Sir should try a bit harder

Pupils at a Bedfordshire school are assessing their teachers. And, says Hilary Wilce, it could just spark a global trend

Lessons are set to change at Samuel Whitbread Community College, in Shefford, Bedfordshire, if pupils at the school get their way. They'll start more promptly, stick to the point, and carry everyone in the classroom with them. Explanations will be clear and simple, there will be a good range of activities, and anyone who messes about in class will be swiftly dealt with.

And that's the pupils talking, not the teachers. Because Samuel Whitbread has decided bravely to go where, to its knowledge, no other school in this country, or abroad, has yet dared to go, and invite pupils to watch their teachers teaching, and tell them where they're going wrong. And the pupils have already shown that they have plenty of ideas about good lessons, good teaching, and how things could be changed.

"This is cutting-edge," says Louise Raymond, director of the Bedfordshire Schools Improvement Partnership. "In most schools, you wouldn't find pupils working with teachers to improve learning." It amounts to no less than a revolution in educational philosophy. "The mere thought of asking a student how one is doing as a teacher doesn't seem to have occurred to most people," says John Kane, assistant principal at Samuel Whitbread, and in charge of the new scheme. These days, teachers are well used to colleagues or advisers watching them work. And plenty of schools use questionnaires and school councils to give pupils a bigger say in how things are run. But to train up a whole cadre of pupils as specialist observers, and use them as key players in staff development, as Samuel Whitbread is doing, is entirely new terrain.

The school is a comprehensive upper school, where around half of the students get five good GCSEs. Under its "Students As Learning Partners" scheme, 35 of them – all types and ages, not just the shining stars of the sixth form – have been trained as observers, and all teacher trainees and newly qualified teachers will be assessed by them as part of normal professional development. Other teachers can also ask for student assessors to come into their classrooms, if they want to.

And, yes, says Kane, there are very big anxieties about how it will all work out. Teachers fear that pupils will judge them on their halitosis or uncool dress-sense, not on how they run their lessons. They worry that there may be personal vendettas, or that confidential conversations will be leaked. And some also think that it sounds like yet another educational gimmick, that it won't make any difference at all.

But a neighbouring school that has dipped a cautious toe into these waters has found that none of these fears are justified. Louise Raymond pioneered Students As Learning Partners when she was a deputy head at Sharnbrook Upper School, and found the results were amazing. "After all, who really knows the classroom environment? It's the students."

The kind of things that they picked up on included just how intimidating pupils found one teacher's habit of pacing up and down the classroom, and pausing to read their books over their shoulders, "And they said to me that I used big words that they didn't understand," says Raymond. "I told them I wasn't going to stop using big words because I thought it was important that I did, but after that I always used to say, 'Hold on, big word coming up', and made sure I that broke it down so that they understood it."

Some teachers were initially resistant to pupil assessment, she says, but one long-serving member of staff, who eventually took part, went on video record to praise it as the best feedback he'd ever had. At the same time, a GCSE student who worked as an observer found that his maths improved as he built a different kind of relationship with his maths teacher.

At Samuel Whitbread, they have already run a pilot programme involving 10 volunteer teachers and 10 hand-picked students. "I teach drama, and what they said to me was that there was a lot of written work but little support for how it was completed," says Kane. "They found the practicals too structured, and wanted more freedom, and they also said, 'Your sarcasm doesn't always work'."

This pilot ran into problems with finding time for briefings and debriefings, and also, says Kane, it didn't do enough to make teachers feel good about their successes, as well as pointing out their problems.

However, there were no problems with the quality of the students' feedback, or the gravity and maturity with which they approached their task. They were trained to observe three things – movement around the classroom, seating patterns, and "off-task behaviour" – and their observations made it clear that changing the seating pattern in a classroom can do a lot to stop pupils messing about.

But this kind of interaction also changes how teachers and pupils view each other, says Kane. "One boy said to me, 'This teaching thing, Sir, it's not easy, is it?', and others said things like, 'Do I behave like that, Sir?'. It makes them see things in a different light." Erica Wark, 17, a sixth-form observer, says: "When I heard about it, I immediately knew it would work. After all, if a teacher wants to know how they're doing, they only have to ask."

But there are still concerns, admits Sarah McCauley, who teaches history and religious education. "When you're a trainee, you're watched all the time, so you can see it makes sense for students to watch you, too. But what worried me was how much students would know about me. I mean, if they'd known that only last year I was a student, I might have felt that they were watching me and commenting on me, and then word would have got around the school about me, and that would have made things difficult. But then again, I suppose the whole point of opening yourself up to new ideas is that you don't always think of them yourself."

Guidelines and ground-rules are crucial to the success of such a scheme, and both pupils and teachers need to understand sensitivities, and the importance of confidentiality. They also have to agree on which particular aspects of classroom practice they will focus on.

To put all this in place, Samuel Whitbread organised a day-long training course for students and teachers. During it, pupils explored what they thought was a good lesson, and a good teacher, and worked out ways that they could observe lessons and record their findings. They talked about the importance of giving positive feedback – giving teachers "possibilities", rather than criticisms – while teachers, in turn, aired their concerns, and joined with students to hammer out ways in which they could make the whole thing work.

At the end of the day, they agreed that five teams would focus on five different areas – classroom seating and how it relates to behaviour; questioning and answering in the classroom; the structure of lessons – their beginnings, middles and ends; different learning styles in the classroom; and a general category that might also include homework-setting.

Other Bedfordshire upper schools sent teams of observers to the training day, and many were so impressed that they said they would be talking to their heads about doing something similar. "I think it's a way of turning the negative into the positive," said James Birkett, co-leader of Redborne Upper's school-improvement group. "It's a way of fostering better relationships between teachers and staff, and gives students responsibility for their own learning."

According to Claire Seamarks, 16, it's a really good idea. "Students know all the different aspects of teachers," she says. "They know if they struggle. A good teacher will already often ask students informally how things are going, and make changes accordingly," she points out.

And the idea is spreading. Samuel Whitbread teachers and students have already been to talk about their work at the National College of School Leadership in Leicestershire, and Kane and Raymond will be travelling to the USA in the summer to work with teachers in Chicago.

"After all, you have 1,400 experts in the school," says Kane. "Why not use them? And students have always talked about teachers. This is, if you like, a way of taking school gossip, defusing it, and formalising what the students are saying."

education@independent.co.uk

A lesson in good teaching

The ingredients of a good lesson, according to Bedfordshire pupils

* Mutual respect between teachers and pupils

* A teacher with a passion for his or her subject

* A positive, upbeat attitude from the teacher

* A good classroom atmosphere

* Good motivation all round

* The lesson's aims written on the board, or on a hand-out

* Good interaction between teacher and all pupils

* A range of visual aids

* A variety of tasks, and a balance between practical and theory

* Enough time to do things, including starting and finishing the lesson properly

* Prompt action when pupils mess about

* Explanations that are quick, simple, and easy to understand