An Inspector Calls

It was Ofsted time at the college and I was one of the (randomly?) selected students to act as a case study for the full time DTLLS course. Our School of Teacher Training had received a fairly low grade on the last Inspection and was being reviewed to see if progress had been made. There was a great deal of tension - not to say related excess workload - amongst staff, which made us students keen to perform well for them
On the Monday (15th March) I was booked in to have an interview with the Ofsted Inspector and met with her, and a young male students from the Part Time DTLLS course, around a small table in a cramped room where we were served tea and biscuits.
She questioned us intensely - fiercely, even - about the teaching, the placements and mentoring, our own backgrounds and credentials and how we felt we were doing. At times it felt like we were under attack and needing to defend our positions - she pointed out that I would have to achieve a Literacy Level 5 qualification before I could be a proper Literacy teacher. We both gave very positive feedback: I was particularly strong in praising the teaching the the support of my mentor (there was no mention by anyone of Mike's departure last term or how it had impacted on students or other staff).
As it turned out, the most interesting/useful aspect of the interview for me was when the Inspector delived into my professional background, discovered I was a writer and had previously taught Creative Writing. Why was my placement in Literacy, she wanted to know? Because I came into the course at the last minute and Creative Arts placements were taken; because in my ignorance, I'd suggested at interview that my English & Drama degree would allow me to teach anything from Literacy to A Level English, and I'd been taken at my word. The Inspector made some notes and didn't look over-pleased, even though I pointed out that I had been on a 2-day course on the Adult Literacy Curriculum. I couldn't guess what results this was going to have, though...

The following day I was observed jointly by Jen and the Ofsted Inspector, teaching the Tuesday Adult Numeracy class. I hadn't been looking forward to it - although I felt comfortable enough with the subject, the class is immensely diverse in terms of ability and (not the most PC way to express it, but) disability. Although I had prepared lesson plans and in theory been in charge of teaching the class, Laura and I were still "team teaching" and she would often take over after a recap and an initial activity. I can't say I'd been upset by this, I found the class extremely challenging as a whole, though I enjoyed and felt I was successful in teaching small groups and one-to-one with students.
I'd had some ideas for my lesson plan on Weights and Measures, but they'd got revised while working through them with Laura, and I wasn't entirely happy with the result. I'd wanted to play a card game as the first activity, but Laura suggested that - in light of a development point from Pearl last time - I should "visualise" the activity more by making it a PowerPoint presentation. So I did. I was following this up with a kinaesthetic activity, measuring books, CDs, tables, people's heads - with differentiated worksheets. This should get us through the observation hour.
I was unexpectedly nervous before the lesson started. I'd arrived very early to put up the Learning Outcomes - which I'd simplified and un-differentiated according to Laura's and my belief that too high expectations can put off vulnerable learners; make sure the PowerPoint was up and running, and got the worksheets and objects to measure laid out. But the students were incredibly early too, today. Just to explain, we have: a wheelchair user who often refuses to participate in activities; a student with a learning difference, speaking impairment including a bad stammer; a profoundly deaf woman with a signing LSA; a student with dyspraxic symptoms and learning difficulties who arrives late following her early morning cleaning job; an Aspergers student who had only joined the class last week and, we thought, had been denied an LSA; a bright but emotionally immature student who would have benefitied from being in a higher level class; and a woman student who could be quite abrasive but had not attended the class since an altercation with Laura several weeks ago, and whom I was not, therefore, expecting.
Inevitably, she turned up, informing us she had been diagnosed as bipolar and therefore apologetic for her behaviour, but talking lots, wanting lots of attention and to sort out many issues. Laura tried to calm her down and deal with her, but it wasn't possible. The Aspergers student arrived with an LSA; I wasn't entirely sure who he was or how to deal with him. Jen and the Inspector arrived - the Inspector insisted on seating herself in a place which effectively stopped me from moving the students' seating arrangements as I would have liked.
Laura clearly felt that the students who were there needed to be engaged and - although it was only 8.55, told me to get started. I was unwilling to start before the correct time, but she said it again and I didn't want to be oppositional. I wasn't quite ready to start and felt wrong-footed. The early start was mentioned in Jen's commentary and ascribed to nerves on my part - but it wasn't; the nerves were because I felt pushed to start before I was ready.
I started with a recap noughts and crosses game, which the students always respond to. The profoundly deaf student and her signer came in three minutes later, as did another student, so I had quickly catch them up. I had prepared a series of questions aimed at each individual student with their incredibly different abilities and memories. Laura's dictum is that every student should be asked a question that challenges them, but which they can answer - and if not supportive backup questions should help. Of course this is an ideal scenario, but it really is hard in this group to second-guess what they will recall of last week's lesson, or indeed any prior learning. Now, I had an extra student, who was bright, vociferous and an unknown quantity in terms of knowledge, to add into the mix, two students not yet there, two LSAs and Laura to contend with.
At the end of the recap, another student arrived - only three minutes late in actual fact. By now I was feeling the entire session slipping out of my grasp. Laura was not really acting as the TA she had said she would be; rather, she was back in team-teaching mode, jumping in on my questions and offering students supporting questions of her own, giving praise where it was my place to do so and sometimes, I felt,  inappropriately. The observers were there to see me teaching independently and though Laura's intention was simply to help, I'm sure, I was reduced to feeling like an incompetent student.
I went through the simplified learning outcomes (another critical note - apparently the full LOs in my lesson plan were perfect and would have been more appropriate than the simplified ones) and started the next activity, the PowerPoint game. It was ok, I got positive feedback in the obs commentary, but again Laura felt the need to point out an error on a slide, share the questioning with me from her position on the student table and try to take control of the teaching. It really didn't help.
As I moved into the kinaesthetic sorting and weighing activity, the dyslexic student arrived (at her normal time) and the Ofsted Inspector chose this moment to ask to see students' eILPs and hard copy folders. This meant Laura and her going to a PC, talking, shuffling files around; Laura wasn't happy because they weren't in the best state - but at least this wasn't my problem. What was my problem was that I'd have liked to have rearranged the students into groups of the same ability, but with all these people in the room, it would have been chaos, so I didn't - to the detriment of differentiation. 
Finally Jen and the Ofsted Inspector left - and the lesson flowed nicely after that. Laura told me I'd done well and it should be a Grade 2 lesson, but I think her normal critical faculties must have temporarily deserted her. It was a Pass (Grade 3), with about one third of criteria hitting Grade 2 and the rest Grade 3.
Key Strengths were planning, good relationship and professional manner, supporting students, subject specialist knowledge for this level particularly evident in 1-1 support.
Areas for Development: Set time frames for each acitivity; set SMART objectives and allow students to target set linked to objectives; more challenging and varied activities; introduce Kinaesthetic activity earlier; should be teaching independently(!).
Jen's feedback later that day was sympathetic and helpful. She said she had no worries about my teaching in general and felt there were aspects of the lesson beyond my control which had contributed to it not going as well as expected. Even less expected - she told me the Ofsted Inspector had mandated her to find me teaching placement work in Creative Writing, where I could use my professional subject specialist knowledge to best effect and therefore teach independently. Laura had also been informed this was to happen - though I would be continuing with some Literacy teaching.
Although I was not at all happy with my grade for the Numeracy lesson, if it had contributed to my getting some Creative Writing teaching, I was thrilled! I might actually get to feel like a real teacher at last.