The International Angle

The International Angle

Let’s be honest, high performance isn’t an issue for many British international schools.

But it will be much more difficult for these institutions to maintain their quality standards in the future if they don’t effectively manage school improvement processes – activities such as staff CPD, performance appraisal and development planning that help individual staff members perform to the best of their abilities. 

No school leader would argue that the tracking and management of school improvement processes which help staff to help aren’t just as important as tracking pupil progress. 

If school leaders have a clear view of what’s happening in these areas they can make sure everybody plays a part in reaching school development targets.

It also means that leaders can identify which staff members need more professional support and everyone gets recognition for their contribution. The result is a better run school in which pupils prosper.

This is the ideal but many schools simply don’t have the means to track and manage these improvement processes in ways that make it easy for them to use the information and act on it. The fact is, many leaders think they have that ‘clear view’ but when compared with schools that use modern day tools, there is a yawning gap.

Many schools still follow the standard information gathering approach, which is usually a ‘homebrew’ solution that involves hyperlinked Word documents, over-complicated computer spreadsheets or lever arch files that are ultimately destined to sit on an office shelf.

Cost, time and complexity are the main reasons why this approach still persists in many schools. It’s too tricky to get that intelligent view with a PC spreadsheet because it takes too much time to mine the data, interpret it in various ways and link it to evidence.

It’s a complex problem for one school, let alone a group, yet we are moving into an era where schools are increasingly likely to be part of a group of other schools. This might be a formal arrangement, such as a chain, or as a collaboration. The complex challenges of school improvement planning are multiplied.

Recently I’ve been working with a large education provider operating schools across the Middle East, the UK  and the United States.

The challenge for this particular group of schools was that a range of homemade systems had sprung up over time in different schools. These were time consuming to use and it meant that there was little consistency from school to school in the type of information that was gathered.

It meant that head office didn’t have a complete view of how its schools were doing and wasn’t able to target support to schools that needed it precisely or quickly enough. This problem was exacerbated by the geographical spread of its schools; regular support or inspection visits were impractical. A standardised, online school improvement planning system across all schools meant that all schools were tracking the same processes in the same way so it became easier for head office to target support more precisely to schools that needed it.

Schools and school groups that have a homebrew approach to school improvement may also be missing out on opportunities to collaborate more widely with schools around the world. Sharing school improvement best practice is a proven way to drive improvement for all concerned.

Schools often talk about collaboration with others but when you dig deeper into the reality of how this happens it’s often little more than occasional meetings and telephone calls.

But collaboration really begins to mean something when schools adopt common systems and structures which enable them to share best practice in areas like teacher development and school development planning. With the same systems presenting information in the same way teachers can form mentoring partnerships that become long lasting arrangements which can draw on hard data.

Are schools up to the CPD challenge of School Direct?

Are schools up to the CPD challenge of School Direct?

With the ramping up of the School Direct scheme more and more schools will find themselves responsible for the CPD of a new generation of teachers.

But the techniques – and technology - that many schools are using to help track and manage the professional growth of these young professionals is seriously out of step with modern demands.

With School Direct we have the 21^st century reality of large scale in-school teacher training and development, yet the culture and the systems that most schools have for managing and tracking this on a school-wide and individual level is distinctly late 20^th century in its approach.

And my worry is that this will disempower teachers, especially trainees.

The vast majority of schools in England and Wales today – around 85 per cent – simply don’t have the means to track and manage processes like staff CPD and performance management in ways that fully take on board the needs and feedback of staff.

My experience, gained from working with thousands of leaders and teachers, is that although there is a real understanding of what constitutes good practice in relation to the identification and evaluation of CPD this isn’t translated into reality because the tools used to manage this fall short.

Many schools still rely on paper based systems or simple spreadsheets for managing CPD and  behind closed doors many of those responsible for managing CPD will admit these systems just provide a quantitative record of who requested what, where they went and how much it cost.

In professional development there should be two sides to the contract. If schools are to effectively support the development of their trainees they need to give them the means to build up a detailed, evidence rich picture of their professional development that will help them make informed decisions about their career path. Trainees need to know how their CPD has made them act differently and what the outcome of these changes have been. They need to reflect regularly on their development, evaluate that activity and be appraised by colleagues. In fact it’s an approach schools use all the time to track pupil attainment yet these common classroom approaches have yet to fully transfer into staff professional development.

We all want new and established teachers to take more control of their development, but if they can’t build up a rich picture of their development so far then it becomes more difficult for them to make informed choices about their future development path.

