Implementing Performance Management

A Handbook for Schools

Joan Dean

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9781138466234
• eBook ISBN: 9781134477784
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book is for headteachers, senior and middle managers in both primary and secondary schools, and all teachers involved in the performance management process. It sets out the aims and objectives of the system, and offers sensible, practical advice to help make performance management work effectively in schools.

Case studies are used to illustrate the processes involved in performance management, and each chapter ends with suggestions for staff discussions, looking at the common concerns and issues that arise.

Joan Dean has taught in primary, secondary and further education, and has held two headships. She has also been a primary schools adviser and a chief inspector, and has published more than thirty books on education. In 1980, she was awarded the OBE for services to education.

1 Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9780203218297-1

In recent years schools have been under pressure to achieve improvements in pupil performance year on year and it is much to the credit of the teaching profession that in most schools performance has been improved. The evidence from much of the research into improving effectiveness is that schools need support, encouragement and recognition of achievement in addition to pressure if they are to be more effective, and this is what good performance management sets out to achieve.

The performance management initiative follows a number of years in which schools were expected to appraise teachers on a regular basis. Studies of appraisal concluded that few schools had an effective appraisal system. Research suggests that in most primary schools appraisal did nothing to improve the quality of teaching and that a number of both primary and secondary schools were not fulfilling the statutory requirements. In some cases the arrangements for appraisal were not sufficiently linked to the school development plan and the need for professional development.

Performance management has some of the same problems as statutory appraisal. It has to be fitted into a programme which is already over full and it makes demands upon teachers in middle management roles which some may not be ready to meet. It is a more comprehensive approach and places much more stress on raising standards. Headteachers and teachers are currently doing their best to implement the performance management system which will need to be incorporated into the culture of the school.

Tomlinson (1993: 65) describes performance management as ‘the process that links people and jobs to the strategy and objectives of the organisation’. The DfEE (2000a: 1) in their performance management framework suggest that ‘performance management demonstrates school’s commitment to develop all teachers effectively and to ensure job satisfaction, high levels of expertise and progression of staff in their chosen profession’. Good performance management leaves all staff, teaching and non-teaching, feeling supported in their work, encouraged by recognition of their achievement, helped to overcome problems they may encounter, and happy in feeling part of a team in which people care for each other.

Performance management, by recognising the achievements of teachers and others and offering constructive feedback on performance and helping them to identify areas for development and improvement, should lead to increased self-esteem and job satisfaction. It should also offer support in career development. At the school level the performance management system should link individual, departmental, year group and school aims, thus creating a more skilled work force, whose training needs have been recognised and coordinated.

Radlett (2000: 6) compares performance management in schools and in industry and notes the following concerns on the part of educationists:

• doubts about whether a teacher’s performance in the classroom can be fairly judged by ‘team leaders’ whose main (historical) contact with them is outside the classroom;
• concern about the use of pupil test and examination results as an indicator;
• alleged anti-team effects of performance pay;
• fear that Ofsted inspection data may be unfairly used to form judgements about a particular individual’s performance.

There was also concern about the loyalties of senior teachers asked to report on colleagues and doubts about whether a system which worked in an industrial setting was appropriate for professional workers.

Radlett notes that there are situations in industry where professionally qualified experts had a greater knowledge of the field than line managers but none of the organisations he surveyed felt that this posed a particular problem. He found that professional staff usually welcomed feedback on their overall performance and that a significant benefit arose from the existence of a feedback process when it made employees aware that they were seen to be doing a good job. He comments that ‘the overall lesson from non-teaching sector is that appraisal judgements can be carried out effectively by managers whose training, management style and relationship with their staff is based on observation, questioning and monitoring of outputs rather than ‘‘I know the right way to do your job’’’ (Radlett 2000: 10).

Performance management presupposes agreement about the aims of education. A good deal of research suggests that in the first place staff in the effective school are motivated by a vision. Murgatroyd and Morgan (1992: 81) suggest that this ‘should be defined as a vivid picture of a challenging yet desirable future state that strongly meets the needs of the pupils and is widely seen as a significant improvement on the current state’. They go on to say:

Everyone involved in the school . . . should be encouraged to articulate the meaning of the vision for them personally once it has been developed. The vision should become a basis for encouraging, enabling, empowering and developing the staff of the school and should be regarded as a cornerstone for all the actions of the school.

(Murgatroyd and Morgan 1992: 83)

Clegg and Billington (1997: 66) suggest that a vision for a school should encompass broad agreement about the following:

• the nature and purpose of education;
• the nature of the school’s curriculum;
• the working relationships within the school;
• the way the school relates to the community.

The vision starts with the headteacher who has a personal vision for the school. Staff at other levels of management such as head of department, head of year or curriculum coordinator, also have visions for their areas of responsibility.

