Do schools ever get rid of crap teachers?

[LuLulota]

Just that really .
Despite multiple parent and other staff complaints, poor pupil performance and terrible pastoral care a particular teacher continues to be employed in our school .
Absolutely dreading next year where I anticipate another one of my children will have to ensure a year of shitty instruction .

Poor performing teachers arent usually got rid of. Theyre usually put on a performance improvement plan if the Head/SLT deem it necessary.

Why do you feel qualified to judge this persons performance? If youre a member of staff then you will already know how it works. If youre a parent then you dont have enough information to judge whether a person is performing well enough in their job to need getting rid of.

It can cost 100,000 to get rid of a poor performing teacher...

They get rid of expensive teachers.

Poor performance is ignored (in my experience) if they're cheap. I saw the expensive ones managed out, regardless of their perofrmance.

There are teachers left at my last school that I'd never let teach my children, but they're cheap.

Where did you get that figure from, Unicorn?

All it needs is a few RI/ inadequate observations and you're on your way out.

Reinette why do you think parents have no idea when a teacher is bad? Actually sometimes it stands out a mile when you have a bad teacher to deal with. I have three grown children, and there were a couple of teachers, possibly 3, over the years, who were really bad, and several others who were dull and off-putting, but not really bad. This is out of 60 or 70 teachers...

It’s true though, that it’s more likely that more experienced, more expensive teachers will be managed out and that can happen very quickly.

If this teacher is so poor, it would be expected that the results s/he has are poor. In which case, I would be very surprised if SLT are unaware of performance. If the results are good though, it probably won’t be flagging up so much concern.

Yes they do. Happened at my school. The teacher concerned was put on performance review/capability, didn't step up and in the end senior management 'let' them resign.

I really hope something the same happens Blarney . I'm not joining some type of witch hunt but wonder how many colleague ,parents and outside agency complaints it takes before this happens.

@DressAndGo it's just a rough amount bandied around at heads conferences.

In reality, it varies hugely. But it's not an easy process.

@claraschu I've had 5 dc through school and 2 still in the system. I'm also a parent governor. I've listened to parents complain for years about bad teachers and when I've looked into it 99% of the time the teaching is actually within expected standards its just the teacher isn't good at communicating with parents or a student teacher personality clash.

Parents are not privy to teachers career progress reviews and the progress that each class makes. They can only say that their child has not made the progress they feel they should or that their child doesnt think that teacher treats them the same etc A parents own personal opinions on a teacher are not evidence a teacher should be got rid of because they believe theyre crap.

Reinette There are stupid and prejudiced parents out there, yes, and I would never say a teacher should lose a job because of my opinion. However, I also can tell that certain teachers are not very good.

The jargon of "within expected standards", "career progress reviews", etc, and the fact that you as a parent governor think 99% of parents' opinions are biased and invalid is part of the problem.

the fact that you as a parent governor think 99% of parents' opinions are biased and invalid is part of the problem

No it is not my opinion its based on many years experience of looking into parents complaints and comparing it with real hard evidence. Teachers are practically stalked, they cant even sneeze without someone in SLT knowing. Many teachers are not performing as well as they were when they joined the job due to the extra workload expected now but theyre not bad teachers in the majority of cases.

My personal experience, not opinion I have seen actual evidence, is that 1 parent starts grumbling about their child not doing as well as they think they should and all of a sudden you have 6 other parents chiming in with the same complaint.

When its looked at by governors, who look at real evidence of student attainment and not their personal opinion, quite often the teaching is ok with most children across the form/year and even some children who's parents have complained is ok and within expected levels.

Its rare to come across a really bad teacher and its certainly not a parents right to suggest that teacher be sacked. I'm pretty sure everyone has days at work where they make huge mistakes and even say the wrong thing but I would bet you wouldn't find many people demanding you're sacked. Why do parents think its ok to say this sort of thing about teachers?

I had a parent who wanted me out as her eldest daughter got an A in my subject and an A* in everything else. She refused to have her other daughter taught by me .... I was allegedly lazy, useless, didn't teach properly etc. Sadly school did as she requested and I did not teach her other Dd.
I also had to spend 6 months showing lesson plans,mid and long term plans.
Why the A? I teach English and whilst technically accurate you need flair to get an A* in it .... she was predicted an A and got one.

Not sure why the bold

Just to be clear: I have never asked for a teacher to be sacked. In fact, I have only once complained about a teacher (in a mild sort of way and about a specific issue).

I fundamentally disagree with you though, because I think that "evidence of student attainment" is only one (and not the most important) factor to be considered when assessing how wonderful a teacher is. Some of my best teachers did not have classes full of children who consistently performed well on standardised tests.

I still know which teachers aren't very good. They are the teachers who kill children's interest in a subject, the teachers who resent kids who are very good at maths, the teachers who repeatedly give out whole class punishments, the teachers who are lacking in understanding of a child with serious anxiety problems, the teachers who repeatedly give inappropriate homework, the teachers who make children dread their subject...

There are certainly poor teachers out there, but it is difficult for parents to make a definitive judgement because they just don't have enough info or the full picture to be able to say so accurately.