As well as putting the career development of new and existing teachers at risk current approaches to CPD and development can also be problematic for the school as a whole. Many CPD activities may not be as effective as they could be because many schools do not have a clear idea of exactly what is effective professional development - and what is not.

This isn’t to say that all CPD misses the mark, but I do believe that schools could draw more value out of their CPD investment by ensuring that what they deliver actually helps their colleagues and the school move forward.

The identification and analysis of individual professional development should be given far greater importance than it currently is. Quite simply this means asking more questions of ourselves and our peers about what we need to do to make progress. 

For teachers this approach to evaluation gives them a real stake in the process. It makes it easier for them to provide evidence of the impact of their CPD and also means that future CPD will be informed by them because an explicit link is made between CPD and the impact it has on school improvement.

Schools are increasingly in the driving seat in the professional development of new and existing teachers. It’s time to let technology help.

Performance Related Pay - What a performance!

What a performance

Ten quick questions that will help you assess your school’s readiness 

for performance related pay

Although many academy heads have had flexibility on setting pay levels for some time now when September arrives every headteacher will be able to set pay levels according to a teacher’s performance.

Instead of automatic progression up the traditional pay scale, pay bands will be kept as a reference point and heads will have discretion over where in the band they place any member of staff.

There will of course be many heads who will be concerned about this. They may be afraid that it will leave them open to accusations of favouritism that may set colleague upon colleague.  

The risks exposed by the introduction of Performance Related Pay (PRP) are even starker when you consider the information management ‘gap’ that exists in most of England’s schools. Most still do not have a systematised way of managing and tracking school improvement planning processes like staff performance, school development planning and CPD.

Heads find it difficult to determine where their staff are in meeting the requirements of the new teacher standards in the current performance management arrangements, not least because the teaching standards changed last year, creating a significant knowledge gap. The same applies to teachers. This is worrying, especially when we know that these very same standards will be used to judge PRP.

I believe that headteachers can prepare their schools for the challenge of PRP by taking a fresh look at their existing performance appraisal processes. A good starting point is to test them against a set of key principles.

First of all, it is vital that any decision about pay based on performance is justified by hard evidence and that this is benchmarked against one set of standards by which everyone is judged. As Russell Hobby, general secretary of headteacher union the NAHT said back in December: “Staff have a right to confidence in the performance management system before their progression is connected to it.”

Confidence will come from robust, transparent and systematic approach to performance appraisal. Without these core characteristics PRP will be compromised. This could lead to the headteacher being accused of inconsistency and favouritism. At worst, this could even lead to legal proceedings such as an employment tribunal.

But good performance appraisal shouldn’t just be about PRP. It is important to get performance appraisal right because it is one of the main tools for supporting and developing staff. Good performance appraisal helps you deliver the most effective teaching and learning possible for your students.

So what should the process look like? Here are six key features for starters, plus 10 key questions to ask yourself in your preparations for PRP:

• It should be about more than just the annual appraisal process – it must be part of the bigger picture.
• It must be clear and transparent so that everyone knows what they should be doing and why they are doing it.
• It has to be consistent in terms of process and procedure, but flexible enough to cater for individual roles and responsibilities.
• It should promote objectivity by making possible fair and equitable discussions which make all the stakeholders in the process feel confident and valued.
• It needs to be scalable so that it has the capacity to grow and flex with the development of the school.
• It must be future proof. Evidence put into the process today must automatically carry forward and presented in context so that the work put in does not become redundant.

Are you ready for PRP?

Ten quick questions that will help you assess your school’s readiness for performance related pay:

1        How familiar are you, your SLT colleagues, governors and staff with statutory and non-statutory PRP guidelines?

2        Does everyone in the school understand the importance of gathering evidence for their performance appraisal and long-term career development? And do you give staff time to reflect on and gather performance-related evidence?

3        Is performance-related reflection and evidence gathering scheduled into the school working week?

4        What guidance is there for staff to understand exactly what good evidence of performance is?

5        Is the school development plan used as a driver for measuring performance?

6        Do you give staff the opportunity for discussion, feedback and guidance on their performance, other than in performance appraisal meetings?

7        Is there an agreed complaints procedure for any PRP disputes?

8        Do you have easily accessible systems in place for recording ongoing performance related evidence?

9        Are the systems consistent, fair and transparent and are staff given adequate training and support to use them properly?

10   What did Ofsted think of the school’s performance in all of the above areas?

Free Snapshot on School Governance

Free Snapshot on School Governance

This video is an introduction to evaluating school governance. It has application for both the school governors themselves and school leadership to assess the contributions and involvement of the board of governors.

It addresses governance in the role both as supporting and challenging school leadership to achieve the best for the school.

