ABSTRACT
For the last few years, being one of only a small minority of providers of adult education in the further education and skills (FES) sector that moved away from the practice of graded lesson observations has meant that we have always stood out at network events as the ‘mavericks’. To say that we feel vindicated that Ofsted has since removed the practice of graded observations from its most recent inspection framework (Ofsted 2015) is an understatement. Yet we have always maintained that making the change to an ungraded observation process was the right move for us, but only because we were prepared to fully re-think our quality improvement process and critically reflect on how observation fitted into our organisational culture.
