The schools I’ve worked in have always used ‘every lesson, every day’ when it comes to leaders doing learning walks (or tours) of the school. I’m pretty sure this is the norm everywhere, though sometimes you do hear people say that they haven’t seen someone from SLT, or the Head / deputies, since Of Mice and Men was on the GCSE spec.
In theory, every lesson every day is a great mantra. It means that leaders are constantly present around the school, watching lessons and supporting staff and children. It should be purposeful, enjoyable, and something that celebrates the great practice in the school. At Xavier CET, this is something we work hard on and that I believe has a great impact.
Learning walks are not judgemental, there’s no need to walk around the school with a serious expression on your face; the role is to ensure standards are high, great learning is taking place, that the children are working well for their teachers, and we can do this by being ourselves and aligning with our school’s culture.
But they should be a key driver of school improvement, because the amount of data you accrue across the team means you should be able to pinpoint what’s going well, and where more support is needed. Every single day, you have more examples and evidence to help make steps forward.
This isn’t all about the teachers individually, although that is part of the puzzle. We might be reviewing if we can spot initiatives or processes we’ve asked staff to do that actually don’t work well in practice; or perhaps we notice mutations or misapplications of what we’ve included in recent professional development. But if we don’t walk around the school regularly, and purposefully, we’ll never know that’s actually doing well and what needs to be improved.
So the learning walk has the potential to be one of our most effective levers for improving, and also is an opportunity for leaders to work together as a team to drive development.
But learning walks don’t always add value. Often, they become a tokenistic routine, a cursory wander around the school, and something that just happens every day, without remit or purpose. And certainly without impact.
Below are five questions I’d like you to consider about your learning walks. Try to be objective and think about every member of the learning walk team, how well you coordinate, and if there’s a chance that early purpose might have lost momentum as time has passed.
Key question one: Do learning walks have an agreed purpose, shared by all? What are you all looking out for?
Key question two: What do we do on a learning walk? How does it work?
Key question three: What do we need to know?
Key question four: How do we compare what we’ve seen, and how do we feedback?
Key question five: How do we coordinate to support staff afterwards?
Let’s take a look in more detail.
Key question one: do learning walks have an agreed purpose, shared by all? What are you all looking out for?
It’s interesting when you ask middle or senior leaders on learning walks why they are doing them. Some say ‘to check behaviour is good’. Others ‘to be a presence for staff’. Others ‘to check the quality of teaching’ and others ‘to see if what we have been doing in CPD has translated to classrooms. Some say all four, others a mixture of those.
But we need to state our purpose at the start, so there is a shared understanding of what we are doing and why. If people are setting out with different agendas, then things will be missed.
This is a team effort. What have you decided as a group is the ‘main thing’ when it comes to your learning walks? This might change, too, depending on what someone on the team has ask you to prioritise that week.
Ultimately, learning walks are a very expensive thing to do. So, why do you do them? Do you all know why? Have you discussed this recently?
Key question two: What do we do on a learning walk? How does it work?
Learning walks can mean different things, depending on the school. In some schools, it means you are THE person out and about, so you are walking around and looking at lessons, but you are also picking up missing children or those making less wise choices.
I’d suggest that if you really prioritise teaching and learning, and see learning walks as a school-improvement tool, you have someone else to pick up any issues or children who need support, and allow the learning walker to visit all lessons, uninhibited.
If we can agree that the point of a learning walk is to observe teaching to understand the climate of the school and the pedagogy at hand – the quality of teaching, in other words – then we need to agree on certain things.
- How long do we spend in most classrooms?
- Does this change for people we are supporting more?
- If we witness disruption in a room, what do we do? A silent gesture to pupils. A quiet word? Do we intervene, if needed, and how?
- When we see a child who is not regulated, do we have a quick chat with them outside?
- Do we circle back strategically later on to close the loop after said chat, or just to check in on the class again?
Whatever you decide, there needs to be consistency across the team of learning walkers. This helps the children and staff know what to expect, and maintains your agreed upon culture.
If you come up with a plan that you think will work best in your context, it’s so powerful when every member of the learning walk team follows it in a similar way.
My suggestion is to run some scenarios in leadership team meetings – how do we usually respond to this? How should we respond to this, if we are more coordinated?
Key question three: what do we need to know?
Every school has teachers, pupils, or classes who need a little more attention or support. We must begin our learning walks with a secure knowledge of 1) who needs that support) and 2) the specific timetable for the lesson you are walking around.
If the school has ECTs, go and see them. The same goes for new staff, or those who are getting some ongoing support for other reasons, or those teaching a key stage or similar for the first time.
