Two inspectors are carrying out a book scrutiny during assembly:

These books look immaculate.

Yes, I agree. Works of art.

I feel like I should be wearing gloves to protect them.

Ha, ha. I know what you mean.

Just look at them. Printed learning objective slips with success criteria, which pupils have traffic lighted to show us how they felt about their leaning. The teacher has written whether the work was done independently, with adult support or peer supported.

I know. Every other page has been deep marked with pupils editing with purple pens and teacher comments indicating next steps with top tips to make accelerated progress.

Very impressive, I agree. Look here. The teacher has written VF to show when verbal feedback was given. It’s everywhere.

I saw that too. They’ve even written next to the letters VF exactly what they said to the pupil and drawn an arrow to show us exactly what the pupil did in response. Brilliant.

There aren’t any pages missing and every date is perfectly written and underlined with a ruler.

The teacher has even made it very clear what the pupil did well by repeating the learning objective. “You managed to use adverbs today like the LO said you were going to do.”

That’s dedication for you. Makes it so easy for us to make a judgement on the books and the impact the teacher is having.

I agree. I have just noticed that staff are required to initial every piece of work too to show they taught the lesson.

I love all these symbols they use too: little ladders for next steps, stars and magic wands for 2 stars and a wish, hearts for good sentences, emoji-like faces to show how the teacher feels about their work etc. Truly beautiful.

I especially love the use of highlighters. Over most of the work, the teacher has highlighted good bits in one colour and bits to improve in another. It makes it so obvious to us that the teacher is pushing the pupils on. It smacks us right in the face. Very clever.

It must take teachers hours every week to make these books look Ofsted ready.

Yes, you’re right. They are very good.

Shame really though, don’t you think; if we’re really honest. I mean, would the pupil still make progress without any of the above in books?

Oh, I would have thought so. Teachers are very smart. They know their pupils really well and adjust lessons accordingly on a daily basis to ensure progress is made.

Yes, I agree. I know they give so much feedback in class to pupils.

So it makes you wonder why they do all this work then. I mean, it would cut down on workload if they didn’t need to do so much in books.

Yes. You might be on to something. Maybe we should say something?

What do you mean?

Well, if we

2017-19 Full blogs are now archived in the book ‘How Do You Think the Lesson Went?’