I think if parents have concerns, they should put it in writing to the school and ask what the school procedure is for such complaints. You then do have to trust the school (who have or can access the full picture) to follow up and choose appropriate action. As a parent you won't be told if and what any action is. You can of course complain again, but in the end, it is rightly not the job of parents to decide staff should go, only to report their personal experiences.

Re the question of whether staff are got rid of.....well yes they are, through various means. As others have said, it can take a while to establish if someone is officially incompetent - most people who face complaints might have some issues but these don't make them incompetent or bad teachers overall. If there's an individual issue it can usually be easily addressed. Broader failures, such as subject knowledge, class control, not covering the course or preparing exam classes etc are often hard to pin down and take a long time. Schools do get a sense though where these are serious and targets can be put in place as part of a programme which is effectively disciplinary. People need a chance to improve and help to do so.

What people often report happens, is if a school decides a staff member isn't up to the job (often justified but sometimes unfair) then what they often do is set a targets and monitoring regime which is unpleasant, unachievable and involves constant checking so a horrible working experience is created for that memeber of staff - with the goal being that they won't have to sack them (which will take ages and ages) but the staff memeber will be effectively driven out and resign. There are few actual sackings for incompetence but people are driven out - sometimes with good references to just get rid of them, sometimes after being off long term with stress and sometimes after a long improvement process which is unpleasant.

In my view, schools are not always good at addressing problems early on. When they do, in my experience, most are minor and sorted quickly, but some which are serious are not handled well, because the school essentially want to get rid of someone and don't always treat that person right in the process. It is absolutely right for children's education that incompetent people should be removed, but processes and protocols should be used correctly.

Rather long winded, but yes, every year a number of people are forced to leave...and it will be far more than are actually sacked. Many will go and work in another school.

Its very hard for schools to get rid of bad teachers and they usually give up trying if the teacher won't go voluntarily. Teacher unions are just to powerful. And if they do go voluntarily they have to be bribed with a 'good' reference so another unlucky school will get burdened with the problem. Its a bad system.

The teacher concerned was put on performance review/capability, didn't step up and in the end senior management 'let' them resign

That's the problem there: letting teachers resign rather than removing them for poor performance (after giving the ample opportunity and support to improve, obviously)

Fewer than 20 teachers have been dismissed on performance grounds in England in the last ten years. I think most teachers in England are bloody marvellous, but no-one could seriously think that there have only been 20 poor performers in that time...?

At the school the DC were at before we moved there was one teacher that everyone dreaded getting. Everyone seemed to accept that their DC would have them once during their time at primary school, but there were serious complaints from parents when it looked like one class would have her twice. But isn't that awful? That there is a teacher regarded as "the crap one"?

Firstly it is now much quicker to go through a competency process than it used to be, it can easily be done in less then 6 months now. Yes it is putting the teacher under intense pressure. However the whole point is that by putting them under pressure, they hopefully will up their game and become good teachers or they will get to the end of the competency process and be sacked. It does happen but I accept that many do resign before the ultimate point where the process says sacked.
As far as references are concerned, any reference has to be factually correct or the person writing it can be in trouble. If you as manager get a reference that just says name, what their position was and when they worked in an organisation, then that should be a very large red flag for the person appointing to think very carefully about the reference and maybe have a chat with the person who wrote the reference.

Amazed at the defensiveness here by one or two people.

Sorry, but sometimes you do come across teachers who just plain suck. This goes for practitioners in most professions; why would teaching somehow magically be different?

Reinette - that is exactly the situation. A well informed and clear post. Thank you.

Perform standards must be hard to measure around here because the parents get tutors when the teachers can't teach very well.

Is there any outside body who can be contacted?
The school just seems to have its hands tied

This is more than ineffectual teaching, the class room management runs close to emotional abuse. Kids are scared to be in the class.

As far as references are concerned, any reference has to be factually correct or the person writing it can be in trouble. If you as manager get a reference that just says name, what their position was and when they worked in an organisation, then that should be a very large red flag for the person appointing to think very carefully about the reference and maybe have a chat with the person who wrote the reference.

This isn’t true in the corporate world where it is often standard just to confirm that someone worked there at specific dates, mostly to avoid any chance of being accused of inaccuracies. If I am asked for a reference I have to refer it to HR and am not allowed to do it myself despite being the person who knows the team member best. Calls have to be routed to HR too who will just reiterate what very bland data is given. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is the case in other sectors too.

Anyone who argues that you can judge whether a teacher is 'good' based purely on student exam results or 'falling within boundaries of expected standards' is ignoring all the other skills that make some teachers particularly effective and / or well-liked/inspiring.
claraschu said it all very well. There are simply some teachers who do the 'bare minimum' and push the boundaries of how little they can do but would still meet those 'expected standards'.

Not many, but there are plenty in SLT who bemoan how difficult it is to get rid of ineffective, but 'on paper good enough' staff!

Thankfully there are very few of those sort of staff around, but they do exist and it should be possible to move them on (I'm aware of situations where some staff have even been moved on through promotion - to a role with more admin/paperwork and less contact with children (out of the classroom!) It's effectively rewarding their lack of personal skills with children and colleagues. Or worse, they are good at selling themselves in interview and their previous school is so desperate to be rid of them, they give a good reference!). Grim.