The strategic approach to the development of pedagogy came in the guise of two main activities.
The first activity was based around staff working within triads, developing professional relationships and trust with colleagues. Staff looked at the 12 pedagogical principles. Each staff member filmed themselves teaching a lesson. Staff identified two principles that they could evidence as being delivered to a high standard within their teaching. They were also then asked to choose one of the 12 principles that they felt they needed to develop. This information was shared within their triads, who collaborated in supporting the focused teacher with ways forward.
The second shift in practice at Paantysgallog to develop pedagogy was based around how senior leaders undertook lesson observations as part of the school’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Review (MER) Cycle. The school recognised that monitoring had developed into a mechanism that impacted negatively upon staff well-being as they became overly anxious about the process and this in turn impacted upon how teachers performed under scrutiny.
Through research the senior leaders were able to broker training from a provider who has developed an observational process based around collegial approach to the process, which is reliant upon trust. Staff are visited more frequently for observations and informed of the week when the process will be undertaken, but the precise time of the visit is unannounced. Visits last for 20 minutes only. Feedback from the observer is delivered in the classroom setting and for the first three round of observations all views shared by the observer focus upon positive aspects of what was witnessed in the session. Staff who are observed have an opportunity to feed their views into the process too. The feedback form is split into different aspects of pedagogy and contained within the form are hyperlinks to research based articles and professional development materials which can be a point of reference for staff.
During the fourth visit, the observer then requests permission from the class teacher to provide some views on which areas of practice need to be focused upon for development and discuss how this development can be achieved.
There are key objectives which guided this change in practice:
- It addressed a collective desire amongst senior leaders and staff to bring about sustained improvement and high standards in teaching and learning.
- It would develop a process which would not impact negatively upon staff wellbeing and the process would provide an accurate portrayal of practice within classrooms.
