Action on Performance Management

A leaflet on Performance management is available here

A ballot form for strike action is available to download here

A petition for action is available here

Comments on the new regs for Performance Management

Commentary on the Rewards and Incentives Group’s:
Guidance on Teachers’ and Head teachers’ Performance Management (released October 10th2006)

Making us jump through more hoops is apparently to help reduce workload !
1.7 RIG has sought to develop non-bureaucratic, streamlined and multi-purpose arrangements for teachers’ performance management which build on the existing system and reflect partners’ overarching commitment to raising standards and tackling workload.

Yes, line managers will have to do the dirty work for Heads.
4.11 RIG believes that wherever possible the role of reviewer should be delegated to the teacher’s line manager, i.e. the person who directs, manages and has a post of responsibility for the area in which the reviewee mainly works.

Come prepared, after all there’ll be no union rep at a meeting to set targets & pay.

5.4 The planning and review meeting should be a professional dialogue between the reviewer and the reviewee. Reviewees should play an active part in the meeting making sure they put forward their views about their performance and future development. They may find it helpful to … ensure they have copies of any relevant documentation and evidence, and written feedback on classroom observations. In preparing for the next cycle … consider, as a backdrop to the discussions, the standards which apply to their current career stage and those to which they might progress, and, where the reviewee is eligible for pay progression, the relevant criteria for pay progression set out in the STPCD.
Reviewers need to be ready too – forget teamwork, make it rigorous !
5.5 Reviewers will want to be well prepared for the planning and review meeting, and may find it helpful to … check that all documents to which they will refer at the meeting have been shared with the reviewee, to assist their preparation for it. In preparing for the next cycle … ensure they have consulted with relevant third parties with direct professional knowledge of the reviewee, about possible objectives for the next review cycle, performance criteria, evidence, arrangements for collecting it and support to be provided to the teacher.

There is no limit to the number of “challenging” objectives you could be set.

5.8 Reviewers are responsible for ensuring rigour when objectives are set. Objectives should focus on priorities. They should be time bound, challenging but achievable, and reflect the need for a satisfactory work/life balance. A reviewee’s objectives should reflect any relevant team, year or whole school objectives.

There will be three hours of classroom observation for performance management.

5.10 All classroom observation should be undertaken in accordance with the regulations and the school’s protocol for the conduct of classroom observation and the school’s performance management policy ... There should always be a clear rationale and focus for any classroom observation. There should be no observations in addition to those agreed in the planning and review statement except for those described in paragraphs 5.17 and 5.18 below.
5.11 The regulations specify a limit of three hours in any review cycle for classroom observation, but there is no requirement for the whole three hours to be used.
How can observation be “supportive and developmental” when it is linked to pay?
5.14 Classroom observation should be supportive and developmental … The observation record should be sufficient to meet the needs of individuals and the school (i.e. summarising the focus, what was learnt from the observation, the feedback given and any subsequent … follow-up)

It might be more than 3 hours – Heads and Senior Managers can still “drop-in”!

5.16 - 5.18 If concerns arise during the review cycle or the reviewee’s circumstances change … additional classroom observation, where necessary including observation that exceeds three hours within the review cycle, may be agreed ... Classroom observations by Ofsted or by a local authority using its statutory powers of intervention are also not part of performance management ... Heads have a right to drop in to inform their monitoring of the quality of learning. In large schools they may delegate drop in to appropriate members of the leadership group.

Targets and performance will be judged on data. This is “payment-by-results”.

5.19 The other evidence which will be taken into account will normally be in the form of data or written feedback from specific individuals.

The Headteacher can still step in to overrule line managers’ decisions.

5.27 It is anticipated that head teachers will set up procedures for monitoring and moderating the plans for the forthcoming cycle agreed in planning and review statements. As part of this the head teacher may review planning and review statements …and where necessary instruct the reviewer to prepare a new statement prior to it being finalised and retained.

If you don’t agree with your reviewers’ recommendation, tough!
5.41 The reviewer and reviewee should seek to agree an assessment of the overall performance of the reviewee against the performance criteria agreed at the beginning of the cycle. This should include, where the reviewee is eligible, making a recommendation on pay progression, taking into account the pay progression criteria. If the reviewer and reviewee cannot agree, the reviewer’s view will be recorded.

Holding off on the main scale for now but rationing upper pay scale progression?

5.42 There is no change to the arrangements for pay progression. Annual increments continue to apply as set out in the STPCD for classroom teachers on the main scale. Therefore reviewers do not need to make a recommendation in support of an annual increment. The only exception to this is where the reviewer, in accordance with the school’s pay policy, is considering a discretionary additional point (double jumping) where provided for in the STPCD.
5.43 Reviewers will need to make a recommendation where the reviewee is on the pay scale for post threshold teachers, the pay spine for members of the Leadership Group [or that for ASTs].

Postponed for a year – a year to build a campaign to defeat these regulations!
7.1 The revised regulations will come into force on 1 September 2007. Local authorities, governing bodies and head teachers have until autumn 2007 to put arrangements in place for performance management that reflect the requirements of the revised regulations.
7.2 The first plans made under the revised regulations should be agreed by 31 October 2007 for teachers and by 31 December 2007 for head teachers. 7.3 The first full planning and review statements which record the outcomes of an assessment of performance and, where a teacher is eligible, include a pay recommendation, must be completed by 31 October 2008 for teachers.

