New appraisal regulations

New appraisal regulations

From my enewsletter 15th January 2012

The DfE have announced new regulations for managing teacher performance which will come into force on 1 September 2012.

Ø      Governing bodies and local authorities will have to have a written appraisal policy for their teachers; the DfE have published a model policy

Ø      Governing bodies will have to appoint an external adviser to advise them with appraising the head teacher

Ø      Objectives will have to be set for each teacher which contribute to improving the education of pupils

Ø      Schools will have to have an annual appraisal process for teachers

Ø      Teachers will have to be given a written appraisal report which sets out:

o       an assessment of their performance against the relevant standards, against their objectives and against their role in the school. 

o       an assessment of their training and development needs

o       where relevant, a recommendation on pay progression.

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The three hour limit on classroom observation will be abolished. After September 2012, governing bodies and local authorities will be free to make their own decisions about the amount of observation that is appropriate for their teachers.

The teacher capability process has also been changed. The informal stage has been scrapped. The suggested length of the monitoring and review period following a first warning has been reduced in length from 20 weeks to between 4-10 weeks although it must be reasonable in the circumstances of each case, and must provide sufficient time for improvement to take place. 

A review last year of New York Charter schools quoted by Michael Gove in a recent speech suggested that frequently observing lessons and feeding back to teachers raised standards. "The typical teacher at a high achieving elementary school receives feedback [from observed lessons]16.41 times per semester, compared to 11.31 times at other charter schools. The typical teacher at a high achieving middle school receives feedback 13.42 times per semester, 6.35 more instances of feedback than teachers at other charter schools." However, the improvement found was statistically significant only at the 0.1 level which most social scientists regard as insufficient to constitute evidence.

Leadership and Management

The 2011 Ofsted annual report reviews Leadership & Management on pages 63 - 69.  Ofsted believe that "the quality of leadership and management makes a critical contribution to the quality of teaching and learning."

Features that reduce the quality of leadership & management include:

• "The evaluation of teaching is often over-generous, and places too little emphasis on exploring what pupils are actually learning and the progress that they are making, focusing rather on the activity of the teacher." 
• "Best practice is not shared effectively" and "weaknesses that emerge in the monitoring are not pursued."
• "The limited role of the governing body in self-evaluation"
• "Inconsistent school systems for making use of assessment to accelerate learning." Pupil progress data "is not always used efficiently to intervene and support pupils who are falling behind."
• "The lack of leadership from middle managers, for example in improving the quality of teaching or ensuring the systematic monitoring of pupils’ progress, was also a common weakness, although this was sometimes due to the failure of senior leaders to delegate responsibility or ensure that middle management was effective."