If the vision of the headteacher and school leaders is to be effective it must be widely shared and if necessary modified, so that it becomes a vision for everyone connected with the school. Fullan and Hargreaves (1991: 120) comment that ‘the head’s visions should be provisional and open to change. They should be part of the collaborative mix. The authority of the head’s views should not be presumed because of whose views they are, but because of their quality and richness’. They go on to say: ‘Collaboration should mean creating the vision together, not complying with the head’s own. The articulation of different voices may create initial conflict, but this should be confronted and worked through. It is part of the collaborative process’ (p. 123).

The vision will include aims for the cognitive learning of pupils and also broader aims for personal development. Today’s world is changing at a fast rate and pupils in today’s schools when they leave may find themselves in kinds of work which do not exist at present. They are also likely to have to change what they do several times in the course of their working life. New technology is continually affecting all our lives and it is difficult for us to imagine what may be possible by the time our present pupils reach retirement age. Male (1999: 269) comments:

The messages from the research into school improvement are very clear that the future success of schools will require a concentration on teaching and learning, particularly the enhancement of teachers’ pedagogical skills, as expansion of ICT, and capability to match the information age, and a serious attempt to provide meaningful learning opportunities that extend beyond the boundaries of the school working day.

He also describes what the jobs of the future will require:

Such workers will need skills to access information when it becomes relevant rather than be reliant on a body of knowledge that bears more resemblance to the past than the future. They will also need the ability to problem solve and the flexibility to reshape and reform as the world changes with increasing rapidity.

(Male 1999: 266)

Bowring-Carr and West-Burnham (1997:102) quote the work of Howard Gardner (1983) who has helped to create new principles about the nature of human intelligence. They list these principles as follows:

• intelligence is not fixed at birth – it can be enhanced by every individual;
• the process of improving intelligence can be taught;
• intelligence is a multiple reality – it can be expressed in many forms;
• acts of the intellect require a range of intelligences to work together in varying proportions according to the task;
• learning requires an understanding of the various intelligences and the ability to relate them to specific activities.

Gardner lists seven intelligences:

1. Verbal/linguistic intelligence We use this intelligence in reasoning and symbolic thinking and concept development.
2. Logical/mathematical intelligence This intelligence is expressed in the ability to recognise patterns and in deductive and inductive reasoning, and the ability to observe, draw conclusions and develop hypotheses.
3. Visual/spatial intelligence This involves the ability to think three-dimensionally and is expressed through the visual arts.
4. Bodily/kinesthetic intelligence We use this intelligence in the way we express with our bodies, as in dance, for example and in playing games and undertaking physical activity.
5. Musical/rhythmic intelligence This intelligence is used in responding to music, rhythm and tone.
6. Interpersonal intelligence This is the ability to interact and respond and empathise with others.
7. Intrapersonal intelligence This is concerned with self-knowledge and self-awareness and understanding of personal potential.

Bowring-Carr and West-Burnham (1997: 103) go on to suggest that the practical implications of the theory of multiple intelligences might include:

• the diagnosis of an individual’s existing capabilities across the range of multiple intelligences;
• systematic development through specific activities of intelligences that are relatively weak;
• designing tasks and projects using multiple intelligences as one of the criteria for the learning strategies;
• creating work areas/classrooms that give equal significance to all the intelligences.

Harrison (1999) describes the work of a school where pupils were given questionnaires to help the staff identify their preferred learning styles with the idea that staff would become more aware of differing learning styles and attempt to employ varied styles of teaching to match the styles of pupils. Young (1999) describes similar work in a school where pupils were tagged with badges according to whether they learned best from verbal or written instruction, needed visual images or diagrams or needed experience and action for learning to take place.

Goleman writes of the need to balance our rational and emotional thinking. He suggests that the ability to manage the emotions is probably more important than IQ in determining life success. He describes emotional intelligence as:

abilities such as being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustration; to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one’s moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathise and to hope. . . . Much evidence testifies that people who are emotionally adept, who know and manage their own feelings, and who read and deal effectively with other people’s feelings – are at an advantage in any domain of life, whether romance and intimate relations or picking up the unspoken rules that govern success in organisational politics. . . . People with well developed emotional skills are also more likely to be content and effective in their lives.

(Goleman 1996: 34)

He goes on to list the aspects of emotional intelligence with which schools should concern themselves:

• Knowing one’s emotions – self-awareness – recognising a feeli...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The school culture and climate
• 3 The performance management process
• 4 Roles and responsibilities
• 5 The school as a learning place for staff
• 6 Appointing staff
• 7 The induction of newly appointed staff
• 8 The training of staff for performance management
• 9 Monitoring performance
• 10 Self-evaluation and action research
• 11 The performance management review
• 12 Failing teachers
• 13 Performance related pay
• 14 Evaluating performance management
• 15 Concerns and problems
• 16 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index