Switch course ▾
Session 1. The Leader in the Room: Observing to Develop, Not to Inspect
Objective. Distinguish development, monitoring and appraisal visits, explain how a leader's authority changes what a visit means, and write a one-page visit promise that keeps the three purposes apart.
When you walk into a classroom as the head, you bring your whole role with you: the timetable, the characteristics you sign and the committees you sit on. Teachers know this even if you say nothing. This lesson looks closely at what that does to a visit and what you can do about it. If you understand the signals your presence sends, you can design visits that teachers trust enough to teach honestly, and then your visits can finally show you what really happens in lessons.
Key ideas
Why a leader's visit is never neutral
- In course 11.9 Peer Observation two equals swapped visits. A head or deputy is not an equal: she writes the timetable, signs the characteristics and sits on committees. So the same 15 minutes at the back of the room mean something different when she is the visitor.
- Teachers often teach a 'show lesson' when a leader comes, so the leader sees the best lesson of the year and learns little. The more power you use in the room, the less true the picture you get.
- Leadership research points the same way. In a well-known review of studies, Robinson, Lloyd and Rowe (2008) found that leaders who promote and take part in teacher learning had a larger average effect on pupil outcomes than the other leadership dimensions they compared. Being in the learning, not above it, is what counts.
Three purposes that must not be mixed
- Development: one teacher, one question she chose, notes go to her, the aim is her next step. Monitoring: the leader learns how something is working across the school (for example whether a new textbook routine has started); notes are about groups, not named teachers. Appraisal: a decision about a person such as category, pay or contract, made by an agreed formal process.
- Trade-off: one visit cannot do all three well. If a development visit may end in a warning, teachers will perform, and you lose the learning. If appraisal pretends to be development, trust is broken once and for a long time.
- Before every visit say aloud which of the three it is. One sentence is enough: 'This is a development visit; I will write nothing for any file.'
What a leader does with the position
- Use the authority for what only a leader can give: protected time, a clear purpose, a calm tone, and follow-through. Give away what you can: let the teacher choose the lesson and the lens, keep the notes with her and agree who may see them.
- Keep visits short and regular rather than long and rare. A 15-minute visit with one question, followed by a conversation within two days, gives more than a full lesson once a year. Note, however, that observers need training: a World Bank blog on school leaders cites an experiment in which untrained principals picked out effective teachers about as often as chance would. Calibration comes in session 3.
- Never act on one visit alone. A single lesson is a small sample: a hot day, a fire drill, a new class.
The visit promise: a written contract with staff
- A visit promise is one page, signed by the head, shared with every teacher before the first visit. It says: the three purposes and how each is announced; how often and how long; who chooses the focus; who holds notes and who may see them; how a visit can ever lead to a formal process (only openly, in writing, with a stated reason); and whom a teacher can ask for a different observer.
- Check your national and local rules on staff appraisal and attestation first and write the promise inside them. Do not promise what the rules do not allow, and do not hide a rule that does apply. If you are unsure, ask the education department in writing.
- Include a way to test it: after one term ask staff in an anonymous paper slip whether the promise was kept. A promise that is never checked is a poster.
Three kinds of leader visit
Development
For one teacher's learning
- Teacher chooses the question
- Notes stay with her
- Talk within two days
Monitoring
For a school question
- Announced in advance
- Counts by group
- No teacher names
Appraisal
For a decision
- Formal and announced
- Agreed criteria
- Written outcome
What your presence says before you speak
Everything about a leader's visit is read as a message: the day you choose, the clipboard, whether you sit or stand, how long you stay and whom you greet. Teachers also read what you look at. If a leader always comments on displays and tidy boards, staff conclude that displays matter more than pupils' thinking, and they adjust.
Think of trust as a budget. Each visit that matches your promise adds a little; each surprise, hidden purpose or comment repeated in the corridor withdraws a lot. A good habit is to open each visit with the same two sentences: which purpose it serves and who will see the notes. Repeating them is not boring; it is how a promise becomes a habit.
