Starter for 5: Monitoring and Evaluation
Updated: Dec 7, 2023
1. Monitoring Your Subject 101
"Many new middle leaders are effectively thrown in at the deep end and are expected, at least until they are given training, to monitor and evaluate their subject. Often the only experience of monitoring and evaluating that these leaders have is what has been done to them... To try to provide some nutshell clarity I often share the following pointers for effective M&E."
2. How To Observe A Lesson
"What would be... useful to subject leaders, and other members of staff carrying out observations (or drop-ins, whatever you call them), would be some ideas of what can be done to best assess the teaching and learning that is happening."
3. What Looking At Children's Books Tells You That You Don't Need To Know & What Can Book Scrutiny Actually Tell Us?
"When it comes to book scrutiny (or book looks by their slightly less evil-sounding name) there are plenty of things that can catch our eye as we peruse the children’s work – only some of which can be really useful. There are other things which distract us, and which we can end up getting very hung up on..."
"Looking at children’s work can only give us clues about what is happening in the classroom, and, more widely, about the quality of the curriculum and its delivery. Book looks must not be used to make cast iron judgements, but can be the start of a line of enquiry that takes in other forms of monitoring."
4. How To Give Feedback To Your Work Mates
"A recent piece of research, summarised here in PsyPost, suggests that we underestimate other people's desire to receive feedback. This is a huge encouragement when it comes to carrying out monitoring and evaluation processes in school. One area of worry for leaders is how they will monitor, evaluate and provide feedback to their colleagues, many of whom they consider to be friends."
5. Questions For Subject Leaders (free download)
"This is a non-exhaustive list of questions that subject leaders might ask themselves as they become champions of their subject. Some questions hold more weight than others; other questions are follow-up questions which will cause further thought about a particular issue. Although organised into loose categories, some questions fit in more than one category, and some questions may be more pertinent than others. These questions should be a starting point for further interrogation of a subject by its leader. All of the questions exist to empower subject leaders to be able to understand and talk about their subject with competency, confidence and clarity."
(See https://www.aidansevers.com/post/questions-for-subject-leaders-send for more details on the above)