This is single strand of a larger system which ties all school self evaluation together to inform the school improvement processes of development planning, performance appraisals and CPD - all of which are also managed within the system.

For further information about this report, the many other self evaluation reports and the entirety of of Bluewave.SWIFT then visit 

www.bluewaveswift.co.uk

or call

0845 4900 447

An Outstanding school overcoming Performance Management paperwork

An Outstanding school overcoming Performance Management paperwork

Deputy headteacher Jeff Miller had one overarching reason to choose an online school improvement planning system.

“Quite simply, I didn’t want to do staff performance management on paper,” says Jeff, who is deputy head at the ‘outstanding’ 1,000 pupil Oakwood Park Grammar School in Maidstone, Kent.

“As the person charged with performance management my head comes to me and asks me how staff are doing in their performance appraisals and I can use an online system to give him an instant picture. Without an online system it was a case of me roaming around the school for a couple of weeks collecting pieces of paper.”

After demoing a number of systems Jeff chose Bluewave.SWIFT School Edition. This is an online system that connects information and documents across self-evaluation, school inspection reports, strategic planning, professional development and performance appraisal. Schools can then drive improvement processes and keep ahead of ever-changing accountability and inspection requirements while saving time and cutting costs. The school has been using the system since May 2008.

Jeff is using the performance management element of the system at the moment although he does have ambitions to use other functions in the future.

The performance management element of Bluewave.SWIFT School Edition allows Jeff and his headteacher to see where each of the 120 Oakwood staff members are in the performance appraisal cycle. Jeff can see information such as whether the headteacher has approved appraisals, details of lesson observations of each staff member, when the next interim reviews are scheduled and how each staff member is doing against the teacher professional standards. Staff members can see their individual appraisal records and feed their observations and evidence into them.

The recent change in the teacher professional standards in September 2012, when the number of standards were drastically reduced, could have created an enormous extra workload for Jeff and his team. However, with the Bluewave system the evidence that staff built up against the previous standards were automatically mapped to the new standards, so there was no need to start again.

“The system has been very good with tracking the changing teacher standards,” says Jeff. “It has made it easy to link the teaching standards to the objectives that you are setting staff.”

“It does what Bluewave.SWIFT says it does very well,” he says. “I also like it that when I give them feedback about the system, the company takes things on board. The product doesn’t stand still - it is always in evolution.”

“Very simply I made the best choice based on price and functionality.”

For further information, please visit our website – www.bluewaveswift.co.uk or contact us on 0845 4900 447, info@bluewaveswift.com

Empowering staff through Performance Appraisal

Empowering staff through Performance Appraisal

Thorpepark Primary School serves the large Orchard Park council estate on the northern outskirts of Hull. It is a community facing serious social and economic challenges – a factor that drives headteacher Simon Witham and his colleagues to provide the very best education they can for the school’s 380 pupils.

Staff professional development and performance management is vital to the school’s mission. If there’s one word that characterises Simon’s approach to this area it’s “empowerment.”

“One thing I persistently believe in is developing my staff. I want to help them to make a difference,” he says.

“Every member of staff is a leader. A teacher is in fact a leader of 30 children. CPD is about empowering people to want to make that difference.”

Bluewave.SWIFT school edition has been playing a crucial role in that empowerment process at Thorpepark for the past three years. It is an online system that helps schools link together and drive improvement processes including self-evaluation, school inspection reports, strategic planning, professional development and performance appraisals. The system also helps schools keep ahead of ever-changing accountability and inspection requirements while saving time and cutting costs.

“CPD is a key function of the system for Thorpepark”, says Simon.  “I am interested in how CPD impacts upon teaching and learning,” he says. “There is an expectation here that any CPD in the school should justify itself by making a real impact.”

“If CPD is identified through performance management or appraisals then staff will attend CPD.”

“When they go on a course the record is updated and then they will self review against the course. This process tells us whether the CPD was worthwhile and whether it is making an impact in the school.”

This feedback – linking CPD to actual improvements in practice - can then influence future CPD planning decisions and help the school arrive at a point where all its CPD has an integral part to play in school improvement.

The school development plan provides the starting point for school improvement. Simon uses Bluewave.SWIFT to write the plan, which then drives staff development objectives.

Following a performance management objective setting meeting, staff write their personal development plans and review their performance against the plan using the current teachers’ standards. These are built into the system by Bluewave.SWIFT and updated as soon as there are any changes.

“It gives us a tight structure,” says Simon. “It means that when a colleague reviews their performance, for example, they only do it once. We never lose anything.”

Giving individual staff members the ability to input into the system in this way means that their individual efforts and achievements feed directly into the development plan. Everyone can see the part they play in moving the school forward.

