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outstanding lessons

A tale of two lessons: further thoughts on the Cult of Outstanding

2014-01-20T22:35:38+00:00January 20th, 2014|learning|

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. . . Since writing last week about the problems with the sorts of lessons which typically [...]

The Cult of Outstanding™: the problem with 'outstanding' lessons

2014-01-16T13:26:35+00:00January 16th, 2014|learning, myths|

First of all I need to come clean. Up until pretty recently I was a fully paid up member of the Cult of Outstanding™. Last January I considered myself to be a teacher at the height of my powers. In the spirit of self-congratulation I posted a blog entitled Anatomy of an Outstanding Lesson in which I detailed a lesson which I confidently supposed was the apotheosis of great teaching, and stood back to receive plaudits. And indeed they were forthcoming. I was roundly congratulated and felt myself extraordinarily clever. And then Cristina Milos got in touch to tell me that there was no [...]

Where lesson observations go wrong

2015-12-16T11:49:39+00:00July 12th, 2013|Featured, training|

UPDATE: Since writing this post in July 2013 a lot has happened. Ofsted has stopped grading individual lessons and many schools have recognised the futility and harm caused by lesson grading. Here is my most recent post on the subject. Can we define an outstanding lesson? No. I get asked this regularly, and I've really tried. But I don't think it's possible. I can describe a specific example of a lesson which was judged as outstanding, but that really isn't helpful for three reasons. 1) Stand alone lessons don't provide evidence of much except the performance of the teacher and the students [...]

Anatomy of an outstanding lesson

2014-03-15T18:37:34+00:00January 22nd, 2013|English, learning, planning|

I'd want to make clear at the outset of this post that I no longer believe there is such a thing as an 'outstanding' lesson and would like to refer you to this post. Outstanding lessons are all alike; every unsatisfactory lesson is unsatisfactory in its own way. Leo Tolstoy (and me) It's all very well writing a book called The Perfect Ofsted English Lesson, but it does rather set you up for a fall. People expect you to be able to bang out Grade 1 lessons to order. Anything less than outstanding would be a bitter disappointment. I've reflected a number [...]

Why we should strive for perfection

2014-03-26T13:08:45+00:00June 26th, 2012|learning, training|

This article was first published, in a slightly different form, on the Guardian Teacher Network TEACHERS ASSEMBLEhttp://venspired.com/?page_id=2127 Is there such a thing as the perfect lesson or the perfect teacher? Well, no, probably not. At least, not that I'm aware of. There is no magic bullet that can turn us into amazing teachers overnight; being outstanding is not, I think, a matter of charismatic delivery. It's about hard work and effort. It's about thorough planning based on sound assessment for learning. And it's about consistently being there and having high expectations of, and belief in, the kids in front [...]

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