Performance Related Pay - a good thing right?

[StarlightMcKenzie]

especially the bit about being able to keep the better teachers in the classroom.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

It seems to me there is loads of accountability, and measurable outcomes all over the place in schools! I would need to see some very 'rigourous' (since Gove's so fond of the word) and very carefully thought-through criteria before I'd agree this would be anything other than a disaster and another stick with which to beat teachers in more difficult schools and reward those whose job is already less difficult.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

No. There's loads of admin. No understanding of how to take and use data. In 4 schools I have never seen a SMART IEP I haven't written myself.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

I think teachers 'think' they are doing it, but they're really really not.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

What do they think they are doing that they're really not?

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Broadly, evidence-based practice. Data-driven lesson planning. And SMART targets in IEPs.

[noblegiraffe]

Terrible idea. The teachers who do the setting would never give themselves the bottom set because these kids who have been underachieving their whole school career are not suddenly going to become motivated geniuses. They wouldn't give themselves the top set either, because in a class full of kids all targeted at an A*, the slightest problem, illness, bereavement, whatever, and a kid fails to meet their target and you're screwed as no one can beat their target to make up for it.

Not good for the kids either. Little Johnny has a target of a D. My brilliant teaching in Y10 means that he could realistically get a B and he needs to be moved up a set. I fudge the results so I can hang onto him and his guaranteed positive value added. He gets a C because that's what my set is targeting, I get positive value added, he doesn't get his B and can't join the RAF.
Likewise I am more motivated to move a disruptive kid who might miss his target down a set to become someone else's problem than to help him achieve his potential.

[mnistooaddictive]

What is "data- driven lesson planning". We teach a lesson and then based on our assessment we plan the next one. What do you think teachers should do differently?

[Xenia]

It all sounds like a load of old rubbish or else common sense which everyone with a brain ought to have without have a special load of words and forms for it.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Yes but how do you assess? When the teacher told me that my ds had progressed, I asked her how she knew, does she have any data or evidence and she told me that she didn't, but it was her professional opinion and that should be good enough.

[EvilTwins]

My understanding of this is that "performance" is what is looked at in performance management meetings. As long as I continue to do what I am supposed to be doing, then the pay rises will happen. Anyone who is above main scale is paid like this anyway - or am I missing something?

I don't think anyone (not even Twatface Gove) would suggest paying teachers by the grades their students get - that would mean that teachers who get jobs in grammar schools would end up on more pay, which would be ludicrous. Also, all schools set targets and baseline data in different ways, so how would "progress" be measured? My school changed the way in which baseline data is calculated for non-core subject this year. THis has had a knock-on effect to end of KS3 targets, so my Yr 9 target grades are now different to the same target grades last year - it would be madness to base my pay on progress towards targets if the targets change. I have no issue with pay being based on performance management though.

[noblegiraffe]

At my school one of your targets has to be FFT based.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

I wish they would make FFT available in the public domain as well as Ofsted.

[noblegiraffe]

What do you mean? FFT data is pupil specific and would cause data protection issues. Do you mean value added? This is already available on the league tables.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

It doesn't say WHICH pupils does it? Perhaps you're right, maybe parents would be able to guess etc. though a score for it would be good!? FFT score per class each year?

[StarlightMcKenzie]

But also I have an issue with taking data so infrequently. Why not weekly/daily?

[noblegiraffe]

Value added is supposed to be measured over a whole cohort. It is not intended to measure a class's performance and it is certainly not designed to measure an individual student's performance. All FFT targets are an average expectation, and on average, a large group of students is expected to meet them.

As for collecting data daily, what on earth sort of data do you have in mind?

[TheFallenMadonna]

We are completely data driven. I am head of a core subject. In my department we measure progress in key skills, plus we do a frequent progress check for information learned, understood and applied. We report levels/grades to parents, and give a simple summary if how we reached it. I am hauled over the coals half termly and made to account for and have intervention in place for every underachieving student.

My lessons are observed frequently on a formal and informal basis, and two lessons at grade 3 would start the wheels turning for capability.

Does this make me a better teacher than I was 14 years ago? Not sure it does. Data driven strategies have their place, but there is far too little scrutiny of the validity of the data. It seems to me that the only data that is questioned is GCSE and A levels results...

[StarlightMcKenzie]

' but there is far too little scrutiny of the validity of the data'

Yes. Absolutely. Whole year cohort data is fine for record-keeping and demonstrating value added, but day to day data-gathering can enable the teacher to change tack faster to the pace of learning of the children and differentiate more quickly, within a lesson if they have to.

[noblegiraffe]

Erm, what makes you think that teachers don't assess the pupils' progress over the course of a lesson and adjust their teaching accordingly? I do this all the time.

But describing 'do you want another example or do you reckon you're ready to try some questions on your own' or 'thumbs up if you get this' as data gathering seems a bit excessive.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Are you secondary?

[TwllBach]

Starlight if I told you your son had progressed, I would be able to show you maths, reading and spelling assessments that have been graded in accordance with the national curriculum. I would be able to show you his exercise books, dating back to the start of the year with me and you would see progress from the first page through to the current page. I'm sure your DS' teacher could do the same if pressed?

[noblegiraffe]

Yes.

[MammaBrussels]

I might need to don my hard hat here but performance related pay wouldn't take into account any differences in difficulty between subjects. When I was in the UK I taught Economics GCSE and BTEC First diploma in Business in yrs 10 & 11. My AV was very high for the BTEC but zero for Economics (GCSE). When they used to produce PANDA reports Economics students (nationally) used to get 1 grade lower in Eco than their other GCSEs IIRC(so GCSE Eco was a grade harder than other GCSEs). Even then I knew teachers denied pay rises because of their GCSE grades.

If this is introduced some subjects are just going to die out in mainstream schools because there's no incentive to offer them.

[MammaBrussels]

TheFallenMadonna
there is far too little scrutiny of the validity of the data
Exactly. Small entry GCSE subjects don't have FFT targets. My Economics students' target grades were actually Graphics ones .

[StarlightMcKenzie]

I'm sure your DS' teacher could do the same if pressed?

Perhaps the current one - yes, but he is on his 4th school placement and none of the others were able to show any evidence of progress.

DD's nursery teacher can't either. She just gets a learning journal with post-it notes stuck in it linking something she did or said to the EYFS. As she has been attending preschool since she is 2 (and this is her 3rd placement) her current learning journal doesn't show her to even be at the level she was at according to the one she left with when she attended her first preschool at 2.