Performance Management – Bayley’s Top Tips
Reviewer

Performance management arrangements will make important changes to the process of agreeing CPD objectives. At an initial planning meeting, targets - confidential to you, the teacher and the headteacher - are agreed for the year, alongside the evidence that will be collected. For most teachers, the central evidence is likely to be based upon up to three hours of classroom observation.
There will be a mid-year review meeting and the cycle will be completed by a review and planning meeting that will assess performance over the year, look forward to the targets for the following year and, where the reviewee is eligible, make pay recommendations. Each of these meetings will usually be conducted by line managers to whom the headteacher has delegated her or his authority.

What do you need to do to get ready?

  • Make sure you have read and understood your school policy - changes in the procedure mean that, in some circumstances, you will have direct responsibility for forming pay recommendations.
  • Make sure you know what you are expected to do. Your headteacher should have decided how to introduce the revised policy with a view to an October 31 deadline, so ask if you are unsure of anything.
  • Make sure you are clear about lesson observation procedures. If you are not clear, now is the time to get guidance or training.
  • Make sure you have been clearly briefed by the headteacher on the school targets which will form the main basis for setting individual targets. This link with school performance is central to the policy.
  • Listen carefully and check back with staff at your initial meeting. Targets need to take account of their professional aspirations and work/life balance - something that is not only an important entitlement but central to the success of the policy.
  • Make sure targets relate to clear measurable outcomes. For example, if you agree a teacher should improve their marking, suggest they adhere to department policy, mark regularly and provide a fixed quota of student feedback.
  • At the end of the cycle you may be making recommendations about a colleague's pay. If you think there may be difficult issues with this, prepare in advance and discuss it with your headteacher.