Debunking Ofsted inspection myths

News of an Ofsted visit can drive teachers into a frenzy of unnecessary preparation. Julie Price Grimshaw debunks the anxiety-inducing myths at the heart of the nightmare

In the old days of inspection, when schools got the famous ‘brown envelope’ months before Ofsted turned up, there was plenty of time to produce special lesson plans for every observation. In fact, we got so much notice at my school that we had the entire place painted and decorated. In contrast, the standard half-day notice issued at present barely gives teachers time to pick up a few cans of high-energy drink before the lesson-planning marathon begins.

In March 2015, Ofsted produced the document ‘Ofsted inspections – clarification for schools’. The section on lesson planning states that ‘Ofsted does not require schools to provide individual lesson plans to inspectors. Equally, Ofsted does not require schools to provide previous lesson plans’, and ‘Ofsted does not specify how planning should be set out, the length of time it should take or the amount of detail it should contain’. Nevertheless, as I go around supporting schools it’s clear the message is just not getting through in some places. Here are a few of the most common myths that remain:

Providing a detailed plan tells the inspector exactly what the lesson is about
Quite honestly, if as an inspector I can’t work out what’s going on in a classroom without being given a piece of paper telling me, I shouldn’t be doing this job at all. There have only been two occasions when I’ve not had a clue what was going on in a lesson. The pupils were clueless too. As it happens, the plan I was given was no help to me in solving the mystery.

Even though it’s not compulsory to produce a lesson plan, inspectors will downgrade teachers who don’t
As Ofsted doesn’t grade teaching in lessons it would be impossible to ‘downgrade’ a teacher for not producing a lesson plan. Conversely, inspectors don’t give credit to teachers who do produce plans. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been given lesson plans that go on for pages and pages with colour-coded sections and precise timings. Had I been given a very brief plan, or no plan, the judgements on learning would have been the same.

Producing detailed plans will help if things don’t go well in the observed lesson as the inspector can see what you’re going to do next
I can’t think of one time I’ve left a lesson thinking, ‘The learning was pretty poor, but things must be good because the next activity on the plan looked great!’ And remember, observations of learning form only one part of the evidence on the quality of teaching. If evidence from the books, the data and the pupils shows that teaching and learning are typically good or better, you can survive a lesson where the wheels fall off.

A lesson plan tells the inspector about the context of the class
There’s actually a bit of truth in this one. Inspectors have to record details such as how many pupils are on roll, how many are present, whether it is a streamed class and so on. But you don’t need to put these things on a lesson plan. You can put them on a Post-it note if you like. Don’t worry, however, if you don’t get round to it.

Some teachers leave their ‘normal’ planning out as a matter of routine and that’s fine. But producing special plans can lead to all sorts of problems. Anyone who’s read my book will know that the worst lesson I ever taught – which happened to be an observed lesson – was due to my determination to stick to a plan in spite of the fact that it obviously wasn’t working. Suspending, or even binning, a plan is something we shouldn’t be afraid to do in the interests of high-quality learning, but we’re much less likely to do this if we’ve presented our beautiful plan to an observer.

In short, inspectors don’t really care what planning format you adopt. They only care about how well it works in promoting learning. There’s much truth in the phrase ‘Ofsted doesn’t want to see a lesson plan, it wants to see a planned lesson.’ Don’t do anything just for Ofsted; plan as normal, teach as normal, and stay off the energy drinks the night before.

About the author

Julie Price Grimshaw is a teacher, teacher trainer, and education consultant (selfpropelledlearning.co.uk ). She has taught primary and secondary and has been involved in school inspections since 2001