Where development ends and appraisal begins
Many leaders do both jobs, and that is not wrong, but the two must be separated by rules, not by good intentions. Separate people where you can: in a larger school the methodist supports and the head appraises. Separate time: development visits happen outside appraisal windows. Separate paper: development notes live in a different place from appraisal evidence.
In a very small school, such as a rural school with only a head and one deputy, you cannot separate people. Then separate by consent and by swapping: invite a leader from a neighbouring school for development visits, or agree in writing that nothing from a development visit may be used in appraisal without the teacher's agreement. The honest aim is that a teacher can say, 'I know exactly what happens to what you saw.'
Examples from the classroom
The silent classroom
Scene. Dilnoza, a deputy head in Tashkent, notices that when she enters any Grade 7 room the pupils fall silent and sit upright. In her own Grade 6 lesson last year the same silence made her feel watched. She decides to tell each class in one sentence why she is there and asks the teacher, not the pupils, what to watch. Within three weeks, two teachers invite her to lessons where pupils work in pairs and talk.
Insight. A leader's presence changes behaviour; naming the purpose and giving the teacher the question brings back honest teaching.
Two leaders, one small school
Scene. A small school near Nukus has only a head and one deputy, and both sign teachers' characteristics. They agree with the head of the school 12 kilometres away to swap one afternoon a month for development visits. They write on one page that notes stay with the teacher. At the end of the term, five of six teachers say in an anonymous slip that the swapped visits felt safer than visits by their own leaders.
Insight. When roles cannot be separated inside a school, separate them across schools and in writing.
Counting textbooks, not teachers
Scene. At the start of October the head of a school in Samarkand wants to know whether pupils use the new textbook in Grade 4. She announces on Monday that she will spend 10 minutes in each class and count open textbooks, reporting results by grade. Grade 4B has 18 of 26 open, Grade 4C 24 of 25. She tells the staff meeting the totals and asks the grade teams what would help. No teacher is named.
Insight. Monitoring is legitimate when it is announced, measures one thing and reports patterns by group, not by person.
Common pitfalls
- Visiting 'just to see how things are' and later using what you saw for appraisal.
- Reading teachers' polite smiles as trust when the real test is whether they invite you.
- Promising what the national or local rules do not allow, such as never using any visit in any decision.
- Assuming that being friendly removes the effect of your authority.
Which Purpose? Then Write the Visit Promise
- Part A (45 min). In trios open the Activity Kit: eight leader visits. For each one decide D (development), M (monitoring) or A (appraisal), say who may see the notes, and name any promise that is broken. Write one line of reasoning per scenario.
- Whole group (10 min of Part A): pick the two scenarios where trios disagreed. Decide what a school rule must say so that the answer is clear to every teacher, and write it in one sentence.
- Part B (30 min). Alone, then in pairs: draft the one-page visit promise for your own school using the template (eight rows). Include the sentence that says how a visit may ever lead to a formal process.
- Role play (10 min of Part B): one person reads her promise aloud; the other plays a nervous teacher and asks the three hardest questions ('Who sees the notes? What if you see something bad? Can I say no?'). Rewrite the rows that did not hold.
- Alone (5 min): write your leadership task from the Kit and the date you will share the promise with staff.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which scenario showed most clearly how easily appraisal creeps into a development visit, and what in your own school makes that creep likely?
- What did you give away in your promise (choice of lesson, notes, lens), and what did you keep? Is the balance defensible to a nervous teacher?
- Which rule in your national or local appraisal system do you still need to check before you share the promise, and whom will you ask?
Reflect
- Think of the last time you walked into a colleague's lesson. What did you say about the purpose, and what did the teacher probably hear?
- Which teacher in your school would find your visit hardest, and what would make it safer for her?
- What is one visit you currently make that is really monitoring or appraisal but is described as development?
Try it tomorrow
- Before your next visit say aloud which of the three purposes it serves and who will see the notes.
- Ask one teacher what she did differently the last time a leader visited, and listen without defending.
- Write on one card the two sentences you will open every visit with and use them for a week.
Further reading and links
A leader's visit is never neutral, so say which purpose it serves, give away what you can, keep development, monitoring and appraisal apart in writing and test the promise with staff.