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?