What Does Good Teaching Actually Look Like?

The Question

If you walked into a classroom for twenty minutes, how would you know whether good teaching was happening?

As is the way with moving into senior leadership, I now observe lessons well outside my specialism, and one took me to a Spanish lesson. (Spain may be our second home, but this was a long way from physics!) Twenty-five minutes in, the books looked like the lesson was just starting. My initial thought was, “Have they done anything this lesson, or are they simply coasting?”

I stayed a little longer and saw why. The class had been focusing on oracy, one of the four key skills in the subject. When they moved across to writing in Spanish, what I saw were pupils who had clearly grasped the lesson’s content. The books had told me nothing.

I’ve been on the other side of this, too. When you teach science, you categorically (in my opinion) MUST deliver practical work. One, it levels up understanding. Two, it develops fine motor skills for the future. Three, it brings a passion and love for science that keeps your pupils hooked. Earlier in my career, though, I leant too far into the fun side and would throw a practical into the week just because. Leaders without a science background would come in and say, “Oh fantastic, great to see the pupils so engaged and loving science.” It was lovely to hear, but it was a surface level observation.

As I’ve developed, and had the privilege of learning from expert educators, I’ve realised that practical work must be purposeful. When I observe science teachers now, I always start with the same question: “Why have you chosen to deliver this practical today?”

Is good teaching the entertaining lesson? The perfectly behaved, silent room? Or is it something else entirely?

The Thinking

In his 2013 inaugural lecture at Durham University, Rob Coe listed what he called “poor proxies for learning”: things that look like good teaching but don’t reliably tell us learning is happening. Pupils being busy, especially with lots of written work. Pupils being engaged and motivated. A calm, orderly classroom. The curriculum being covered. Pupils giving correct answers. My early practicals, and the carousel lesson from my Week 1 post, would have ticked almost every box.

Coe’s answer is that “learning happens when people have to think hard.” Simply seeing pupils write in their books is not enough. Are they thinking? Are they applying? Or are they copying en masse to satisfy a policy?

As a middle leader, I found staff in the habit of occasionally getting pupils to simply copy information down: “Please take this down, it’s important and often asked about.” There wasn’t enough time left for pupils to actually apply their knowledge. Being a science teacher by trade, I know that if you cannot apply concepts to a variety of similar situations, marks will be lost.

I couldn’t be too critical, because I’d been there myself. Early in my career, I thought it imperative to fill pupils’ books, with lessons full of sentence fillers and key definitions. It’s a common mistake, and thankfully some amazing mentors helped me to see the error of my ways.

Behaviour is the same story. I’d never argue against a calm classroom; nobody learns well in chaos. But perfect behaviour isn’t the goal in itself. A silent room can hide just as much as an empty book: pupils can sit perfectly still, copying neatly, without doing much thinking at all. That Spanish lesson was anything but silent, and it was full of learning.

So if it isn’t the fun or the silence, what is it? The Great Teaching Toolkit Evidence Review (2020), which Coe co-wrote, pulls together what the research says matters most. Put that alongside Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction and more than ten years in the classroom, and I’ve landed on five things I now look for.

Rosenshine’s principles sit underneath all five. He found the most effective teachers made sure pupils succeeded with most of what they practised, then kept nudging the bar up. They asked lots of questions and checked the responses of all pupils. And they provided scaffolds for difficult tasks, then removed them as pupils grew in confidence.

The Redraft

Here are the five questions I now take into every lesson, and below them what each one looks like in my classroom.

Clarity. That first question works for any task. My own lessons now follow Do Now, I Do, We Do, You Do, Review, which brings clarity for both pupils and teacher and gives me a far better planning template for time and misconceptions. It’s Rosenshine in action: recap, new content in small steps, rehearsal, application to exam questions and review, in every single lesson.

Relationships. Listen to what happens in the room when someone makes a mistake. The Toolkit calls this a supportive environment, but really it’s about relationships: pupils trusting that you believe they can do it, and feeling comfortable enough to say “I don’t get it” in front of their friends.

I once taught a pupil who struggled with confidence on a grand scale, yet was working hard without anyone noticing. It reminds me of what Harry Kane posted after winning the 2026 Ballon d’Or: “Work hard in silence. Let success be your noise.” They would never contribute in class and rarely spoke to any teacher. Once I understood that, I looked for different avenues: heavy on praise, while still giving them work to improve themselves.

Science is a tiered subject, and they were a foundation pupil for most of their KS4 experience, but I could see untapped potential. Gradually, I worked with them wherever I could and encouraged them to start on the higher tier content. After some heavy persuasion they agreed and did well, yet their confidence was still so low they wanted to sit the foundation papers. On the last day we could change entries, they came to me and said, “Sir, I’m going to do it. Give me the higher papers.” I was overjoyed, and a little fearful. They finished the exam series with a grade 7-7 in science and went on to study A levels. Results day reduced me to happy tears with them, and that moment remains my proof that relationships are key.

Challenge. Look for the moment pupils have to apply what they know. This is where Coe’s idea of thinking hard comes in. Copying a definition is easy; applying a concept to an unfamiliar exam question is hard.

Inclusion. The support can change. The ambition shouldn’t. This is where the We Do stage earns its place: worked examples and partly completed questions give support without lowering the bar. What inclusion should never mean is a separate, easier lesson, or deciding too early who is “a foundation pupil”. That pupil sitting the higher papers is exactly why.

Evidence of learning. Plan a check into every stage, from the Do Now to the Review, not just at the end. Cold calling, mini whiteboards, simple circulation, live marking with a red pen: without a doubt, this has had the biggest impact on my own teaching.

The Reflection

I’ll be honest, I’m still working this one out. Engagement and behaviour really do matter, and I’ll always fight for practical work in science. My worry is when they become the thing we look for, rather than the learning.

Those leaders who loved my early practicals were doing exactly what I nearly did in that Spanish lesson: judging the surface. Having developed and run coaching systems, I believe the best conversations after an observation start with a question, not a verdict. Those five questions are a good place to begin.

So here’s my current draft: whatever the room looks or sounds like, look for the thinking. I’ve no doubt I’ll redraft it.

I’d love to hear from you. Once you look past the fun and the silence, what does good teaching actually look like to you?

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