Education Endowment Foundation

Teacher Observation

The Teacher Observation intervention trained teachers in a structured observation approach. Teachers used software to rate their colleagues across a range of pre-specified components, such as managing student behaviour and communicating with students. Teachers were instructed to conduct a minimum of either three or four observations per year.

Teacher Observation

University of Bristol

St

Staff deployment & development

O

Organising your school

Test the impact of structured, peer observation on teachers’ effectiveness.

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Project Info

Independent Evaluator

NFER

Pupils

14,100

Schools

82

Grant

£1,180,000

Themes

St

Staff deployment & development

O

Organising your school

EEF Summary

Teacher observation is an integral part of CPD in English schools. A recent US study found that structured lesson observation led to gains in student and teacher performance. The EEF funded this evaluation to explore the impact of structured teacher observation in the English context.

The evaluation did not show any overall improvement in combined maths and English GCSE scores for pupils of the teachers involved.

The total number of teacher observations was much lower than expected: teachers involved in the trial reported that they felt uncomfortable taking time out of teaching to complete observations, and that the level of expected observations was unsustainable. However, even when observations did take place, there was no evidence that schools which did more observations had better pupil results.

It is important to note that many of the comparison schools reported that they were already doing peer observation of some sort. This evaluation does not mean that general peer observation has no impact, but rather that this structured observation programme was not found to have any benefits over the status quo. 

Research Results

Evaluation Conclusions

1. The project found no evidence that Teacher Observation improves combined GCSE English and maths scores. 

2. The project found no evidence of impact of the intervention on the GCSE English and maths attainment of pupils who have ever been eligible for FSM.

3. The number of observations were below the developer’s initial expectations:teachers had difficulty fitting in the required number of observations because of timetabling and arranging cover, and some experienced problems using the software.

4. Teacher engagement with the programme varied greatly across schools, and practice ranged from individuals simply recording some observations using the RANDA software to whole-school, collaborative planning, discussion and reflection as part of an integrated CPD programme.

5. Almost three-quarters of the control group schools were already doing some peer observation prior to the intervention. The lack of impact seen in this study may be because the structured Teacher Observation intervention was no more effective than existing practice rather than because general peer observation has no impact.