We need to get rid of performance-related pay for teachers

[noblegiraffe]

We need to get rid of performance-related pay for teachers and reinstate automatic pay progression up the pay scale don't we?

1. Any attempts to measure teacher perfomance are flawed. Payment by results? Top set teachers are laughing, bottom set teachers crying. Payment by observation outcomes? We know these are subjective nonsense to the point that Ofsted have scrapped them. So what could be realistically used that would be fair?

2. In times of extreme budget restraint such as now, schools will be more likely to hold people on lower pay points for spurious reasons

3. Potential lack of pay progression could put off new entrants to teaching in a time of a severe teacher shortage

4. If the only realistic way to see your pay increase to reasonable levels is through promotion, then we will see teachers taking promoted posts without the relevant experience and before they are really ready

5. If you have been teaching for a full extra year, then that experience is valuable and should be rewarded even if it can't quite be quantified

Any objections?

The trouble with targets like you describe kitty is that they can be blocked (usually unwittingly ) by someone else.

I had a target a few years back which I couldn't achieve because I needed some specific training. The member of staff responsible for releasing me consistently blocked this training (long story).

I had another target which failed simply because any request to deliver the training I said I would deliver didn't interest the person in charge of doing the training calendar. Targets which seemed pretty achievable soon went on the back burner and became forgotten projects. Didn't mean I didn't progress in other ways...

And what about nebulous stuff like workplace bullying? It happens and prevents people from achieving targets.

In addition PRP might make others even more manically focused on performance targets, even if the impact on colleagues because of their new initiative was to increase their workload! that happens all the time and I imagine is even worse if pay is attached!! I don't fancy working even harder to secure someone else a pay rise.

The thing with 3 targets agreed at the start of the year is that they focus on a narrow set of things and don't actually recognise anything else that you do.

So one of my targets this year I'm currently failing because the meetings I need to go to to do the thing I'm supposed to do keep being arranged for times I'm not in school. However, I am doing some other stuff. Come appraisal time, the entire focus will be on the thing that I've not done. Absolutely nothing will go on the record about the other things that I've done that have come up as the year has gone on.

And nothing saps your goodwill for the other stuff like being denied a pay rise due to things beyond your control, despite you working your arse off.

I got out of teaching last summer, I'd had enough, was fed up of working longer hours than my DH for a third of the pay (and having to pay for my own Xmas party, stationary and resources - things he has never had to do). I was a great teacher but can't see myself going back full time. There is a very real recruitment crisis, I've had 3 calls from former colleagues since half term asking me to apply for jobs in their schools. I have worked in one of these schools and a few years ago they would get 100+ applicants for each post.
I saw no increase in standards after performance related pay was introduced. All the heads I worked under had no issues dealing with under performing staff before PRP, if you weren't up to it you were regularly observed and given training and support until improvements were made (or you moved on). After PRP I saw disillusioned young enthusiastic teachers waiting months for their pay rises to go through, nervous that the current financial restraints on schools will mean heads can't move them up even if they want to.
One of the tipping points for me was last year going over my SATs predictions, a clueless SLT member quizzing me why one child was not making expected progress. I pointed out mum had recently died after a long illness and the family were all struggling. I was met with the response 'we've got 2 months to get her back on track, we can run interventions during art and PE'. It didn't happen, I didn't give a toss about her SATs, I did care about the child. I do wonder if a less experienced teacher needing to demonstrate progress would have reacted in the same way.

Many teachers, historically, have not had a 2:1 or better. In fact some don’t have degrees at all

Eh? Without researching, I can't tell you the date it became compulsory, but you have certainly had to have a degree since before I started my B.Ed well over 30 years ago. Who are all these teachers (in the state sector) without degrees?

fed up of working longer hours than my DH for a third of the pay

Yep, that's me. At Christmas I will be leaving teaching and not returning.

Noblegiraffe and Penngwn, your posts worry me in that as Chair of Governors of an outstanding school there is no way that the things you describe would go on in the schools I am involved with. Objectives are set for all teachers and TAs and they do include attainment and progress targets where it is appropriate, but they based on realism. Performance management in education was first put in place in 2001 and what you describe are issues that were talked about in the training given then.
Noblegiraffe do you not have meetings every term to discuss progress? If you do then your lack of progress should be being highlighted and a decision made on how to get it back on track or how to change the objective to something that is appropriate and attainable.
Penngwyn, words fail me if objectives are being set that mean so little, until no doubt at the end of the year, they are rolled out as a negative.