And, if leaders have communicated that certain classes or teachers need support, or just a quick check in, then it’s important that the person on the learning walk knows the context.
What have they found tricky so far? What are their current targets? We can’t do or see absolutely everything in one learning walk, so background information helps you look to see how things are going in a certain, or agreed upon, area of teaching.
Key question four: How do we compare what we’ve seen, and how do we give feedback?
Okay this is a big one. After a learning walk, what happens next? You have 5-6 going on a day, so that’s a lot of data being accrued. What happens to it?!
Lets say I’m on learning walk period one and see Dave having a really tough time with his Year 7 group. They are running circles around him. Dave’s new, and every time I see him, he’s with this same Year 7 class. Narrow sample size, but my opinion on Dave’s teaching hasn’t got off to a brilliant start.
But then I go to SLT the next day, and we compare notes. Turns out, everyone else is seeing Dave teach a blinder. Well, that might be a stretch, but there are no concerns. That’s useful. We now know a variety of things: 1) he’s struggling with a particular group; 2) he’s got potential and is teaching well with other groups; 3) the combination of 1 and 2 means that his other classes could slip, or that Year 7 could improve. There’s lots more, but let’s park that for a second.
If I was Learning Walk P4, and consistently saw him with Year 12, I might be thinking he’s fantastic. What a find! And yes, he could be and we can support him to get there consistently. But my small sample size has again caused a bias.
So, that’s why we must compare. This is a team effort, and every lesson is different.
Most schools that I speak to say ‘ah yes, we talk about learning walks all the time in SLT, it’s a big part of our T&L strategy’. But how about that middle leader or associate assistant head who does one? And that other person who’s not in SLT? What about the SLT member that, for whatever reason, doesn’t quite see teaching and learning as their big thing, and is less proactive when it comes to these discussions?
Our goal is that every lesson is amazing for every child and every staff member, every day. So that means learning walks must be purposeful, but also shared afterwards so that we can do something meaningful with what we’ve seen. Spot trends, come up with plans, and make the next week’s learning walks even more purposeful.
Some SLTs occasionally, or regularly, do joint learning walks, to discuss things that have been mentioned before and to create a dialogue so that they aren’t seeing lessons with their own views or biases alone. This can then be fed back into wider discussions.
Key question five: How do we coordinate to support staff afterwards?
Firstly, if you see something that might need a follow up conversation, how do you tend to do that? Who is notified? And do others on learning walk do the same thing?
But, as a team, let’s say we’ve spotted a pattern with a certain class or teacher. We know it needs to improve, and it won’t get better on its own, not even if we pop our heads in a lot.
But in all seriousness, it won’t just get better on its own. These children have this lesson regularly, and they deserve the best.
So it’s time to create a coordinate plan to support that teacher, to help them improve, but in a way that enables them to feel looked after, valued, and as though they aren’t being judged.
This will often involve a few people: the teacher, their head of department, possibly their coach/mentor, and of course members of the leadership team such as the teaching and learning lead or the department’s line manager.
We need to agree targets and action steps, and then work with that teacher to support them and to maximise their chances of success.
Does this involve lesson observations? Yes. Is that where it stops? No.
There are many reasons why someone might need some support, but only observing their teaching means you don’t see the whole picture. Sit with them as they plan lessons and discuss choices they might make, where challenges or misconceptions may arise, ask them about how long they plan to spend on certain tasks or explanations. The success of a lesson depends both on the decisions the teacher makes in the lesson itself, but also fundamentally on the way they planned the lesson, too. After the lesson, have a debrief. Discuss what was good and what could be improved. Support them with planning. Do another lesson. Discuss. Take them to watch a few other teachers who do certain things in a successful way. Help them plan. Watch their lesson. Discuss.
It’s an ongoing process that will both help them to improve but also to feel empowered. I’d argue the head of department is best placed to take the lead on this, in close conjunction with someone from SLT who will both give feedback from others on learning walks about they are continuing to see, and pass feedback to SLT from the HOD about what is being worked on and where progress is being made.
And this coordination is vital. Everyone on learning walk should know their targets, prioritise popping in, and then give feedback to those supporting that teacher.
This is a complex thing to do if you want to see results and help that person improve. But as my colleague Alan says, if it was easy, then every single lesson and teacher would be brilliant all day every day, and we aren’t quite there yet.
Given the huge potential of learning walks, and the myriad of successes, challenges, opportunities that arise from going on them, it’s hard to discuss everything in one post. I hope the five questions will be useful for you to reflect upon, and share with your learner walk team!
Thanks
Sam
