I think the system is on the whole useful , what it does particularly is it makes the whole idea of being inspected less daunting so basically the whole idea of the big issue of the ofstead inspection isn't such a big issue if you are being monitored every lesson every two years. I think its very useful from that point of view. It gives the department a chance to reflect as a team and it also makes the management of the school more aware of the strengths of the department and indeed the needs that the department has. Its almost like the school is focused on you and its your chance to be in the limelight and make sure people understand your needs so its quite useful from that point of view. Its also nice to work with another member of middle management and to discuss with them how they see that role so for example the critical friend is a middle manager as well. So I would see those as being probably the 3 main advantages of the system. In terms of the actual process - it is 'nervy' because any kind of inspection is I suppose even though this is a localised one, and more or less its your friends in a way who are doing it for you, you do get nervous, you do have to prepare your lessons carefully obviously no matter what anybody says you do prepare those kinds of lessons more carefully than you do your ordinary lessons, so there is a certain amount of nerves about that but I think in the end its a useful process. Its helped me think about the way we teach, we are about to change over to a different teaching week anyway, we are going to go to 50 minutes so its helped us to think about the structure of lessons & observing people you do get a feeling for how the pace of lessons and things like that, that was found to be good so that was pleasing but you are always looking for ways of improving your delivery so yes it has helped to inform that.
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