Supervision That Changes Practice

These three get run together, and that is why supervision so often feels pointless or threatening.

	Question it asks	Feel
Supervision	How is the work going, and how are you?	Regular, reflective, two-way
Appraisal	How has this year gone, and what next?	Annual, backward and forward looking
Performance management	This is not good enough — here is what must change.	Formal, documented, consequences

Supervision has a safeguarding purpose too. It is one of the few structured chances to notice that a practitioner is struggling, is worried about a colleague, or has a low-level concern they have not known how to raise. If supervision feels like a performance conversation, none of that gets said.

If supervision needs to become performance management, say so explicitly and change the meeting. Sliding from one into the other mid-conversation is the fastest way to make someone never tell you anything again. See Performance Management at JLK.

• I can explain the difference between supervision, appraisal and performance management
• I understand supervision has a safeguarding purpose
• I will not let a supervision slide into performance management without naming it

A supervision that works has a shape. Not a script — a shape.

Before

Diarised, protected, not in a corridor. The practitioner knows what it is for. You have looked at your last record, so you can open with "last time you were going to…". Nothing says this is a formality louder than a supervisor who cannot remember the last one.

The five-part shape

1. How are you? Meant properly, asked first, with a pause long enough to be uncomfortable. Most real things get said in that pause.
2. Children. Talk about actual named children — who is worrying you, who has changed, who you cannot get to. This is the part most likely to surface a safeguarding or SEND concern.
3. Practice. One thing going well, named specifically. One thing to work on, also specific. "Your circle time is much stronger" beats "you're doing well".
4. Development. What do you want to be able to do that you cannot do now? Links straight into the Academy — see Training.
5. Anything else. Asked last, when the room has warmed up. This is where the hard thing arrives, if it arrives.

Questions that open people up

• "What's been the hardest part of the last month?"
• "Which child do you think about on the way home?"
• "Is there anything you've seen that you weren't sure whether to mention?"
• "What would make your week easier?"

And the ones that shut people down

"Everything fine?" — the only available answer is yes. "Any problems?" — nobody wants to be a problem. "You're happy, aren't you?" — now they have to disagree with you to be honest.

Talk less than half the time. If you are talking more than the person being supervised, it is not supervision.

• I know the five-part shape and could run it without a form
• I can name four questions that open people up, and three that close them down
• I will talk less than half the time

The record is not the point of supervision, but a supervision with no usable record is one you cannot build on.

At JLK you record it in Supervision on the portal. It brings back last time’s actions, asks the policy’s question about changes in circumstances, insists every action has an owner and a date, and sends the record to the member of staff to read and sign on their own phone.

What to write

• Children discussed, by initials (it is a staff record, so children are not named in it), and what was agreed.
• Actions, with an owner and a date. Not "to work on planning" but "Sam to plan the Tuesday adult-led activity for the next month; review 24 Oct".
• What you agreed to do. Supervision is two-way — if you promised cover, training, or a conversation with someone, it goes in the record with your name on it.
• Anything raised that needs escalating, and where it went.

What not to write

Not a transcript. Not personal information a practitioner shared in confidence that has no bearing on the work — if someone tells you about their health or their home, record only what affects the job and what you agreed to do about it.

The bit that makes it real

Do the thing you said you would do. One supervisor who follows through on one small promise — the cover, the course, the conversation — gets more honesty in the next supervision than any amount of good questioning. Nothing kills supervision faster than a practitioner realising that what they say in it changes nothing.

If something serious comes up

A safeguarding concern goes to the DSL the same day, regardless of how it came up. A concern about a colleague's conduct goes to the manager and, where it meets the threshold, the LADO — see Whistleblowing & LADO Awareness. Supervision is confidential in tone, not absolutely — and it is fair to say that out loud at the start.

• I will record actions with an owner and a date, including my own
• I understand supervision is confidential in tone but not absolutely
• I will follow through on what I promise, because that is what makes the next one honest

The situation. You supervise Priya, an experienced practitioner. She is competent, quiet, and says "yeah, all fine" to everything. Her last three supervisions each took eleven minutes and produced no actions. The room she is in has had two incidents this month involving the same child.

What usually happens. A fourth eleven-minute supervision. "All fine?" "Yeah." Signed.

What to do differently. Skip "everything fine". Open with a real question and wait: "Which child do you think about on the way home?" Then be quiet. If she names the child from the incidents, you are into the actual conversation — what is happening, what she has tried, what she needs. If she names nobody, ask about that child directly: "How are you finding Reuben at the moment?"

What comes out of it. Possibly that she has been managing him alone, has not wanted to look like she cannot cope, and has a concern about home she was not sure counted. None of that arrives in answer to "everything fine?".

And then. An action with your name on it — extra support in the room, or a SENCo conversation — done before the next supervision. That is what makes the next one eleven minutes longer.

• I can see why "everything fine?" produced three empty supervisions, and what I would ask instead