Denise Inwood, Managing Director of BlueSky, provides an overview of the DfE’s new Teacher Appraisal Guidance.

New teacher appraisal guidance

The new DfE Teacher Appraisal Guidance (tinyurl.com/y9365wy2), issued in July, set out very different expectations to the March 2019 version. The central role of continuous professional development (CPD) is heavily emphasised throughout, performancerelated pay (PRP) is no longer required, and schools are encouraged to consider the impact of appraisal on workload. So, what does this mean for appraisal practices in schools?

The ‘developmental’ appraisal

The DfE guidance stresses that appraisals should be intrinsically “supportive and developmental”. Appraisals should offer “a supportive and safe environment where individual teachers and their line managers can have open and honest conversations about success and areas for improvement”.

This represents a sea change in the language used to express appraisal in schools. In the past, the ‘pass/fail’ system where objectives being met – or not – determined pay, and meant that for many, PRP created a high-stakes agenda where student outcomes data provided the most objective evidence for such decisions – outcomes that teachers could not fully control.

The government clearly states its vision: “The removal of the requirement for performance-related pay is to allow schools to have greater opportunity to focus on professional development in objectives and appraisals.”

This means that appraisal conversations can now focus on genuine dialogue about improvement in practice and leave data to be an outcome of improvements in quality of teaching and learning, rather than an end in itself.

Reducing the workload of appraisal

The move away from data-based judgements supports the sentiment woven into the core of the guidance. It says, "A fundamental principle that schools should take into account when developing, implementing and reviewing pay and appraisal policies is the need to minimise the impact on workload for individual teachers, line managers and school leaders."

The guidance, for once, sheds light on ways that workload can be alleviated, for example, by using existing monitoring practices to provide evidence, considering using meetings for evidence collection, and not least, using online or electronic performance management solutions to streamline the overall process, “empowering staff to take control of their professional growth and allowing leaders to track impact on school priorities".

For Catherine Taylor, School Improvement Partner at Advance Learning Partnership, managing the appraisal process at trust level would be impossible without an online platform. “Whether it’s at a school level or a trust level, using the online platform means we can quickly find the information we need to support individuals, teams or leaders.”
“It helps to maintain the structure of ongoing conversations, with the meeting schedule and records in one place, where it can be accessed easily at any time.”

Nurturing the entire workforce

This shift in practice underscores the heart of value creation in any organisation. The biggest challenge for leaders in any organisation is maximising the relationship between the people in the organisation and the value they can deliver to that organisation. A holistic approach to workforce appraisal and development ensures staff are aligned not only with goals but in practice and expectation. This creates a cohesive workforce with shared direction, fundamental to job satisfaction, perception of workload, morale and, consequently, staff retention.

In an education setting, it is important to recognise the value created by the entire workforce, not only teachers. Staff are not only our most valuable resource but also our most costly, so it pays to nurture all school staff, building commitment through understanding how their role contributes to the wider organisation.

At St George’s Primary School, Merseyside, all school staff are entitled to participate in CPD, which Headteacher Bernard Cassidy believes is essential for supporting individuals to do their jobs. “If you’re not giving staff entitlement to high-quality training and checking that that’s being done, you’re just setting those people up to fail. I want all my staff to be thriving. I want them to be enjoying their work and performing as well as they can.

FURTHER GUIDANCE

‘Changing Approaches to Performance Management’ is a series of guidance papers developed by ASCL and BlueSky (www.ascl.org.uk/BlueSky). These pieces outline practical guidance for implementing a developmental approach to appraisal, with model policies and processes and examples of best practice. The newly updated Guidance Part 1 can be downloaded here: www.ascl.org.uk/performancemanagement

Denise Inwood
Founder and Managing Director of BlueSky
blueskyeducation.co.uk

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