodology So many schools at the colleague who manages this monitoring or the quality assurance is May or may not be the person who's responsible for CPD, but I think it puts a barrier Between giving judgments I suppose and make an improvement. So you need to make that change Who's that person your lead for CPD also should manage the kind of processes praise or ideally in some schools I've visited the curriculum leaders in charge of school CPD So those two can also align which is a really interesting and I actually really like that approach So whoever it is they're kind of constantly making the connections between the policy the procedures the people and finding the Improvement processes in place in order to then share them widely Okay, so that person's instrumental and okay I've mentioned this one already all teachers a part of the process. So, you know in many schools the senior leader Quality assurance that process does your head teacher and I know right now pandemic There's gonna be big distractions for a head teacher. So God bless them right now But CPD are your school leaders present? Okay is the head teacher there? You know as an old adgers foes that observers improve, but they often do the least teaching So is your head teacher still a learner? Would be the kind of question there are they part of the process? So involved as many colleagues as possible leave no stone unturned So that we can all see good teaching little video clips greed focus two minutes on the screen What's Ross teacher car crash lesson with our students rather than Ross the super teacher teaching a Wonderful lesson teach like Ross. That's not the model. We all aspire to and so Tip number four. What's the most important change in your school context college context? You know, you don't need a large number of development points. We're always gonna have countless priorities We know through a coaching world the more Succinct the focus the more likely the improvement and as I get into my doctor research the deeper I go into it the bigger it becomes so the constant challenges to narrow narrow narrow all the time a great phase I digress slightly From Diana. I apologize then I forget your surname Who took part in our supervision session at Cambridge last night. She said this is not your lifetimes work at the moment I feel like it is but once it's published. I realized there's lots more and it may be just the beginning But as we go deeper into those topics You realize there's a whole world so with policies. You can't cover everything Focus in on your school priorities your teachers available and the needs of your children And I think be as precise as possible on the key areas for development so that focus on the most important change is The the key one if I can put one suggestion in Eradicate the word marking from all your lips Okay, use feedback and then define that feedback verbal written non-verbal Feedback feed up feed forward it might be all of them and your data collections But you need to define it now this one of course we need data summative as a place in the classroom We know if we focus the kind of what the barriers of individual children The barriers that individual children are facing Those discussions could be part of your cpd policy procedures you're training And how the teacher can support or the support Teaching assistants the support staff can support those Teachers and the barriers around the children to help them make progress So we know data is just one aspect of school life and pupil improvement. I'm losing count here. I think on tips 16 17 you love to check the video and ask colleagues for support. What can they do? To improve the teaching learning of others in all school who in your school sees the most lessons is that the caretaker the cleaner? the teaching assistant who follows Ross in the classrooms as a support assistant all around the school you'd be surprised so They need to be part of the process and I'm gonna throw it in there student voice is a big key part They're receiving the learning we need to hear their feedback on how they experience this so if you include a wider variety of Feedback from lots of different sources. The more support your school can give give back to teachers In those classrooms, how do we get to this one? So last couple to finish just suppose how do we get to a place where your school has an open-door culture without fear? Whether it's behavior reasons Being disrupted or someone walking past making an assumption about what's taking place in the lesson You know the timetable a little kind of fixes little time till the teachers are happy to have the door open You know your more experienced teachers have that degree of confidence It will allow other teachers to go drop in and out and I think school leaders have to work hard to really push this Not all your teachers will have time not all your teachers will be interested dare I say Or they'll have a lot more other priorities going on So how do we facilitate this in the busy nature of school life is also a constant challenge? But you know open-door classrooms is something we should all aspire towards the last one is the coaching coaching coaching conversation You know instructional coaching direct instruction all these kind of method general coaching You know the kind of open-ended illicit Feedback from the person. We know coaching does make a big difference. It shouldn't be a tick box exercise These things need to be successfully embedded over time and they do work and I think key thing I'd mention here on the coaching is We need to also move away from the stigma that you only get coaching if you Are underperforming coaching something for us all regardless of our experience and so I'm gonna finish there I guess I'll just finish with a couple of couple of things I suppose and a couple of references and you should be familiar with Lesson study A Japanese model for observations being used over in the UK for a number of years I'll just signpost my colleague at Cambridge Peter Dudley on the work that he's done and also By dr. Kenny Frederick former head teacher from the Isle of Dogs in London Who my school was part of her research where we looked at teacher rounds and we gave teachers I believe in groups of six or seven To all go and observe each other using that kind of doctor around methodology, but in a teacher perspective Which is this resource here, which I've kind of highlighted from 62nd CPD, which is the selfie squares so I think 19 or 20 tips there for Transforming teacher culture Observations moving from monitoring to developing with lots of research and coaching ideas in there I'm gonna stitch the book the slides everything else under these videos. So as soon as I end the video They'll go put they're already public, but I'll be able to go and press and put in the resources for you to Read a little bit further and so I'm gonna leave it there. I'll be back this time next week I hope you're well. I hope you have a good weekend. I hope you get out If you can where you are have some fresh air look after yourself look after your mental health, etc And thank you for watching all the best and speak to you soon. Bye for now