LEAD — The Weekly School Leadership Brief
Are You Observing Teaching or Inspecting Teachers?
Leadership • Excellence • Action • Development
L — Leadership Insight
Many classroom observations become inspections without anyone intending them to. The observer enters with a form. The teacher becomes conscious of being watched. Attention shifts towards whether the lesson plan was followed, the right strategies were used and the expected routines were visible.
But the most important question can remain unanswered:
What did students actually learn?
Instructional leadership improves when observation moves from “How well did the teacher perform?” to “What evidence of learning can I see, hear and examine?”
Observe the learning before judging the teaching.
E — Excellence Practice
The LEARN Classroom Evidence Scan
During a short classroom visit, look through five lenses:
- L — Learning intention: Can students explain what they are learning rather than merely what activity they are completing?
- E — Evidence of thinking: What are students saying, writing, making, solving, explaining or questioning that shows understanding?
- A — Active cognitive participation: Who is doing the intellectual work? How many students are thinking, responding and making decisions?
- R — Response to evidence: What does the teacher do when students misunderstand? Does teaching adapt?
- N — Next step: What needs reinforcement, extension, reteaching or further investigation?
Good observation becomes developmental, not ceremonial.
A — Action for the Week
Three Classrooms. Ten Minutes Each. No Judgement.
This week, visit three classrooms for approximately ten minutes each. Do not score the teacher. Record only:
- what students were learning;
- what students were doing and thinking;
- what evidence showed whether learning was happening.
After all three visits, look for a school-level pattern. Perhaps the same few students answer every question. Perhaps objectives are displayed but students cannot explain them. Perhaps assessment happens only at the end.
One classroom may tell you about one teacher. A repeated pattern across classrooms may tell you something about the school.
D — Development Question
When we observe classrooms, are we collecting evidence that helps teachers improve, or evidence that helps leaders complete an observation form?
Use this question in your next academic leadership or coordinator meeting. Discuss the purpose of observation before discussing the form.
60-Second Leadership Challenge
Immediately after your next classroom visit, answer these three questions without looking at your notes:
- What were students supposed to learn?
- What evidence showed what they understood?
- What would be the most useful next professional conversation with the teacher?
If you cannot answer the first two questions, you probably observed the lesson activity more than the learning.
Leadership Line
“Classroom observation becomes instructional leadership when the conversation moves from what the teacher did to what students learned and what should happen next.”
— Dr Anup Sharma
Question Worth Sharing
What evidence would convince you that a lesson has produced real learning, even if you had not watched the teacher teach it?
Continue the Classroom Observation Pathway
Free Resource Library
Put this week’s observation idea into practice
Browse observation checklists, teacher forms, walkthrough tools, self-reflection resources and lesson-observation forms for CBSE and IB.
← Read LEAD #01 · LEAD Newsletter Hub
LEAD — Learn. Reflect. Act. Improve.