The App was developed as part of my NPQSL project entitled ‘the impact of improving teacher reflection and evaluation on student progress and attainment’. The project span across senior boys and girls years 7-13. I focused specifically on Year8 Maths, set 2 to show reduction in variation.

The project was aimed at improving teacher reflection and evaluation in order to raise student progress and attainment. Staff were taught how to use the Reflection Tool to reflect and evaluate their lessons. The Reflection Tool was designed to help teachers ensure differentiation, planning and varied teaching strategies to challenge and engage students in their learning and to raise standards of teaching.

The Reflection Tool was created to help teachers improve their reflection and evaluation of lessons, looking to see if there is a positive correlation between improved reflection and pupil progress and attainment both during and after the project. The reflection tool also provided specific insight into the various teaching and learning methods used by teachers in their classrooms. I used research from my course to manage change successfully and develop an effective school improvement project.

The project ran for two full terms and pupil performance data revealed that there is a positive correlation between on the one hand teachers reflecting more on their learning and teaching and, on the other raising pupil progress and attainment. The results are interesting and compelling, this lead me to believe that encouraging teachers to reflect more by making it easier for them has the potential to get the teacher reflecting and recording the learning and teaching in their classroom regularly which can then be used to analyse and form the basis of many beneficial discussions between students, teachers and managers.

The success of this project has added a viable alternative to how staff reflect on, evaluate and analyse their teaching and learning. Evaluating teaching is one of the most effective ways to continuously develop as a teacher, helping to:

• Identify strengths and areas of improvement.
• Assess pupils’ progress.
• Assess the effectiveness of the teaching, learning and management methods you have used with the class.
• Plan ways forward with all of the above issues.

Not only is this a useful tool to help teachers to reflect better in the short-run in order to raise progress and attainment in the long-run, it is also a very useful tool for managers in that it can help create pedagogical discussions and focus for learning observations and interventions.

Reflection thus helps in the CPD of teachers. Besides, further exposure to the concept helps teachers both experienced and new in looking at things critically and prepares them to challenge the status quo which leads to their taking control of ‘environments and circumstances in which we work, and students learn’ (Knowles, 1993).

I looked at the improvements made in pupil performance in order to evaluate the effectiveness of each different partnership in my project. The result show a positive correlation between reflection and progress. All the teachers who took part in the project showed a high level of commitment and dedication to high, standards as well as a general desire to improve the quality of the learning and teaching in their classrooms.

Reflection has been hailed as useful by most researchers who have written on the subject. Leading writers on the concept from Dewey (1933) onwards to Schon (1983, 1987), Van Manen (1977, 1995), Zeichner (1981, 1987, 1994, 2010), Zeichner and Liston (1996), Valli (1997), and Calderhead (1989, 1993) have discussed the various benefits that reflection as an educational concept can provide teachers and practitioners. Dewey regarded reflection as a useful practice because of its help in bringing in a ‘thinking’ demeanour – precisely what I wanted staff to do for my project ‘ thinking about things’ that took place in their classrooms.