Video may have “killed the radio star” but it’s now “building reflective stars” and revolutionising teacher development across our trust.
Picture the scene, a large group (50+) of teachers and senior leaders in one room. The pre-lesson discussion explores the context of the lesson. During the session, a maths leader plays a video and pauses at key moments to reflect, analyse and refine thinking. The video shows a lesson from a school within the trust, often in schools with high levels of socio-economic disadvantage.
This is no ordinary professional development – it’s teacher growth, with real classrooms, real children from our trust schools with real impact. In our trust, these ‘communities of excellence’ not only allow teachers to ‘watch back’ but to grow (fast)forward as they evaluate their planning and teaching. Nothing matches the impact of seeing great teachers in action or learning from colleagues who are living and breathing these approaches.
Seeing strategies in action
When planning effective professional development, video exemplification — using recorded lessons as models — offers teachers a unique opportunity to observe colleagues “living and breathing” approaches.
Across our trust, videos are used in our ‘communities of excellence’ to showcase real classroom practices, from lesson design, how to use representations to reveal mathematical structures, how to embed teaching with variation and even how to use routines effectively.
The EEF’s Effective Professional Development guidance report identifies modelling as a key mechanism for developing teaching techniques.
In one recorded lesson from Our Lady Queen of Peace, Sunderland, teachers watch as the teacher uses a bead string to partition numbers and ask pupils which 10 they are closest to, laying the foundations for the lesson before they begin to round numbers, with discussions focusing on why particular manipulatives enhance understanding.
These videos are not just passive viewing; they prompt meaningful conversations. In the professional development sessions, teachers reflect on key moments in the recordings, such as questioning strategies or manipulative choices. Together, they explore how these techniques can be adapted to fit their own classrooms, creating a shared language around evidence-informed practice.
Videos transform professional development into active, reflective learning, making evidence-informed practices accessible and directly applicable.
As a trust, we are using this approach to focus specifically on early years in our ‘early excellence’ videos which include subject knowledge support and practical approaches to use in the classroom and provision. For example, we have recorded videos focusing on composition of number, subitising and doubling with practical ideas of what this could look like in our schools.
We are shining the spotlight on our whole trust by developing a series of ‘Our Trust Family’ videos that celebrate the rich tapestry of our colleagues and children and sharing these in schools as part of the personal development curriculum. We’re building a culture where practitioners are happy to be videoed as they see their value. This approach has also grown roots in the wider curriculum through live lessons in humanities and modern foreign languages.
This is how video is helping build reflective stars in our schools, one recorded lesson at a time.
For reflection, consider:
- How can video support your teaching development?
- Which strategies from the videos might benefit your pupils?
The Research School network have a range of ‘clips from the classroom’ that you may want to use when developing your own school professional development.