This week’s discussion was another great one, as many of us tried to get to the bottom of how we can make QA of teaching and learning something that contributes to development, rather than a check for accountability.
Q1: Is there any value in ‘measuring’ the quality of teaching and learning?
Firstly, I have to highlight how the interpretation of ‘measure’ is crucial here, and this caused some initial debate over the meaning in relation to QA. Perhaps unhelpfully, you can use the word for both quantitative and qualitative purposes (with the example highlighting the topic of our discussion when I checked this definition online).
Quantitative measurements were mostly seen to be lacking in value, with @SaysMiss highlighting how there are too many variables involves in teaching and learning, as well as so much of the quality of teaching being open to interpretation. Instead, Kat posed that evaluation of teaching should be through conversations, a sentiment shared by many others in the discussion.
@NLad84 highlighted how the purpose of the QA processes needs to be developmental, and this is where I see the conversations mentioned by @SaysMiss playing an important part. However, I feel that you can still ‘measure’ the quality of teaching (albeit qualitatively) through this process though @robertkelly95’s point that any expectations need to be clear is important to this. It’s very true that ‘the quality of teaching is subjective’ (@Heimdayl) though if you build a shared understanding of what quality looks like, it provides a form of measure that can then be the basis of developmental conversations.
My own takeaways from this question were mostly focused on the idea of purpose and intent, and I really liked the question from @informed_edu that asked whether measuring quality was aiming to prove something or improve something. You’d hope the latter, in which case the process should be designed to empower teachers to self-reflect and self-evaluate through supportive feedback.
Q2: What are the pressures on leaders when it comes to QA?
Time (unsurprisingly) was a common theme for this area, whether it was having the time to have the conversations mentioned earlier (@lcgeography) or the time to ‘do something meaningful’ with any information collected (@EnserMark). For me, this is where school leadership plays a large part (as the main stakeholders capable of giving staff this time are headteachers and SLT).
Others also discussed how a school’s external stakeholders (whether it be Ofsted, the LEA or trust leadership) can also have impact on the pressures, with @greeborunner mentioning that rigid approaches to QA that don’t adapt for a school’s context can lead to ticklists and cutting corners. @lcgeography linked this back to the earlier concept of the purpose of QA too (I’d certainly argue that there are external bodies out there who are using it as an accountability tool rather than a developmental one).
Overall, I agreed with @SaysMiss’ view in this area, as she bought up the need to balance external accountability with knowing what helps teachers improve, as ‘data doesn’t measure everything’. In this sense, I feel that it’s important that those who lead on teacher development (whether it be through SLT or as a subject leader) should be trained in what makes effective CPD, and how QA fits into that as a developmental process. @NikkiSSmith put this really well, seeing QA as needing to be ‘supportive and developmental, not judgemental’.
Q3: What makes effective QA of Teaching & Learning?
After reading responses to the previous questions, it was clear to me that QA needs to be a dialogic and developmental process for it to have the desired impact (improvement of teaching and learning). @GLT_MAT also sees it as a process that involves both teachers and leaders, stating that QA should involve ‘co-construction of what great looks like’.
Culture was another aspect mentioned by several people in the discussion, which reflected some of what I’ve been fortunate enough to experience in the leadership for my school and MAT (Jonny Uttley’s book, ‘Putting Staff First’ - co-authored with John Tomsett is a great read for this). @Mr_N_Wood highlighted how a culture of trust can reduce staff anxiety, which means staff are going to be able to develop more. However, I can also agree with @robertkelly95 that it’s important to be clear about the expectations we - as leaders - have for the classroom so that we can still hold staff accountable and help them develop if standards are not met.
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