For anyone that has had to give feedback to a work colleague then you’ll know how difficult it is.
Many don’t take it well and those that pretend to can often resort to blubbling on social media about how they were torn to shreds.
Teachers who give feedback to each other seldom get any training on how to do this and if you in the echelons of the SLT then you might have been lucky to have received some guidance but it won’t have been much or even appropriate.
If we want to see how to do feedback badly then there are plenty of TV programmes that excel in this area as contestants are humiliated or shot down.
But there are a couple of judges that we can all learn from when it comes to doing things well. They offer plenty of positive feedback, they always look for the good and they are quite open and honest with what hasn’t quite worked.
You know who I mean…..Esme and Patrick from The Great British Sewing Bee, the show that is “a bubble of niceness in a world of unpleasantness.”
They are great judges because they get it right. They don’t beat around the bush with picking up errors and mistakes but they are phenomenally good at praising and finding plenty of things that they like. They are professional people builders.
Anita Singh (2020) sums it up perfectly in her article when she says,
They are likeable, knowledgeable, encouraging to every contestant and yet to be carried away by their own importance. In short, they’re perfect TV judges. We must preserve them at all costs.
So whether you are a teacher, SLT, Ofsted inspector or TV judge, look at how Queen Esme and King Patrick do it and you won’t go far wrong. The feedback is sincere, honest, said in a way that matters and is full of respect.
Image: BBC One