You are here:
Learning walks: how-to guide
Plan and carry out a successful learning walk with our downloadable checklist, and use our suggested questions to interrogate the evidence and come up with future actions.
Contents
- Learning walks vs. lesson observations
- Why do a learning walk?
- Download our checklist to plan your learning walk
- Ideas for areas to focus on
- Analyse your findings and set actions
- Learning walk templates and questions to ask pupils
Learning walks vs. lesson observations
There is no single definition for how a learning walk differs from a lesson observation, but there are some commonly accepted differences:
Learning walk |
Lesson observation |
| Supports whole-school improvement, and/or provides evidence for a school improvement plan (SIP) | Makes evaluations of individuals, for a range of purposes (such as appraisal or monitoring a department's performance) |
| Criteria should be short, and more focused on a specific area | More thorough |
| Short - around 10-20 minutes in each lesson | Longer - usually around 30 minutes to an hour, or a full lesson |
| Informal | Formal, with detailed feedback given afterwards to explain judgements |
Both of these should always be used in conjunction with other evidence, such as discussions with teachers, pupil questionnaires, and work scrutinies.
Why do a learning walk?
- To get a clear picture of what's happening across the school in terms of quality of provision
- To drill down into a particular aspect of provision (for example, comparing the progress of boys and girls, looking at the development of writing across the school, or checking that a policy is being implemented consistently)
- To identify training needs and areas for professional development
- To help teachers get used to having others in the classroom, making formal lesson observations less daunting
How often can I do a learning walk?
As with lesson observations, there are no statutory requirements to carry out a certain number of learning walks, or a limit on how many you can do. However, unions have restrictions on what qualifies as a 'learning walk' and how frequently you can do one. For example:
- Learning walks count towards the maximum number of observations permitted by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and NASUWT - 3 per year.
- NASUWT considers learning walks to be the same as lesson observations
Download our checklist to plan your learning walk
Ideas for areas to focus on
Learning walks are most effective when they have a specific focus. This is especially true if you want to conduct several learning walks over a period of time and compare the results.
Download our suggestions for areas to concentrate on during a learning walk, depending on the role of the observer, along with suggestions for activities.
Analyse your findings and set actions
Questions to consider when analysing evidence
- Is there evidence of anything being treated inconsistently across subjects?
- What elements of good practice have you seen in [area of focus, e.g. 'questioning']? How will you share this with all staff?
- What areas for development have you observed? How will you share this with all staff?
- Does the information show that any school policy or procedure is not being followed by staff?
- Are appropriate levels of [area of focus, e.g. peer-to-peer learning] seen across the school?
- Are the strengths and areas for development identified in the learning walks consistent with the priorities in the school improvement plan and/or entries in the self-evaluation form?
Setting future actions
- Explain the purpose of the learning walk and what overall trends were noticed across the school in a staff memo. Following the memo, discuss the findings at a staff meeting, to ensure all staff are engaged with the purpose and outcome(s) of the learning walk, while giving them a chance to feed back
- If the learning walk highlighted issues with the practice of specific teachers, set up a face-to-face meeting with those concerned as soon as possible. Include a Key Stage leader or member of the senior leadership team (SLT). Follow up the meeting with a formal lesson observation to ensure practice has improved. Remember that learning walks shouldn't be used for appraisal purposes
- You may find you need to change, revise or review a school policy after a learning walk. Any changes to school policies must be followed up with staff training to encourage engagement and awareness
- You'll only need to prepare a written report if multiple SLT members are conducting simultaneous learning walks. If your governors conduct a learning walk, they'll need to write a report for the SLT
Learning walk templates and questions to ask pupils
Download our templates in another article, along with additional questions to ask pupils during a learning walk.
Sources
Gulshan Kayembe is an independent consultant who has experience of inspecting schools. She provides mentoring for senior leaders and has worked as an external adviser on headteachers’ performance management.
Nina Siddall-Ward is an education consultant. She is the former head of standards and learning effectiveness for a large local authority. She has been a headteacher in three schools.
David New, an education consultant, was the headteacher of a large secondary school for nine years. He has particular expertise in lettings, staffing, academy conversion and the secondary curriculum.
Education consultant Neil Hemmings is a former secondary headteacher. He specialises in pupil wellbeing, school improvement and the professional development of staff.
Bernard Abrams is an education consultant and former headteacher who previously worked as a school inspector.
More from The Key
It's here! Safeguarding INSET pack 2019/20
- Downloadable presentations
- Participant handout
- Assessments and certificates
- New session on online safety
CPD Toolkit makes it easy to run training in-house
Covering topics including differentiation, assessment, SEND and growth mindset, CPD Toolkit has been created by subject experts and tested by teachers to guarantee practical, engaging training that's also excellent value for money.
- In the news: Your weekly round-up for 14 June-21 June 2019 21 Jun 2019 08:00
- In the news: Your weekly round-up for 7 June-14 June 2019 14 Jun 2019 08:00
- In the news: Your weekly round-up for 31 May-7 June 2019 7 Jun 2019 08:00
- Need-to-know: 2019 KS1 scaled scores published 3 Jun 2019 11:01
- In the news: Your weekly round-up for 24-31 May 2019 31 May 2019 08:00
The Key has taken great care in publishing this article. However, some of the article's content and information may come from or link to third party sources whose quality, relevance, accuracy, completeness, currency and reliability we do not guarantee. Accordingly, we will not be held liable for any use of or reliance placed on this article's content or the links or downloads it provides. This article may contain information sourced from public sector bodies and licensed under the Open Government Licence.