OFSTED Lessons

You teach a group of sixth form students, their ability ranges from a C grade up to A* and one of them wants to study history at university. The topic: The Munich Putsch and its consequences for the Nazi party. What do you do?

The way I think it should be done
Read about the Putsch, provide some different materials for the different abilities (I'm not a complete dinosaur!). Get the students to highlight the key points about the Putsch and make some notes after a discussion. Repeat process for aftermath of Putsch and get them to categorise and prioritise the answers after a discussion.

Homework: Write an essay.

The outcome of this lesson would be a clear understanding of the lesson objective and some useful, well organised notes to revise from. It would also be an Unsatisfactory lesson.



The OFSTED way
Start with a short game to test the current learning - a game of blockbusters or jeopardy perhaps.

Now have some cards prepared get them to work in groups to organise them into a timeline of the Putsch, get the most able students to lead, even though there bored by this fatuous activty that has taken you about 3 hour s to prepare.

Now ask them on their mini whiteboards  to pick out the most important events

Ask them what the aftermath of the Putsch might have been. Show a film clip from the shitty Hitler mini series starring Robert Carlyle about the aftermath. Ask how it differs from their previous views (it's wrong factually anyway but don't worry about that). Keep checking their understanding through the use of thumbs up, coloured cups and assorted bollocks.

Now don't make them read anything - provide a helpful handout with all the changes that occurred after the Putsch and ask them to put a number against them to show the order of significance(after they have discussed it in groups of course). The more able student might also write a couple of sentences to justify his point of view.


It's plenary time now. Ask them to evaluate their learning by working in pairs and writing on a post it note:

•What have I learnt?

•What have I found easy?

•What have I found difficult?

•What do I want to know now?

and sticking it on the board.

Homework: Mark a couple of essays that you have sweated blood to make sufficiently crap to be believable.

Outcome: The students have written at most 2 lines, read nothing, have no notes and you get a GOOD from OFSTED.





That's teaching the OFSTED way. For OFSTED 'engagement' is holy writ not the transmission of knowledge