End-of-term teacher reflection: five questions for one useful next step

If you want to reflect on a term without writing another long evaluation, choose one part of your teaching and ask what to keep, change or leave alone. The outcome can be a single decision. It does not need to be a list of targets for the next holiday.

The five questions below are a menu, not a form to complete. Use the ones that help you understand a particular routine, explanation or piece of planning. This is an optional personal review, separate from any evaluation or appraisal your school requires. The examples are invented to show what a short answer could look like.

The questions at a glance:

• What is worth keeping as it is?
• Where did effort outweigh its usefulness?
• What needs a different explanation, resource or routine?
• Which obstacle needs someone else’s decision?
• What do I want to remember that is not a target?

Choose a small enough starting point

“How did the term go?” can produce a long list with no clear next step. Narrow it to something you can describe: the start of lessons, one topic you taught, how you prepared demonstrations, or a routine for distributing materials.

Look at a small amount of material you already have permission to use: your planning notes, a resource you changed or a note about your own teaching. There is no need to create a new evidence folder. Keep any pupil information in the approved school system rather than copying it into a personal reflection document.

Try separating what you noticed from what you think it means. “I repeated the instructions several times” is an observation. “The instructions were too long” is one possible explanation. Other explanations may deserve a look. A remembered moment can suggest a question; it cannot, by itself, establish what caused an outcome.

1. What is worth keeping as it is?

Start with something you would deliberately repeat. Be specific about the part you want to keep, rather than describing an entire lesson as successful.

An answer might be: “Having the equipment list beside the demonstration instructions meant I could prepare from one page.” That identifies a feature worth retaining without claiming that it improved attainment or that every lesson should use the same format.

Your next step may simply be to leave that resource alone. Reflection does not always need to generate a change. It can protect something useful from unnecessary redesign.

2. Where did effort outweigh its usefulness?

Think of a task or resource that took a lot of preparation, maintenance or checking. What was the work for, and did you actually use the result in the way you intended?

You might notice that a second planning list merely repeated the first. That gives you a specific task to examine rather than a general promise to work more efficiently.

Choose between stopping, simplifying and asking about a requirement. If the work serves a purpose you cannot see, clarify that before dropping it. If it is a shared process, a brief conversation may be the next step rather than an individual workaround.

3. What needs a different explanation, resource or routine?

Choose one recurring difficulty that you can describe without making a claim about a pupil’s motivation or ability. What could you change in your own preparation or approach, and what would you look for afterwards?

For example: “Next time we use the model-making materials, I’ll put the shared equipment in one tray per table and check whether setting up still interrupts the instructions.” You are trying an approach, not assuming it will work.

Keep the change narrow enough to judge. Rewriting the whole topic makes it harder to tell which alteration helped, and creates more work before you know whether it was needed. A trial can be reversed or abandoned if it does not fit the class or context.

4. Which obstacle needs someone else’s decision?

Some difficulties are not problems that better personal organisation will solve. Room allocation, broken equipment, staffing and conflicting deadlines may sit outside your control.

Name the obstacle and the decision you need. “I need to know which room the practical will use before preparing the equipment” gives a colleague something concrete to answer. It is more actionable than setting yourself a general target to be better organised.

Keep any necessary professional discussion in the appropriate school channel. A private reflection can help you prepare your point, but it does not replace a request, a report or an agreed action. Where a concern involves safeguarding or someone’s safety, use the required process without waiting for the end of term.

5. What do I want to remember that is not a target?

Not everything worth keeping has to become an improvement task. You may want to remember a changed view of a topic, the satisfaction of repairing a useful model, or a moment when you enjoyed explaining something.

Write the detail that matters to you, without pupil names, initials or identifying circumstances. If another person’s private story is essential to the account, it may not belong in a personal collection.

You can leave this question unanswered. It is not a requirement to find a positive ending to a difficult term.

Finish with one decision and a stopping point

Look back at what you wrote and choose one action: keep something unchanged, simplify a task, try one alteration, or ask a colleague for a decision. “No change for now” is a legitimate outcome if you need more information.

Add when it would be useful to revisit the decision: before teaching that topic again, at the next relevant meeting or after trying the revised routine. This need not become another weekly review. Put an actual work task where you normally manage work; leave your personal reflection somewhere appropriate and private.

A finished note could be this small: “Observation: distributing model-making materials interrupted the instructions. Decision: try one equipment tray per table. Revisit: after the next model-making lesson.”

Stop before the note becomes a holiday project list. You have a question to return to or a small decision to act on, not a verdict on your whole term.

From Chalkmarks: Chalkmarks gives you a private place to keep your own teaching moments and revisit older memories, which can provide starting points for a personal reflection. Keep school records and required evaluations in their proper systems, and avoid pupil names or identifying details.

Sources

Privacy and school-records guidance; the five questions are editorial suggestions. Distinctive circumstances may identify someone even when names are omitted.

ICO: Introduction to anonymisation — Open source

Government of Jersey: Keeping Children Safe in Education — Open source