“I will be observing you next Tuesday, period three.”

It sets stress cortisone levels soaring as the brain instantly begins to catastrophise. 

Visions of the class completely out of control, and the P45 arriving on the desk the next morning quickly appear. 

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Cue a week’s worth of obsessive thinking, planning and doubt.

 When it finally arrives, the lesson itself is a million miles away from the reality of our everyday practice: packed full of collaborative activities and driven by a manic pace.

What if it didn’t have to be this way? What if we tried to have a different relationship with lesson feedback?

Lesson observations: meaningful feedback

Instead of seeing lesson observations as delivering some almighty judgement on us as practitioners, it is useful to reframe them and see them as opportunities to learn. No matter how much experience we have in our classrooms, a fresh pair of eyes and a new perspective can help to improve the quality of our lessons. 

This will help us to see lesson feedback not as a personal slight, but rather a way to make us even better. That is why it is important that we show what the reality of our classroom on a daily basis is like - and don’t feel the pressure to put on some kind of observation show. 

That makes any feedback we receive much more meaningful, and it is more likely to allow us to put in practical steps to improve.

Reflect and lead

We have all had shockingly bad lesson feedback in our time, and some people are more interpersonally gifted at delivering it than others.

Taking ownership of the experience, and getting our own reflections in about the lesson early, can be helpful to guide the conversation and feedback. 

It also demonstrates that we are doing what all good teachers do: continually reflecting on what makes our lessons effective, and what we need to do to improve. 

If we can facilitate more of a conversation in the feedback, it becomes something to be less anxious about. Rather than fixating on any form of overall judgment, this allows us to see our work in the classroom as something that we are always reflecting upon and refining.

Be open

One reason why more formal lesson observation situations induce such fear is because we may not be used to people being in our classrooms. The more open we are about our classroom practice, the more this feedback process starts to become something natural. 

Encouraging fellow teachers to pop in to a lesson for 10 minutes to share some feedback on something new that we are doing can help us to feel more confident about sharing our practice. It also helps with motivation. 

Teaching can be a lonely experience, so the more we can share with those around us, the more we are all engaged in discussing what makes good learning experiences for our students. 

Find a coach

Finding a coach strips away the power dynamic that can influence managerial observations; instead, allowing us to have real honest dialogue about our teaching.

Having a reciprocal relationship, in which you visit their lessons and discuss their teaching, can be a powerful way to learn more about nuances of effective dialogue in teaching and learning. 

Jamie Thom is a teacher of English in Scotland, who until recently worked in schools in England. His book, A Quiet Education, will be published later this year. He tweets @teachgratitude1