How interventionist should a head of department be? Not very, is the view of Richard Phillips, a former naval weapons engineer, now head of maths at King High in Bournemouth. The school serves one of the city's most deprived communities, and Phillips is working hard to raise the school's GCSE A-Cs score, including maths and English, above its current 15%. He's working with highly-motivated former university lecturer Mark Caplin, nearing the end of his NQT training year. Caplin loves the subject, but finds classroom management a challenge, especially after his more compliant undergraduates. Richard would like Mark to do less teaching from the front, even though it risks students moving off task. But he feels his team need to arrive at their own conclusions, during observation and feedback. John Bayley would like Richard to be more hands-on, but will his advice be listened to?

Video Series: Classroom Observation with Bayley
Release Date 2008