A UK education leader argues that work scrutiny and book looks should be used to understand learning—not to catch teachers out. He lays out a three-stage approach and a simple test: whether pupils take action after feedback, shown in writing, speaking, or the
On the third time someone asks a school the same question—“Are we looking to understand learning. or to catch teachers out?”—the room usually goes quiet. The concern isn’t abstract. It shows up in the way book looks are planned. the way staff feel the day of inspection. and the way feedback becomes something pupils rarely touch after it’s written.
For Ross Morrison McGill. this tension sits at the heart of how leaders should conduct work scrutiny. often called book looks. book scrutiny. or pupil work sampling. He argues these reviews should help school leaders and observers understand learning, not judge individual teachers. Done badly, he says, it turns into a compliance exercise. Done well, it becomes a tool for teachers to improve their feedback, develop pedagogy, and encourage pupils to take action.
Morrison McGill. who founded TeacherToolkit in 2007 and is widely recognised as one of the leading influencers in education in the UK and across the world. describes a question that “should sit at the top of every work scrutiny template in every school.” The challenge is blunt: some inspectors. he says. would do well to remember it.
His case is that book looks have too often been used as a proxy for teacher quality. Neat books are treated as evidence of a “good teacher.” Lots of red pen becomes a story about effort. Messy handwriting is read as weak learning. A lack of written response is treated as feedback that has failed.
He calls it “all nonsense.” A pupil’s book, he insists, is not an appraisal document. It is “one artefact in a much larger story.”
That larger story is often missed when books are reviewed without context. Morrison McGill likens it to “fishing without the bait.” You might still catch something, but you probably won’t understand what it means.
A blank page. he warns. might look like poor teaching—but it could also reflect that the pupil completed work practically. orally. digitally. collaboratively. or through teacher-led questioning. Messy handwriting might signal weak effort, but it might also be a pupil with SEND wrestling with new knowledge. A page full of teacher marking can show care. he says. yet it may also point to unsustainable workload with little pupil action.
He argues that is why work scrutiny must never become a performative hunt for compliance. The Education Endowment Foundation’s feedback guidance is used as support for a shift he believes schools already need: schools should focus less on the method of feedback and more on the principles that make feedback effective. Feedback should move learning forward. not simply leave “a trail for adults to inspect.” Morrison McGill also points to case study examples in his book. Guide To Feedback.
His thinking goes back to 2007. By 2015, he says he was documenting the process publicly while working across a large secondary school. At that time. the school moved away from graded lesson observations and tried to build a better “progress over time” methodology. The first templates, he says, asked sensible but imperfect questions: “Does the book show marking?. Has the pupil responded?. Is the school marking code being used?. Is there evidence of peer or self-assessment?”.
Useful sometimes, he says—but not reliable.
Over time, he says he learned two things. First, consistency is often a myth. Leaders cannot expect every subject, teacher, pupil, and book to look the same—nor should they. Drama is not history. PE is not mathematics. Art is not English. Practical and digital subjects should not be forced to manufacture written evidence for monitoring.
Second. the most important question becomes simpler. and more demanding: “Has the pupil taken action as a result of feedback?” That action. he notes. may be written. verbal. or practical. It may appear in the next task rather than underneath a teacher’s comment. “Taking action,” he says, is much harder to evaluate.
So Morrison McGill lays out a reliable work scrutiny process with three stages: examine, converse, and interview and improve.
The first stage begins with selection. He says leaders should choose pupils in advance and deliberately. rather than walking into a classroom and grabbing the books nearest the door. The sampling should include pupils across prior attainment—high. middle and lower—as well as SEND. EAL. disadvantaged pupils. pupils with attendance concerns. pupils who may be coasting. and pupils whose progress “deserves closer professional curiosity.”.
Then leaders should look at work over time. If it is a one-off event, he says, evaluation becomes “probably theatre.” The questions to ask each time are: “What has changed? What has improved? What misconceptions keep returning? Where has feedback shaped the next piece of work?”
The second stage is the conversation. A pupil’s book cannot speak for itself, he argues, so leaders should talk to the teacher. The questions he recommends include: “What was the intent of this sequence?. What feedback was given?. What did pupils do next?. What barriers affected this pupil?. What would you reteach?. What professional development would help?”.
Teachers should also be heard alongside pupils. Morrison McGill suggests asking pupils directly: “What were you learning here? What feedback did you receive? What did you change? What do you now understand that you did not understand before?”
That is where the review becomes developmental rather than judgemental.
In the final stage, the purpose is not to produce a spreadsheet of “yes/no/not yet.” Morrison McGill describes doing this so many times and failing, in his view, as a teaching and learning leader. Instead, he says work scrutiny should improve teaching, not repeatedly judge the teacher.
To do that. he says leaders should find patterns across the school—where pupils are acting on feedback. where feedback is ignored. where teachers over-mark. where pupils need more time to practise. and where assessment information is not shaping the next lesson. Those findings then need to be converted into a professional learning plan.
He warns that most work scrutiny forms ask too much. and offers an alternative structure with no grades and no teacher judgement. The template he proposes includes: Pupil. Subject. Teacher. prior/context information. focus pupil group. curriculum sequence reviewed. what feedback was provided. what action the pupil took. what evidence suggests learning moved forward. and what should the teacher. department or school do next. He also stresses what should be absent: “No grades. No teacher judgement. No performative compliance. No ‘gotcha!’”.
There is also a final test. aimed at leaders and—he suggests—at the inspectors who sometimes get the balance wrong. If a teacher feels anxious before a book look, he says leaders need to ask why. If the process increases workload, redesign it. If the findings do not improve pupil learning, stop doing it.
The best work scrutiny, he argues, is not surveillance. It is a professional conversation about curriculum, feedback and pupil response. And for Morrison McGill. the simplest way to judge whether the practice makes sense is this: if pupils do nothing with feedback. why are teachers spending hours producing it?.
Work scrutiny should not ask “Has the teacher marked?” He says it should ask “What did the pupil do next?” That question, he insists, is the one worth inspecting.
The piece also spells out practical definitions. Work scrutiny is the process of reviewing pupils’ work over time to understand curriculum implementation. feedback. assessment and pupil progress. and it should not be used to judge individual teachers. Morrison McGill notes that book looks. book scrutiny. work sampling and pupil work sampling are different terms for reviewing pupils’ work. and that the process matters more than the label.
He adds that book looks should identify patterns across classrooms, subjects and pupil groups and that they should be triangulated with pupil voice, teacher conversation, curriculum plans and assessment information.
Finally, he points to recommended reading that includes Reflections of Whole-School Marking, Fishing Without The Bait, Mark. Plan. Teach. Progress Over Time, EEF: Teacher Feedback to Improve Pupil Learning, Rosenshine: Principles of Instruction, and Ofsted: Education Inspection Framework. He also lists Work scrutiny: FAQs. including questions such as “What is work scrutiny?” “Are book looks the same as work scrutiny?” “Should book looks be used to judge teachers?” and “What is the most important question during work scrutiny?”.
Across all of it, his priority stays the same: the most important question is whether the pupil has taken action as a result of feedback.
work scrutiny book looks pupil work sampling marking and feedback school inspection Education Endowment Foundation SEND EAL teacher workload