Teaching is a highly demanding profession: work performance is regularly monitored by the Senior Leadership Team, Ofsted, Governors and parents; there’s a huge time commitment involved in marking and lesson planning; and the children themselves can often pose their own challenges. It’s also highly rewarding and the vast majority of teachers do an outstanding job of more than meeting the requirements of the role.
However, there are some teachers who despite informal coaching and support, fail to attain and maintain the standards required. Headteachers are often acutely aware of when they have an underperforming teacher: direct evidence from lesson observations, complaints from parents and other members of staff, questions from Governors about poor pupil progress. It’s important that action is taken not only to maintain their own credibility but more importantly so that the quality of the children’s teaching and learning is maintained.
First Steps
It’s never easy to talk about a Teacher’s performance issues, particularly if they’ve been a long standing member of staff. However, the first step is to have an open and honest conversation with the employee concerned. You should be prepared to be able to justify any comments you make by providing evidence. This could be from a number of sources including pupil progress statistics, lesson observations, lesson plans, and marking.
During the meeting you will want to try to establish the cause of any underperformance. Are there any personal issues that you are not aware of? Is there a misunderstanding about the individual’s job role, particularly if they have taken on a new post such as SENCO?
Assuming nothing comes to light, you should work to establish a detailed plan outlining the areas of concern, the desired outcome, evidence that will be used to assess progress, and details of any supportive measures that will be put in place.
In drawing up this plan you should make frequent reference to the Teachers’ Standards which details the expected level of performance for all Teachers.
The plan should be for a suitable period to enable you to assess the individual’s performance against the targets and for any supportive measures to have an effect; this is likely to be anywhere from 4-6 weeks. Support measures could include: work shadowing, appointing a mentor and training. If part of a Federation, it can be useful for the Teacher to witness best practice being modelled in another school.
Support and development
It’s important that the member of staff is re-assured that this is a supportive process designed to help them carry out their role to a satisfactory standard. However, you should also point out that if, at the end of the performance improvement plan, performance hasn’t reached the required level, you may have to invoke the Formal Capability process. You should provide them with a copy of the School’s Capability policy for their reference.
As a Headteacher you are likely to want to increase the number of lesson observations undertaken to be able to monitor and support the member of staff during this time. The Education (School Teacher Performance Management) (England) Regulations 2006 made reference to a maximum limit on classroom observations. These regulations have since been superseded by The Education (School Teacher Appraisal) (England) Regulations 2012 which do not contain an upper limit. However, you will want to set a number that is reasonable and give the individual notice of when the observations will be carried out.
The teacher may want to be accompanied by a Trade Union representative at this meeting. Technically, you have not yet invoked the formal capability procedure and this is a management meeting between a manager and a subordinate. There is therefore, no right to be accompanied.
However, Trade Unions are aware that if the School’s Capability procedure is invoked, the employee could end up being dismissed if they fail to improve or they may feel compelled to resign. Under the School Staffing (England) Regulations 2009, any future reference will have to contain details of the capability issues that occurred in the previous two years prior to the individual leaving their role.
Quite often, if the Trade Union representative feels that their member will not be able to attain and maintain the standard of performance required they will suggest having an off-the-record discussion to explore the option of a Settlement Agreement. This can be a cheaper and less disruptive route for all parties.
Trade Union representatives can often suggest additional supportive measures that might be appropriate, as well as helping the individual articulate any difficulties they are having. For this reason it’s often useful for Trade Unions to be involved right at the beginning of the process.
It’s important to meet with the Teacher regularly during the Performance Improvement Plan, ideally weekly. You should clearly document the Teacher’s progress against the various standards set, making reference to the evidence obtained during the week.
At the end of the Performance Improvement Plan you will have a clear understanding of the Teacher’s level of performance and be able to make a decision as to whether it’s necessary to invoke the school’s capability policy.
In next week’s article we will take a look at the process and steps involved when invoking the school’s Capability Policy.
