assessment/evaluation of primary school teachers

[MightyAphrodite]

I need some help from teachers in primary education....I'm working on a translation from Greek concerning quality in education and in particular policy regarding how primary school teachers are assessed/evaluated. Are there such things as school advisors/inspectors in UK? How and how often are teachers assessed? In Greece the school advisor's role is just that - advisory, and inspection is a dirty word (and quality hard to find...).

All comments appreciated

All schools and therefore teachers are inspected by OFSTED in the UK. They inspect schools every three years and give the school a rating such as satisfactory or good etc. Teachers are also appraised by a colleague in school every year. In this case teachers would pick a focus for an observer to give them feedback so they can improve an area of their teaching.

We have a School Improvement Partner (formally a Link Inspector who works closely with a school) School advisers employed by the Local Education Authority - Ofsted (Office for standards in Education who carry out school inspections) HMI of Education -ISI (Independent school inspection)
How often? varies greatly so no definitive answer I'm afraid

Uk Primary school teachers are routinely assessed by:

*Subject leaders, using lesson observations, work scrutiny, pupil interviews, monitoring of assessment, planning, etc, etc.

*Headteachers, using same criteria.

*LEA - particularly in Y2 and Y6 regarding assessment procedures.

*Ofsted, roughly every 3 years, using all of the criteria in the first bullet point.

Have I missed anything out? Basically, we have scrutiny coming out of our ears in the UK.

Ah yes, forgot about SIPs ;-)

Thanks for all your comments - great help. I'd no idea just how much assessment there is in English schools. Is Ofsted independent of the LEA? Who do they answer to? Who are subject leaders? Here, believe it or not, there is no assessment whatsoever. A teacher is a teacher for life, no matter what. No one dares to ask a teacher what he does, or how he does it - a bit more scrutiny here is long overdue, but the union is so powerful (and Greece in such dire economic straits) that nothing is likely to change any time soon.

Ofsted answer to no one but God, although they ocassionally speak to the Government

Subject leaders are members of staff-usually but not always on the Leadership team-who are responsible for standards in their given subject. I am Maths subject leader for my school, which means I have to ensure that standards in maths are as high as they can possibly be. As part of this, I observe maths lessons in the school and report and grade the lessons I see, setting targets for improvement. If a teacher is graded as "satisfactory" that means they are not! ( Don't ask, satisfactory is apparently not good enough!) and unsatisfactory is even worse! If this happens teachers are, in theory supported and helped to improve. In practice some are moved on, some resign and some ( although not many) are sacked.

Wow! Are we really talking about primary education here?! OK, so not many teachers are sacked, but just the idea that someone cares about what you're teaching the children is surely an impetus to teach 'well'. Are different subjects taught by different teachers at primary level?

In my school the older children (10 & 11 years old ) have subject teachers for English Maths Science & French but this isn't usual in primary schools.

Literacy, Maths, Science, ICT, PE, History, Geography, Music, RE, PSHCE, DT and a language of the school's choosing....

I am bound to have forgotten something.....

Feenie -do they have different teachers for all those lessons???

HMIE in Scotland: www.hmie.gov.uk/

But very similar!

Generally primary teachers cover all subjects ( about 12 at last count!) Sometimes schools have a "specialist" teacher-we have one for science who covers the management time I have, who might cover one or possibly two subjects to release teachers for their PPA time.

I'm sure the VAST majority of teachers aim to teach well, whether they are observed or not. But teaching is a profession where the goalposts always seem to be moving, in what we teach, how we are expected to teach it and sometimes it is hard to keep up! And to be honest, there are some teachers who "fell into" the profession under the mistaken impression that we work from 9-3 and it's a doddle! Actually teaching is bloody hard work and it's even harder if you don't really want to be doing it!

MightyAphrodite - there is OFSTED. Every three years or so. We have them in our school right now - today and tomorrow. needless to say I am now on my 3rd glass of something strong tonight!

Same teacher for all the lessons here MA, unless you occasionally get a visiting specialist - currently I don't teach music, but may well do next year if his funding is cut

for Hulababy

Information overload! OK. So, are all teachers in school from 9 - 3? Can you leave when your teaching is over? What other duties does a primary teacher have? How many hours a week do you work? I teach English in a Greek primary school and when my 4 or 5 lessons are over, I go home - there isn't a working day as such, you just go in, do your hours and go home. It's different for class teachers of course. They generally work 8 - 2, but might come in an hour later, or leave an hour earlier once or twice a week.

I generally arrive around 7.30 and leave about 4.30, but often bring work home( this evening I had 3 lesson observations to write up) . I also work at the weekend ( I teach yr 5/6 and marking one set of literacy books can take around 3-4 hrs!) We teach from 8.45 to 3.15 with 15 mins for break and 50 mins for lunch. One afternoon a week we don't teach, this is for planning , preparation and assessment but is never, ever enough!.
Some teachers work more hours, some less. It depends on the workload you have, the classes you teach, the ethos of the school, how efficient you are, whether you have additional responsibilities ( as well as maths co-ordinator, I'm RE co-ordinator, assessment leader, mentor, senior teacher and 1001 other things too!

We have directed time which means we have to be in school at a certain time and can leave at a certain time. This time varies from school to school as it reflects the different start and end times. Directed time also covers staff meetings, training days, parents evenings, etc.
In theory we can go home once our directed time is over, but it is very rare as there is just so much to do. Most of us at my school work 50+ hours a week (not all at school as we can take some work home)

PS - our contracts say 1265 hours of directed time per year. We calculated we work around double that.

Greece is trying to refashion the education system along (northern) european lines, but teachers here are never going to work as hard as you all obviously do. Please keep on commenting. Got to go to bed now (greece is 2 hours ahead and it's nearly tomorrow already). I'll keep on posting questions though, because this is all really interesting.

Thank you SpanielEyes. It was horrendous, but it is over. The verdict was, in the end, fair.

Thanks Feenie,

Really useful info. How is the 'monitoring of assessment' done? Do you have any links to websites that provide information on this?