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?

Indeed, when it was first introduced the government said the anticipation was that the vast majority of teachers would progress, free of needless bureaucracy, through the system. They did, of course, hint that it could be quite a money saving wheeze...

sunset, that is the way it should work. However, that is not the way it is being used in practice.

That's the way it's being used in the school where I am on the pay committee but I can see it is open to 'misinterpretation'.

Indeed, when it was first introduced the government said the anticipation was that the vast majority of teachers would progress, free of needless bureaucracy, through the system. They did, of course, hint that it could be quite a money saving wheeze...

This is almost exactly what HE establishments said but ucu, and the support staff unions really tried hard to nail the details. We knew that "nicely, nicely"could easily turn into "no way José" depending on future events, politics, society or management.

I do agree that your unions don't do enough to inform the public of issues in education in a positive way.

Is there an audit of the characteristics of teachers who do and don't get their increment? I mean as in sex or ethnicity, protected characteristics?

Anyway, thanks for letting me join in, I'll keep quiet now

There possibly is a an audit but, as there is no consistency across schools in the implementation - or not - of PRP it probably doesn't mean much.

I think the unions were a bit overwhelmed by the amount of shite that Gove threw their way that it was hard to focus on a single issue. He really did so much to damage education, and the perception of teachers by the public.

When Brexit came around and he was saying the Queen was for Brexit, the whole 'the people have had enough of experts' thing and stabbing Boris in the back and running for PM, people were going 'gosh, he really is a self-promoting, evidence-blind, lying odious shitbag isn't he? And teachers were like 'we tried to tell you!!'

Performance related pay implies that a teacher's only job is to get academic results . In reality 1) no one can get your exam results for you, it's down to the pupils own motivation 2) teachers do much more for children: emotional and mental support, safeguarding - is that not of value?

agree that performance is best measured on how the professional ‘ ‘closes the gap’ between ability and aspiration rather than the brutal, from all sides, of ‘driving up standards’, suggesting we’re all (children and adults) winging it.

I agree. Personally I think the application of the corporate
Model for public services like education and health is fundamentally flawed and inappropriate

When you say closes the gap between ability and aspiration this in itself can be the very flaw!

There are quite a clutch of students out there for whom the problem is little to no aspiration, for a whole host of reasons (and vice versa students who aspire but can't access the curriculum effectively to achieve inflated target grades). We can work hard on teaching them, but if they can't be motivated there really is an uphill battle. As established , I work in a school with no PRP and yet I hear teachers bemoan students for 'stuffing up their data'. I can only imagine what those conversations are like in schools with PRP.

What pisses me off about performance management and targets is that anything you do that isn’t one of your targets is seen as completely irrelevant to any performance management discussion.

What pisses me off about performance management and targets is that anything you do that isn’t one of your targets is seen as completely irrelevant to any performance management discussion.

I would imagine that applies to everyone who has targets to meet. It's certainly not unique to teachers nor even the public sector generally.

I'm sure it does, Kazzy. That doesn't stop it being annoying though, does it?