Checking for Understanding
When you find out what students don’t understand, the pace of learning accelerates. You spot a confusion or a misconception and you work your magic.
But how should you check for understanding? And why is it now more important than ever?
One of the schools I support increased its Ofsted grade. (All the schools I support have done so - but the sample size is small and I live in fear that one day I won’t have helped enough).
I am most helpful when we focus on the curriculum. But I am having to add ‘checking for understanding’ as an obligatory part of my support.
Why?
Ofsted will have to make much snappier judgements. There will still be the same number of inspectors (4 or 5) for the same number of days (2 if we are generous), having to decide on 9 or 10 areas of judgement, a doubling of inspector workload.
Regardless of the quality of the inspector, this will mean faster judgements. Indeed, the more experienced the inspector, the more they will trust their first impressions.
Checking for Understanding is Your First Impression
Inspectors have already gauged which way the wind is blowing - the flags are flying SEND, and the windsock is pointed resolutely toward RI. If your SEND provision is poor, so is your ambition, your preparation for next steps, your building a sense of belonging, your behaviour and attitude for learning, your teaching strategies, your CPD and of course your leadership.
The whole Jenga tower of your school will come crashing down because of this one piece.
And how will the inspectors instantly judge your SEND provision?
They’ll look for checking for understanding in lessons.
On one recent inspection the inspector watched a teacher stand directly in front of a SEND student while they delivered information and instructions. They did not once check in with the student. The lesson was held up as proof that the teacher had no interest in the SEND child and no strategies for closing gaps, checking that they had understood.
This is pretty high stakes.
Why was the teacher positioned there? To make sure the student paid attention. Why did the seating plan put the student there? To make sure that they were always in the teacher’s sight line, so that they could intervene early. This cut no ice and buttered no parsnips.
It may be that student struggled right under the teacher’s nose - an obvious and blatant proof of their indifference. Or it may be that the teacher knew the child, monitored their facial cues for attentiveness and positioned themselves to intervene once work began.
We will never know, because the inspectors never asked.
The absence of a visible or audible check for understanding was enough to prove the teacher was failing the student. The fact that progress 8 for SEND was above zero in the school was utterly irrelevant. It will be even more irrelevant for the next two years, while we have no progress data.
If you aren’t visibly checking for understanding, your lesson will almost certainly fail the Ofsted exam.
How to Check for Understanding - 10 Point Checklist
Does your seating plan place your SEND students strategically so they are easy for you to check in with?
Do you check in with the 4 least-able students as soon as you set a task?
Do you avoid all copying from the board?
Are your instructions written down so that they don’t rely on memory?
Do you cold call all the time to sample what students do and don’t know?
Do you use turn and talk when introducing new content, so that students support each other?
Do you model using at least I do, we do, you do, so students can see what success looks like?
Do you circulate while students work independently, looking for misconceptions and signs of struggle?
Do you use the visualiser after every piece of written activity to display student work?
Do you choose student work at random in order to find likely misconceptions?
8 of these will dramatically improve the progress of all students, especially your SEND.
But only 2 of them are the tip of the iceberg. Only 2 of them will be visible above the surface to the time-pressed Ofsted expert in your room.
Do you check in with the 4 least-able students as soon as you set a task?
Do you circulate while students work independently, looking for misconceptions and signs of struggle?
And, if your lessons are like the ones I typically see, the chances are you are not doing them.
If you lead a team, you can’t afford for this to happen. Take the checklist with you to team meetings. Self assess, peer assess, visit lessons.
Although we might frame this as an Ofsted pleasing exercsie, it isn’t (even the two visible checks exist to help the child). Checking for understanding is a superpower of your teaching. It takes no skill.
It is simply a habit, and habits form through repetition.
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