Solidarity appeal Chile

Solidarity appeal Chile:

Stop the reprisals against the leaders of the student movement, the "penguin
revolution".

Socialismo Revolucionario, cwi Chile, Wednesday 4 of October 2006

During the course of the year more than 600.000 school students and students have been involved in a protest movement. Lead by secondary school students, the "penguins" as they have become known for their school uniforms, the movement went on to occupy more than a hundred schools and reached out to university students and students in lower grades and included them in the democratic organisation of a protest to demand free and accessible education for everyone.

The movement started as a protest against the poor quality of secondary education, the lack of access for working class youth and the social inequality which the education system reproduces. The protest movement was organised in a most democratic manner. All decisions were taken in general assembly after a debate in the classes and the election of representatives to the general assembly. Representatives had to explain themselves to their comrades and were subject to recall at any time the local assembly chose to do so.

The students demanded better study material in their schools, free bus passes and free school meals but they also demanded that the law governing education, inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship, would be scrapped out of the constitution. Pinochet had written this law, which effectively promotes privatisation of the education, into the Chilean constitution in the last days of his dictatorship. Today everyone across the political spectrum agrees that the education system is failing but no-one, neither the government nor the right wing opposition is prepared to support the reforms the students are asking and guarantee quality and free education.

The authorities, in a bid to gain time, have established a "Presidential Advisory Council of Education" to study the problems. It still has to meet. The students are growing tired of these political games and in some places protests have been rekindled while the authorities are trying to manoeuvre to break the student movement by expelling student leaders from their schools or by buying them with personal and political favours.

One case of repression by the government is what is happening to Simón Sepúlveda, a student of the 4th grade of the Maipu School in Santiago, one of the spokespeople in the general students' assembly for the capital district. He was suspended indefinitely from attending school on the 28th of August.

Another example are the tens of students that have been suspended and the professors that have been sacked at Arcis, a private run university, owned by the Chilean Communist Party and run by employers who used to be members of the MIR in the past. To take revenge for the earlier occupation of the university, the authorities suspended students for several semesters and sacked different professors, several of them of great prestige, including the winner of the last "Gabriel Salazar National History price".

On the fifth of September the students of the Maipu School organised a demonstration to protest against the suspension of Simón Sepúlveda. In fact, all the students of the west of Santiago joined the demonstration to protest against the "Presidential Advisory Council of Education" and to show solidarity with Simón Sepúlveda. This demonstration was brutally suppressed with water cannons and teargas. The police attacked students.

Socialismo Revolucionario, the CWI in Chile, is part of the solidarity campaign with these students. We are spreading information about the state repression, planning actions and asking people to write protest letters. More information in Spanish can be found on http://solidaridadestudiantes.blogspot.com




Underneath you will find a model letter (which you can modify) to send to the Chilean authorities to demand an end to the repression of the student movement and to demand the reinstatement of the young student leader Simón Sepúlveda. At the end of the letter we include a number of addresses.

Thanks for your solidarity

Dear Sir/Madam,

We have been informed by the Committee for a Workers' International, an organisation with a presence in more than 35 countries worldwide, that the young student leader Simón Sepúlveda, who is one of the spokespeople for the student general assembly in the East of Santiago, has been the victim of brutal repression aimed at denying him his fundamental democratic rights. He has been indefinitely suspended from his school "Liceo Polivalente José Ignacio Zenteno" in the Maipu district. This suspension is aimed at denying him the opportunity to speak on behalf of his fellow school students.

We have long standing links with the Chilean community in Europe and beyond, our brothers and sisters who have valiantly fought against the Pinochet dictatorship. We consider it a cause of honour and our most elementary duty as representatives of working class people that we follow events in Chile and will do our utmost to protect the rights of Chilean workers and youth today.

So it is with astonishment that we now find ourselves in a position to have to protest against the measures taken by the Bachelet government against the student movement. In our opinion these measures; the beating of students by the police, the tear gassing of demonstrations and the numerous random arrests, echo the practices of the Pinochet dictatorship.

With this protest letter we want to draw your attention to the case of Simón Sepúlveda who has been suspended from attending classes since the 28th of August. This is clearly a repressive measure aimed at isolating this young student leader.

The indefinite suspension is a threat hanging over the heads of all leaders of the student movement. It seeks to destroy their undeniable right to free speech and thought, their right to represent their fellow students and their right to continue their studies and future.

We are writing to you to demand an immediate end to the suspension of Simón and all other students and teachers who are victims of the repressive measures taken by the Bachelet government and the repressive state apparatus.

Sincerely,

Send to:

1) Chilean President

Mrs Michelle Bachelet

To send an email go to the webpage:

http://www.presidencia.cl/view/viewRegistraUsuario.asp

2) Ministry of education

Mrs. Yasna Provoste

600mineduc@mineduc.cl

3) Mayor of Maipu

Mr. Alberto Undurraga Vicuña

alcaldia@maipu.cl

4) Mrs head of the Liceo Polivalente de José Ignacio Zenteno, Cecilia
Barrenechea

Go the following page to send email:

http://www.codeduc.cl/index.php?option=com_contact&Itemid=3

Please send copies to:

srcitchile@gmail.com y
cwi@worldsoc.co.uk

Karl Debbaut - International Centre - 020 8988 8794