Bluewave.SWIFT has also helped Thorpepark in its adoption of the International Primary Curriculum (IPC).

“In the last academic year we realised that our curriculum was not broad enough so we brought in the International Primary Curriculum,” explains Simon.

“We set up curriculum teams that met once every half term to use coaching to develop the IPC curriculum.  Staff wrote action plans using Bluewave.SWIFT, and reviewed their progress against the new teaching standards using the system.”

The school is also using Bluewave.SWIFT personal edition - a career development portfolio for everyone from student teacher to executive head – alongside the school edition.

“It means that any new member of staff coming in can then take a record of their professional development at our school to another school,” says Simon.

“It’s particularly useful for student teachers that come into school. We get them to review where they are, using the teaching standards, then we can monitor and see what impact we are having on them when they are on placement with us. It helps us analyse whether we are doing what we should be doing in bringing along trainee and new teachers.”

Simon adds: “I want to stop CPD from creating a feeling in staff of ‘it’s that time again, let’s go through that hoop’. I want it to be a worthwhile system that enhances the school. CPD is not about having something done to them. It should make a proper contribution to career development and Bluewave.SWIFT certainly helps in this.”

For further information, please visit our website – www.bluewaveswift.co.uk or contact us on 0845 4900 447, info@bluewaveswift.com

The Journey out of Special Measures

The Journey out of Special Measures

When the Manor Academy in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire was placed in special measures in autumn 2011, Ofsted inspectors said ‘the school needed to rigorously monitor and evaluate the quality of teaching and trends in the school’s performance data.’

It was an area that the leadership team were determined to tackle. This prompted a search for a management information system that would provide the rigour needed. “That was where the decision to buy Bluewave.SWIFT came in,” explains deputy headteacher Donna Casey.

Bluewave.SWIFT School Edition is an online system that connects information and documents across self-evaluation, school inspection reports, strategic planning, professional development and performance appraisal. Schools can then drive improvement processes, keep ahead of ever-changing accountability and inspection requirements while saving time and cutting costs.

“I had used another system at my previous school – that was for performance management and review,” says Donna. “Bluewave was a step up which gave you performance management and review as well as a whole host of other things. It did all the things that we needed to do and now provides the foundation for all of our quality assurance work.”

In December 2012, just 14 months after the school was put into special measures, the inspectors made their third monitoring visit and lifted the school out of category, telling a delighted leadership team that the school could be ‘outstanding’ within 18 months.

The school’s management and tracking of school improvement processes such as performance management, development planning and CPD, were singled out for praise by the inspectors. Donna believes that Bluewave.SWIFT has played a crucial role in the school’s journey out of special measures.

“The inspectors were clear that our new performance management review procedure, done through Bluewave.SWIFT was robust, and linked heavily to our development plan and the new professional standards. It provided a firm backbone for the safeguarding of standards throughout the institution,” says Donna.

“They also commented on the transparency and clarity of our development planning, again done through Bluewave.SWIFT. They loved the fact that our school development plan was directly linked to faculty development plans, which then linked to performance management reviews and informed our CPD schedule, all of which was viewed at the click of the mouse. The lesson observation information, linked to performance management, enables all leadership members to have a view of every area within our large institution anywhere and at any time.

“Ofsted also said that our quality assurance systems were rigorous with an emphasis on accountability and attention to detail.”

Although The Manor Academy has only been using the system since the start of the 2012-13 academic year it is already making full use of most of the elements of Bluewave.SWIFT and all 250 staff members use the system on an almost daily basis.

“I was advised that we should implement Bluewave.SWIFT with a phased approach but we have done it all in one go,” Donna says. “In July we spent two twilight sessions training the leadership team and in September training was delivered for all staff.”

Donna acted as the lead advocate for the system – supporting staff and putting together bespoke ‘how to’ guides so that colleagues could quickly get up to speed with how to use the system.

The reports element allows leaders to create bespoke evaluation reports quickly and easily for a range of subjects, from exams analysis and coaching reports to the school SEF.

The system’s school development planning element allows The Manor Academy to develop a whole school strategic plan which then feeds into the development plans of individual faculties – and the staff who work in them.

The performance management feature provides the academy with a complete picture of staff performance. This includes the ability to track and evaluate staff CPD, record classroom observations and review statements and objectives linked to the school development plan.

Donna Casey believes that Bluewave.SWIFT’s observation analysis feature is an underplayed part of the system. “This allows you to do lesson observations live and then upload immediately to the system,” she explains. “This gives me a picture of which teachers are outstanding and which might need support to improve. It also tells me what their particular teaching strengths are.

