Lesson Study
Overview
Focuses on learning and progress made over time by children.
Two or more teachers to develop a teaching or learning based problem to develop pupils’
progress.
Develop a teaching technique e.g. guided teaching.
Keep a record of what teachers have learned and share with colleagues.
Use teacher assessment/observation to identify a focus need.
Identify the focus group.
Plan a ‘study’ lesson bearing in mind selected children.
Teach and observe the lesson focusing in on case pupils’ learning and progress made
over time.
Interview the case pupils.
Post lesson discussion – How did they respond? What can be learned about the
technique? What would you do differently next time?
Determining the focus
What learning and progress needs to be improved?
Which teaching technique or pedagogic solution will be developed (e.g. guided practices)?
What are the case pupils’ needs?
Planning the lesson
Write out in full exactly what you want each pupil to be able to do at the end of the
teaching sequence in relation to the focus strand.
Identify resources that will be used and timings for the lesson.
Agree which teacher will focus their observations on which case pupils.
During the lesson
Focus in on the case pupils
Try to capture the case pupils responses at different points in the lesson – how do they
match or differ from what was predicted?
Look for evidence of progress.
What are the key points for the next lesson for case pupil/group/class?
What might you want to ask them in their interview (use ‘initial thoughts’ box)?
Interviewing the case pupils (no more that 5 minutes per child)
What did you enjoy most about that lesson?
What did you learn? What can you do now that you could not do before?
What can you do better? How is it better?
What did the teacher say that helped you learn?
How do you know how well you have done?
Post lesson discussion (pro-forma ‘Improving practice and progression through lesson
study’ – page 12)
The discussion should focus on:
 What was planned for each pupil to learn?
 What actually happened?
 What accounts for any differences between these?
 How much progress each pupil made?
 What aspects of the teaching technique could be adjusted to improve the progress
of each pupil?
 What you will do next time you use this teaching approach?
Agree next steps.
Share with colleagues/SLT what you have done, learned and refined particularly with the
key teaching technique being developed.