Michael Gove - wrong again: Performance-related pay in schools is crap

Bugger all.

I was told I couldn't apply for a second in department role as I was 0.8.

Please bear in mind less then two years before that (pre child) SLT were asking me to apply for the HOD vacancy.

Needless to say their attitude towards me as a part timer meant I left. And left teaching too.

I must say I do hate the word 'performers' applied to teaching , though (Other than when acknowledging us as performers on a stage )
It makes us sound like sales people or something out of Wolf of Wall Street.

”It would genuinely put me off applying to a MAT or school : perhaps something for your MAT to know!”

But as PRP is in STPCD I’m not sure avoiding MATs is the answer if you want to work in a school which bases pay purely on time served!

But one of the things recently in teaching is to try to keep high performers in the classroom , rather than forcing them to take on responsibilities which then reduce their teaching efficiency sometimes and certainly reduce their classroom contact. Some teachers don't want responsibility roles but are fantastically effective classroom teachers.

”flowery those teachers who progress 2 points a year... they get to the top of the scale more quickly , right? So reach that point of stagnation more rapidly? What next for them?”

They tend to be the ones most likely to take on additional responsibility. Same as in any industry really- high performers are more likely to be given more responsibility and/or promotion.

”People not appealing against pay decisions doesn’t mean that they think that the decision is reasonable, simply that it is not worth pursuing.”

No that’s very true. I suppose I’d just say that if we were consistently getting it wrong I’d expect to see at least the occasional appeal.

”Interested to know how you decide who is an excellent teacher.”

I don’t, is the short answer! I chair the committee but that doesn’t mean I make the decisions. Our EHT and Heads of Schools make recommendations based on their own knowledge and experience, and by and large, those are approved. If someone wants to go on to the upper scale they have to submit an application which the committee read but as well as their form we also rely heavily on the opinions of the EHT/HoS in terms of whether the person applying meets the criteria set out in our pay policy or not.

flowery those teachers who progress 2 points a year... they get to the top of the scale more quickly , right? So reach that point of stagnation more rapidly? What next for them?

flowery my solution would be not to have it. Seems to work at my school. One less thing for us all to be unhappy about. Whenever anyone is having a moan about how bad things have become at our school , I say ' could be worse , you know. Other schools have PRP' and they look shocked!

It would genuinely put me off applying to a MAT or school : perhaps something for your MAT to know!

”Not from talking to them, no. Teaching is a performance, could you tell from talking to an actor how good they are on stage?”

No, but I’m not an actor. I’m genuinely surprised you have no inkling from experience which of your colleagues might be particularly good at their jobs, but if you literally have no idea, then fair enough I guess!

”I am...surprised that you don't understand how teachers think about pay : their own and that of others.”

I’ve never been a teacher, and I’m very sure all teachers don’t think the same anyway.

My impressions of how teachers think about pay come from two sources- my parents, who were teachers in the 1980s- and from my role as a director of a primary MAT including chairing the pay review committee.

The latter hasn’t given me the impression that most of the teachers our MAT employs have a problem with the concept of PRP. We have excellent teachers who have progressed more quickly than one point a year and others who have progressed more slowly. Having done this for a few years now I can’t remember any appeals against pay decisions. So I don’t think we’re doing too badly in terms of fairness.

But clearly those on here do have a conceptual problem and due to my role in a MAT I am keen to hear how teachers think it should be solved.

On your first point, yes and no. I have worked with teachers who are very keen to let others know they are amazing! Sometimes they are; sometimes they aren't. is it Shakespeare who said : 'that bubble reputation'?

”How would I know if another teacher in my school is a poor performer? What does that even mean?”

Do you really not have a sense of which of your colleagues are probably really good at their job and which are less so? I don’t think I’d have to have much conversation with an HR professional to be able to form a reasonably accurate impression of their probable competence, although if I’d just met them it wouldn’t be evidence-based.

”And how would I know what point of the pay scale they are on?”

Well I suppose if you never discuss it you wouldn’t know, no!

I suppose if there’s a culture of pay having nothing to do with competence it seems jarring for that to suddenly be a factor, and vice verse as well!

Obviously the current system is flawed in many ways, I just find it interesting to hear the suggested alternatives of those who are paid within that system.

I know you are the HR guru of MN flowery and you were once very helpful to me : so I am, therefore , surprised that you don't understand how teachers think about pay : their own and that of others.

But, to reiterate, even if I were motivated by PRP (and I am clearly not ) there are too many complicating factors in teaching to create any sensible performance measures. What about home tuition as a factor? Classes perform better of a large number of students have supportive -or even pushy- home environments. Nearly every class I teach is shared. So what happens there? And what about inheriting a class from someone else? Whose results are they?

There is a published payscale (which nearly all schools use even academies) and I think teachers have always accepted that we all move on up it to recognise length of service in the profession : when UPS was introduced that gave longer servers a chance to progress beyond the masses and there are now also other opportunities either existing or in the offing outside of normal responsibility based promotion, such as SLEs.

I do think it is all too fraught and subjective.

Out of interest, what public sector jobs do have PRP? Showing my ignorance here , but do doctors? Nurses? social workers? Police? I know that NHS trusts have performance measured and police forces etc but do the individuals?Surely again those would be disincentives to move into complex , troubled or difficult cases.

”I can't say it ever once occurred to me to compare my pay with another teacher's on the basis of their performance, effort or achievement, Flowery.”

That interests me. For most people, salary isn’t a motivator- people are generally more motivated by other things. But it is a demotivator, if it’s perceived as unfair.

I’m not motivated by money- if I were I would not have spent most of my employed career in the voluntary sector even though I could have got more money for an equivalent job in the public sector or some industries in the private sector. I didn’t need big pay rises or bonuses, but I always went the extra mile and was very good at my job, and I would have been demotivated if, come pay review time, I got the same percentage increase as a poor performer. Interesting that the teachers on here wouldn’t feel demotivated in those circumstances.

My understanding from reading some of the research is that performance-related pay doesn't work generally. It's divisive, unfair and focuses on extrinsic rather than intrinsic rewards. Better to reward high performers in other ways (e.g. promotion or giving them work that fits their interests/development needs).

I rarely mean what I type but I didn't even notice that one

flowery, under PRP remuneration is often unfair (it takes a lot for a physics teacher to be refused pay progression ime) and teacher performance isn't usually assessed (pupil performance is, as though that is the same thing).

My incentive to improve isn't financial. If I just wanted to make more money I'd never have chosen this career (and I suspect many other teachers are the same).

The idea that it was based on 'time served' is a good one, certainly the first 5 years or so. Experience really does have a big impact in teaching and the (relatively) low starting salary progressing up is a way of recognising that teachers in the first few years really are still learning themselves.

And I have read the rpoert : it clearly states tecahers are motivated , unlike other sectors, by intrinsic factors. So, if I do well by a class, or an individual in that class, I don't expect to be showered by gits (rarely happens!) or with money. I am just pleased and I don't boast to others. I think PRP has brought in a boastfulness to teaching and mania and anxiety about results that didn't used to be there. however, without PRP in my school we can actually have a decent conversation with out PMer about blips, lowered performance and s on without fear . And what happens to risk taking under PRP? No one would set up a new subject or willingly take on a new text or unit of work for fear of PRP. I have heard of teachers massaging students out of their subjects and classes and bearing grudges because of PRP

Unless a teacher is not fulfilling significant aspects of their job description they deserve their pay. I think the same about nurses, and doctors, and social workers.. So this is not teaching bias!