“That’s hugely powerful. I can be doing a lesson observation, inputting directly into the system using my iPad and attaching video and other material such as lesson plans onto the record and the teacher can see the observation immediately after the lesson. It also means that if I am out of school I can see lesson observations remotely wherever I am.”

This feature has won the support of teaching staff. “Teachers are really pleased with it,” says Donna. “The quality of feedback you can give is really impressive. You can build up a rich picture of practice that is helpful to me and helpful to the teacher as well.

“We were told by Ofsted that the school had no capability to properly assess lessons. Now they are satisfied that we have that capability.”

The CPD recording feature also comes in for praise. “We’d never evaluated the impact of CPD before. Now we know what CPD results in changes and impact.”

“I feel like we know what is going on in the institution,” Donna adds. “There is no way I can see everyone all the time but I now have a good view across the academy.”

For further information, please visit our website – www.bluewaveswift.co.uk or contact us on 0845 4900 447, info@bluewaveswift.com

No fear! Technology will tackle the challenges of school improvement

No fear! Technology will tackle the challenges of school improvement.

Schools are very comfortable with using technology to closely monitor the progress of pupils and take action if any issues are uncovered. Pupil tracking and management information systems that help schools do this have been widely used for several years. 

But when it comes to using ICT for the management and tracking of the school improvement processes that help staff perform to their best – for example CPD, performance management and school development planning – schools are less likely to invest. 

Instead most schools – around 85 per cent of those in England and Wales – use ‘homebrew’ approaches, usually consisting of elaborately constructed computer spreadsheets or simple box files full of paper, to manage this area. 

It seems strange doesn't it that there is this contrast of approaches, especially when both play an absolutely vital role in helping pupils really achieve. 

Money, time and complexity are the main reasons why this approach still persists but I’m confident school leaders are waking up to the reality that dislocated systems are simply not doing the job. It’s too tricky to get an intelligent view with a PC spreadsheet because it takes too much time to mine the data, interpret it in various ways and link it to evidence. I’ve seen for myself some wonderfully creative, DIY documents which at first appear to be a massive step forward for schools. But after a few months, it becomes quite apparent that maintaining them is a full time job and it gets out of hand.

As well as clouding a school’s view of what it needs to do to keep on improving, this traditional approach could also create problems with Ofsted. The body now wants schools to give full account of the school improvement processes that ultimately have a huge impact on pupil attainment.

It wants evidence that the SLT knows the school’s strengths and weaknesses, that leaders are immersed in self-evaluation and that development plans are focused on improving teaching and raising achievement. These are compelling reasons for schools to change to something more efficient and coherent and which ideally gathers evidence of impact from grass roots level, yet many still have a bit of a blind spot in this area.  I worry that this reluctance might be a sign of a deeper, age old, issue – a fear of change. 

As well as potentially obscuring a school’s view of school improvement processes, DIY tracking and management could have serious implications for the professional development of staff too.  

Many opportunities could be missed because your colleagues don’t have a more complete awareness of their abilities. But if we can ensure that performance discussions are informed and evidence led then decision making becomes informed by evidence at an individual and school level. That’s good for schools and for the professional development and motivation of everyone working in them.  

Schools need to seize the opportunity to let online technology assume the role in school improvement planning that it is already playing in supporting student progress. Technology can support change and make it easier. 

School improvement planning and the monitoring of impact shouldn’t be about cold data crunching. We need to use technology to support people in their development and let them make a real contribution to school objectives. This applies equally to individuals following their own career path and large organisations trying to make sense of the bigger picture. 

For example, if a school’s performance management systems show that staff need some professional development in a particular area it would help if they were given the means to evaluate that CPD themselves and back this up with evidence that it is making a difference. Many leaders will claim they already do this, but are the methods they use sustainable, accessible and above all, do they solve the old problem of how to produce evidence of the impact of CPD on pupil achievement?  

Then there are the questions of time and resources in an age of austerity. Taking a ‘homebrew’ approach to school improvement planning means time organising the paperwork for performance appraisals, job applications and CPD. 

If school leaders use the technology to get a clear view of what’s happening in these areas they can make sure everybody plays a part in reaching school development targets. It also means that leaders can identify which staff members need more professional support and everyone gets recognition for their contribution. The result is a better run school in which pupils prosper. 

This is easier said than done with traditional tracking and management methods but it is achievable using the online school improvement planning systems that are now available. These systems can unify staff rather than alienate them, giving them a voice in the change management process that otherwise might not be heard. This is about staff having ownership and control. And there’s nothing more powerful as an antidote for the fear of change.