I once had to get a child unable to access GCSE in most other subjects a grade C in a subject I taught. He had to have a TA with him in all lessons; bless him, he enjoyed the subject but he was going to get less than a C and he did. The rest of the class hit or exceeded target. I was told I had failed my targets, despite never agreeing to the numerical ones anyway. A colleague was denied pay progression because a member of her class went to prison and therefore did not get a C. I am not even making this shit up. This, among other things, is why I gave up a job I actually enjoyed and was good at.

I might go into my school tomorrow and kiss my head!

(Not my actual own head , my headteacher)

I actually agree with staff seeing challenging targets for their students. I have worked in a school which set whole school and departmental targets everyone said were unattainable, but which we met within two years. I had what I thought were two unattainable targets set last year, achieved one of them and was congratulated on almost teaching the second. Had I not been at the top of the pauscale I would have progressed. I am though, which is why I need to make the point, again, about the system not being PRP. Much better, IMO, to focus on improving student outcomes, with a realistic appraisal of performance against aspirational targets, than setting targets which are effectively a to do list, like write a SoW, where you don't appraise or reflect on performance, you just tick off a job.

I feel the same about my Head in fact. And I have quantifiable targets.

FFS nearly choked at the governorsplaining SMART targets.

Noble had it in the OP Top set teachers are laughing, bottom set teachers crying.

The biggest indicator of student outcome is the parents, their socioeconomic status, education levels and expectation. Asian education is often seen as better, because the parents expect their DC to do better.

I am in Alternative Provision. Our students often arrive during year 11, having been in isolation for a term or more. Or not in school at all. Their targets are based on Att8 estimates from their KS2 fine level. If you use appropriate targets, it shouldn't matter if you have top or bottom sets.

I had a target a few years back which I couldn't achieve because I needed some specific training.

But that is where I would also say that because that target is based on someone or something else determining if you achieve it or not, it is not an example of what I was talking about.
In an ideal world, training would not be dependent on a PM target but something ongoing anyway (I laugh as I have not been on any external CPD in 5 years including for the new exams either)

noble I would love for all the good things that we do, to be acknowledged but it also sits uneasy with me that that should be directly related to pay. Music teachers spending hours on long concerts outside of school hours vs. a core subject teaching 6 times as many children or a department of two members of staff (mine) vs. a department of 11 (English).

I’d like objectives to be more personalised, if we have to have them

It's actually not accurate about topsets. If they have indicator grades of 8s and 9s they may be more difficult to achieve...it's not just about the raw results, generally. if you are allowed to set as a target 'get 15 grade 9s' and no one checks and discovers that 25 of them are 'meant' to get that level....

However, I still come back to the idea that indicator grades etc are based on statistical likely outcomes so any target that says they should ALL meet them is mathematically flawed.

The biggest indicator of student outcome is the parents

Sad, but true. The sad fact is that the schools which really need the best teachers are those that are most unlikely to be able to recruit them.

PRP-progression is not going to help these schools recruit or retain good teachers. Regardless of what people may believe, teachers are not stupid.

How do you judge a teacher's performance?
“Abundant research evidence (ASA, 2014) indicates only about 1 to 14% offer educational outcome can be attributed to schools.”

For example, teacher effect, but there are still many other factors, such as class sizes, resources and school budgets can influence a teacher’s impact. “The remaining 86 to 99% out-of-school factors are outside the control of teachers and schools.” (Coleman et al, 1966)

Lesson observation scores rated approximately half of the teachers (48% in English; 54% in Maths) in the top two performance quintiles if assigned the highest performing students, whilst a lowly 37% of English and 18% of Maths teachers who were assigned the lowest performing students were highly rated in classroom observations. (US based research)

One of my targets has to be related to the performance of a exam class. Last year it was a Post 16 retake group. For the whole year I didn't have an accurate register so didnt know who should have been in group therefore was unable to provide invention to ensure success. Unsurprisingly I failed that target. As I am on UP3, I don't get a pay rise but could have been put on "capability" if I hadn't passed my other targets.

I saw on twitter earlier something about performance management targets being measured by Progress 8 measures for that class. This makes absolutely no sense at all.

I have thought of a way of solving the problem.

Head teachers should have an annual target that says "Ensure X% of teaching staff are supported to achieve the standards necessary to be eligible for pay progression".

X could be set at a fair and realistic figure of, say, 95.

That way you could be guaranteed that teachers would be set realistic targets.

Heads should have a PM target related to teacher turnover, as should academy chains, LAs, the DfE and Ofsted. That might focus their minds a bit more.

In FE there are student retention targets, staff retention targets make sense. Same with completion and attainment.