To think keeping teachers' pay low shouldn't be hailed as a positive in an OFSTED report?

[thinkingmakesitso]

I am looking for a new job and always check the OFSTED report of any schools I consider, though I obviously don't take it as gospel and would do other research as well - I think I know how to 'read' them, iyswim.

Anyway, one I saw last night has left me so angry. The school is good and all aspects of teachers' work are praised. The school takes in pupils who are well below average at KS3, so the achievements made are all the more hard won. It then goes on to praise the fact that teachers have a 'score card' to monitor their performance, and praises the fact that performance management is rigorous and pay progression only takes place in exceptional circumstances.

AIBU to think this is no way to treat professionals - a 'score card' ffs? I am at the top of the upper pay spine anyway, so would not be eligible for pay progression, but no way am I carrying a score card, and I would fear my pay being put down due to factors beyond my control. How is a school which, reading between the lines, and knowing the area as I do, needs to attract excellent teachers to do so if that is how they treat their staff? Surely they should be doing all they can to attract staff? Well, they are- this isn't mentioned on TES, of course, but who on earth would want to go there once they know about it?

Why are teachers not valued by this government? Well, I know the answer, but just wanted to rant. .

My top set had FFT targets of As and A*s which they met easily.

Bottom set - well, there's a reason some kids end up in bottom set and it's not always because they are less able. So they will have high FFTs but no chance of meeting them because they are often not in school, or are on a college placement or are exceptionally lazy or badly behaved. Bottom set always has negative value added in my school, no matter which teacher teaches them. Top set always has positive value added.

In the private sector you only get an actual pay increase for exceptional work, why should it be different in the public sector?

Not true at all MotherKat. There are absolutely private sector organisations with at least some scope for annual pay increases because of length of service. I used to work for one a couple of years back. There were only four increments, it didn't go up every year, but nor was it related to performance. I'm not saying this is the norm, it isn't, but it's wrong to say pay increases in the private sector only happen for exceptional work. They don't.

With specific regards to the OP, I can't see that pay progression policy should be praised in the Ofsted report simply because I'd be worried it would drive the best teachers away. Either to the independent sector, to supply, or to something else altogether. People can have whatever views they like about whether teachers are being entitled or not, but clearly there are going to be some teachers who won't want to hang around if they don't feel adequately financially rewarded, and some of them who'll be able to do better elsewhere. That concerns me more than whether teachers are sufficiently grateful for sometimes being spared some of the worst excesses of the private sector.

Maybe the school needs to have another look at how it sets then.

Dream go on, how should a school set then, apart from in order to provide work at an appropriate level for the current attainment of a child?

The problem with making performance related payrises "exceptional" is that you produce the opposite of the intended result. If people feel that there is little to no chance of progressing, then they are unlikely to feel motivated to do their job more than adequately.

My terms & conditions have been changed (private sector) to reduce the chance of me earning a bonus. And in my organisation, salary increases tend to be linked to job progression - which for me is impossible unless I move into senior management (which I don't want to do).

As I said to my boss at my last appraisal - there is no longer any motivation for me to do my job more than adequately, since the difference between doing my job and going the extra mile is precisely zero.

Yanbu

How about not setting based on behaviour and setting based on ability for starters?

I'm anti sets anyway but the system you've described is obviously going to be a nightmare!

Because in maths, with the best will in the world, you are not going to be able to teach an able student to factorise quadratics if they have spent the earlier years pissing about instead of learning algebra.

But also, you are not going to be able to teach them factorising quadratics if they refuse to come to school, or spend half their week on a college placement.

Performance pay in any industry is a bad idea:

www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000070.html

I'm lucky enought to work for a small business where I don't have to put up with this shit. When I was a public sector employee it was such a waste of time going through appraisals, now it's just a five minute chat with the boss. Loads better.

If you grade teachers on the performance of their students in exams then what happens when your 18 year A level student decided that going to the pub the night before his exams is a good idea and has a skin full missing the first exam in the morning and then is hung over for the second. How does that reflect on the teachers ability to have taught the curriculum?

I'm anti sets anyway

I'm guessing you're not a teacher?

I honestly don't know, Katz and I suspect the pendulum will switch back.

There has to be a happy medium allowing for the sort of situations you describe, and the school refusers and teen pregnancies and the sort of teachers I had who sat at the front of the classroom with a newspaper and cup of coffee (and felt your backside for good measure.)

P

Those sorts of teachers were in the days before FFT targets and league tables and so on. There is accountability already.

I see my daughters teachers and my DH and friends who are teachers and they are nothing like the teachers we were taught by. There are dedicated hard working and care for each of their students and their progress.

However I also see them getting slated in the press, that the hard work they put in and that the rising exams passes is due to exam getting easier not that teachers are just better.

Teacher can't win

Child fails it's the teachers fault
Child does well it because the exam was easier

I would hate any teachers to have their pay affected by DD, who is a predicted A* student, but could quite easily get a U in any exam due to a very variable medical condition. That would be massively unfair on any of her teachers, the majority of whom have gone out of their way to help and support her over the year.

I see my daughters teachers and my DH and friends who are teachers and they are nothing like the teachers we were taught by. There are dedicated hard working and care for each of their students and their progress.

They always have been. Extremely disingenuous to state otherwise.

I feel you've all completely missed the point.

Since when has pay been any business of OFSTED? It certainly should not be in the school's OFSTED report. They are outstepping their remit and judging a school on something that is nothing to do with them.

You cannot possibly claim that every single teacher ever was/is dedicated,hard working and caring. It's not possible.

My high school had teachers who regularly lost it spectacularly and threw furniture, alcoholics drinking on the job, almost zero extra curricular due to striking, 3 members of staff who had sexual relationships with pupils. A teacher who despised teaching girls so much he humiliated all of us in every lesson and created an unsafe environment leading to injuries. There were also some exceptional teachers who worked incredibly hard and yes cared. But not all of them.

As a teacher I am not against performance management but performance related pay can be hard to swallow when it is based on children.
For example, last year I had ten children in my year 11 class. I had three targets for appraisal. One of these was to get 100% target grade.
Well, 1 student of the class came to 30% of lessons.
So that was that. One student's mum died and her performance plummeted. Three of them refused to pick up a pen from November onwards.

I did everything I could. I couldn't secure 100% target grades.

Because children are not robots.

I wouldn't go back to teaching right now if you paid me £100k. And I loved teaching, the actual teaching bit. I felt like I made an impact, had loads to give. But I can't work in a sector where I am told I'm crap everyday, that my best isn't good enough, that despite working every hour I can that I must work more and harder.

Sally so the teacher who has top set should get paid more than the one who has bottom set? That's fine by you?

Don't be ridiculous. That's not what I said.
Both sets will be improved by good teachers. The expectation of results will be different in the two sets.

The expectation of results will be different in the two sets.
Sort of... But bottom set students will still be expected to make 3 or even 4 levels of progress, just like the top set.

100% is a stupid figure anyway.

70-80% getting target grades seems about reasonable though.