"How regular are teaching observations?"
This was a search term that I saw people had landed on my blog from and thought would be good inspiration for a blog post!
When I was a new teacher [from here on it to be refered to as a "noob"] I used to have an observation in every level twice a month too see how I was settling in. In addition to this I had feedback on the lessons, help planning the next lesson to work on the action points from the last lesson and I shared a class with another teacher so I could observe what techniques she used with them...and then nick them for myself!
Within two months this retreated to one observation each month for each level as this was school policy [to show students/corporate clients that we were maintaining a high level of teacher training and to actually maintain a high level of teacher training.) At times this can feel like a lot when you have a week of solid observations in every Level.
During the course of the year, with the school gaining new corporate clients and some teachers leaving observations decreased so that all the lessons could be taught. However this was a temporary change and has returned to normal now.
This is of course half the story, there are also the observations of other teachers that we make. To be honest appart from the class that I shared with another teacher I didn't have the largest ammount of opportunities to observe my peers/superiors, teaching. Having said this I did get to observe other teachers as part of the IH young learners course that I completed and on a couple of other occasions during the year.
If you are considering going into teaching it is best to check the schools individual policy regarding observations as it can be very different within each school but I hope that has helped to shed some light on the situation for you.
If any other teachers read this then please do leave your comments bellow about how often you were/are observed. thanks
