So here goes the first of these posts: I am a teacher and I have had a bad lesson observation. This post is aimed at anyone who has had a bad lesson observation/inspection (or in my case a few) and looking for ways to find motivation to pick themselves back up.

‘I am a teacher and…’ is a new series of posts in which I have decided to start. The reason I’ve started this series of posts is to try and humanise teaching again. A lot of the time, we forget that teachers have a whole other life outside of work with stresses, hardships and complications and yet, there’s this expectation that teachers have to leave their home life at the door each day.

These posts will offer tips, suggestions and advice to support you if you are going through any of the same hardships and are struggling for motivation to teach. We are all human and supporting each other is what can make this profession the lovely, life oriented career it once was.

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How I nearly failed my first term as an NQT

In my first year of teaching, I almost failed the first term. My mentor used to criticise everything I did, even aspects that didn’t relate to my teaching, such as my accent and the way I stood in the classroom. He told me that “I wasn’t the teacher that they hired” and would frequently check the children’s work after school hours. He would leave post-it notes on my desk stating some of the following things:

• This child was not challenged enough- what are you going to do about it?
• On the 3rd of March, your plan said you were covering 2D shape. Why is that evidenced in the children’s work?
• This child has not responded to your comment. Your instruction obviously isn’t clear enough.
• I found a lot of rubbish underneath this group of tables- your behavior management needs to be tighter.

While I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a sensitive soul, this type of criticism didn’t teach me anything. It actually made me completely withdraw and doubt every single lesson I taught. I didn’t want to be a teacher anymore because the workload gave me no life outside school. Did the children benefit from all of this extra work? No. Did my mentor notice all of this extra work I was doing? No. Was I becoming a better, more informed teacher because of all of this extra work I was doing? Still no. Life outside of school suffered as a result of self-doubt, fear of failure and self-consciousness.

My first bad lesson observation in detail

The first bad lesson observation I had as an NQT was in the September. It was a Maths lesson and I was being observed by my mentor (the deputy head) and the Maths coordinator. The lesson was not great if I’m honest, but it WAS my first observed lesson as a newly qualified teacher. I was asked to meet with both of them during my lunch break, where the deputy head spent 40 minutes telling me everything I did wrong. Everything. To say it was a bad lesson observation was an understatement. The Maths coordinator (who obviously felt sorry for me) asked him to point out the positives. He responded bluntly, “there aren’t any, except maybe at a push, I could say her handwriting on the board was neat”.

I left that meeting wanting to fly back home and take up any job other than teaching. But I didn’t. I was not allowed teach Maths for an entire week after that. Instead, I had to sit on the windowsill at the back of the room and watch my mentor teach Maths to my class. To say I felt deflated was an understatement. From there, I had to meet with the NQT coordinator in the December of that year, who produced a folder titled ‘failing NQTs’.

With all of that going on, how on earth are we supposed to build up the motivation to teach a class with passion and enthusiasm (like the children deserve)? If you have ever experienced a hyper-critical observer or have had a bad lesson observation that has left you feeling unmotivated and deflated, read the tips below.

What I did to overcome these bad lesson observations

I cried. I allowed myself a weekend to feel upset and talk it out with people close to me and then I decided to pick myself back up and give it one more shot. Bottling up how you feel will never allow you to move on from it. Even if you’re not a crier, talk it out with someone.

I asked for help and advice. There was another Year 5 teacher in my team (who to this day I am grateful to have met her), who shared any advice with me she had to help. If we were teaching a new Maths concept, she’d pop in and just let me know some areas that children often find tricky. As well as that, if we were teaching a new genre in Writing, she would give me samples of what a good one looked like. This way, I knew what to expect and what to model to the children. Lastly, if we had a learning walk (where management would pop in to all classes looking at displays) coming up, she would pop in and check I had everything that she knew they looked out for.

This lady was everything a mentor should be and more, but she wasn’t my mentor. She was an experienced teacher, who knew how to guide a newly qualified teacher. Seek advice- newly qualified teachers are still learning and aren’t expected to be perfect.

I reduced my workload to allow more time spent on the teaching and learning aspect of my job. When being observed, you need to essentially prove to that person that you have:

1. Good subject knowledge.
2. Good behavior management- that children display a behavior FOR learning.
3. The ability to teach to a variety of learners, while showing progression for each student.

Along with many other things of course. You simply cannot focus on planning a good lesson if you’re swimming in paper work.

To reduce my marking:

I allowed children to peer-assess twice a week, self-assess twice a week and I make one piece each week. This reduced my corrections by hours each week. As well as that, the children benefited much more from correcting work too as they could then notice their own mistakes.

To reduce my resourcing of lessons:

I stopped trying to reinvent the wheel. There are tonnes of resources online that I didn’t know about during my year as an NQT. I tried to make PowerPoints and differentiated activities for each lesson, which again left me overworked and unable to spend more time on the actual delivery of the lesson. Teachers Pay Teachers as well as many other teaching sites, more than likely have exactly what you need. All you have to do is search for them. I’m not suggesting you spend all of your money buying resources, but if there’s something that will save you hours, I wouldn’t be opposed to spending a few quid every once in awhile. I value my time way too much now.

All of these little reductions, gave me more time to focus on how I was going to actually teach the lessons. I started to see improvements in my self-confidence as a teacher, as well as an improvement on the day-to-day running of a classroom. If you have had an unsuccessful lesson observation(s), don’t beat yourself up. The fact is, most of us have. My biggest advice is find a colleague you trust and keep asking questions.

Your time outside school is yours. Whatever schoolwork absolutely has to be done-do it. Otherwise leave it. Life is far too short and precious to be overworked, stressed and in a job where you’re always tired. Work to live, and enjoy the work you do is the way to go.

For more posts like this, see:

Insecurities in the Classroom: Supporting Teachers.