Lesson observations

Under Ofsted’s revised Framework, lesson observations continue to be a crucial source of evidence at inspection. Inspectors should spend the majority of their time in school watching teaching in the classroom. Among other things, they look for evidence of teaching that causes challenge, engagement, learning and progress for all pupils.

As the School Inspection Handbook says, ‘inspectors must not expect teaching staff to teach in any specific way or follow a prescribed methodology.’ However, they do have to consider how well ‘teachers use questioning and discussion to assess the effectiveness of their teaching and promote pupils’ learning’ – making questioning just about the only stand-alone classroom teaching method mentioned. You can be certain that inspectors will evaluate the effect of questioning across your school’s classrooms. They will do this by studying the quality of pupils’ responses to questioning.

Therefore, every teacher and leader should ask themselves:

• How good are the responses we elicit when questions are asked at our school?
• How much discussion do we create?
• How well is assessment promoted by questioning at our school?
• How challenging are the questions we ask?

The pages that follow set out how Active Questioning helps meet Ofsted’s specific requirements for quality of teaching and leadership and management.

Observation periods

Lesson observations during Ofsted inspections will be the main form of activity undertaken by inspectors. Normally, lesson observations will be around 25-30 minutes, although they can be shorter when inspectors are making a large number of lesson visits for a specific purpose such as assessing behaviour or the quality of marking.

The very short notice period for inspections (schools are contacted on the working day before inspectors arrive) makes good questioning more important than ever. Questioning is a skill that does not require elaborate preparation or place a heavy workload on staff, but when used effectively, it can demonstrate a high standard of learning in a short space of time. Therefore, developing effective questioning techniques can be an important part of making sure you are ready for the inspectors’ call.