Teachers up and down the country come out in a cold sweat on at least 3 times an academic year*. It is the moment of the teaching observation. Requirements are that a Senior member of staff will observe you and grade your teaching at least 3 times a year. OFSTED will also check the judgements that have been made and whether the leadership team are able to judge. I must just add that I plan my lessons in detail for every lesson with plans, success criteria, learning objectives and resources. However, an observation, no matter how much you might think you are prepared for that lesson, you feel the need to over-analyse and put in extra effort.
Lessons you will have taught happily and successfully will suddenly seem to you to be inadequate. You lose the ability to think, over-analysing your every move, every question, every resource, every grouping. Will that child work well with that child? In music, the children have to work in groups, so progress is not just dependent on the individual but how well they work together- will they get on and cooperate, get on with the task? Children can be SO unpredictable. As much as you can be informed about situations at home, there are numerous occasions where you don't know what is going on. The weather, windy days make children crazy, rain similarly can have an effect.
You pore over your plan, resources, wondering if there is anything you have missed. You are never sure how long it will take them to achieve it. Usually you have a good idea, based on prior experience and your natural intuition but children, as I said, are unpredictable. What will take one group x amount of time takes another group y amount. You will spend HOURS over something that wouldn't worry you so much. An hour's lesson gains double, triple or more time to plan (generally, lesson plans take as long to plan as to teach or much more if creating resources afresh). How will you assess it? How will you put them in groups? And then, you can't sleep. The night before, you lie there worrying! Something will invariably go wrong with technology. You might have sorted out your groups and then a crucial child is away.
Sweat beads develop on your lip, time seems to speed up and invariably you run out of time for what you planned. Children will of course, throw odd balls- they will come up with something original, some stumping question and usually this is great and you deal with it easily and answer them. But in an observation, panic, mind goes blank, you are aware of the stampede of time. They'll go to their groups. One group will seem to procrastinate for what seems an inordinate amount of time, one group will totally miss the point. And in normal circumstances, you will deal with this easily. But with someone watching, oh the horror, the feeling of being watched! Words will feel like peanut butter on the roof of your mouth.
As it ends, you will think of a MILLION things you could have done better! And then you have the agony of waiting till the observer has time to go through it with you.
And you think to yourself, how much better the lesson would have been if you hadn't agonised over it for hours. Sigh.
This comes from someone who has been graded good or outstanding on most occasions.That feels like it means nothing when you have a new observation.
And this is just the teaching observation. Imagine how much more scary with OFSTED. And the fact that there are a million other moments where you are scrutinized for other reasons- work scrutinies, marking audits, parents evenings. Oh the feeling never goes away no matter how long you teach.
I have an observation with my Headteacher today and I am really, really nervous. He's obviously never observed me before so I have no idea what to expect. Trying not to be terrified but failing to do so. It's last lesson with year 6. And I have 2 new English speakers, one who has been here 3 weeks and one who never speaks, so hard to check his understanding.
Breathe in, breathe out. Try not to panic. Pray. Panic a little more. Pray. Breathe.
AHRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
xxx
*There are zillions of other difficult and stressful moments, moments of scrutiny, but this is the worst.
HAPPY SPRING. I hope that you saw the sun eclipse yesterday.
Hugs,
JB
DenisesPlanet.com
xxx