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Performance Pay

PERFORMANCE PAY

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT – A NATIONAL ISSUE DEMANDS NATIONAL ACTION !

Martin Powell-Davies (Lewisham NUT)

T HE NEW REGULATIONS being introduced this year are not just “more of the same”. They are a serious escalation of a performance pay and monitoring regime which has already done so much harm in schools.

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The 2007 STRB report recommended that pay progression is linked to performance management for main scale teachers too.

erformance management and the pay ‘threshold’ were always intended to be the mechanism to force performance-related pay on teachers. When they were first introduced, Socialist Party Teachers warned how they would be used to bully teachers into taking on even more work for fear of not getting a pay increase, and how bullying managers could use them to divide and demoralise staff. With others, we helped to initiate “School Teachers Opposed to Performance Pay”. While our union leaders failed to act, STOPP organised a national demo and rally in London in 2000.

Without industrial action, our campaign could not prevent performance pay being introduced. But it did help persuade New Labour to tread more carefully. To start with, nearly every teacher crossed the threshold. But, every year, the noose has been tightening. More teachers are being told their performance isn’t good enough to make the next step up the Upper Pay Scale – especially from U2 to U3.

But New Labour and their advisers think schools are still being too generous! Under their new performance management regulations, schools will be expected to set teachers more ‘challenging’ objectives and make more ‘robust’ pay decisions. OFSTED and the new School Improvement Partners will be used to make sure Heads are doing what the Government expects of them.

Line managers, rather than Heads, will be expected to do the dirty work. At the end of each performance management review meeting, they will have to say whether they think members of their team should be allowed to progress up the pay spine or not. Instead of any genuine discussion about teaching and learning, these meetings will now be dominated by pay. Teamwork and morale, so vital to a successful school, will be undermined.

It looked like these threats would only apply to Upper Pay Spine teachers at first, but the 2007 School Teachers’ Review Body report recommended that pay progression is linked to performance management for main scale teachers as well. This will apparently help “teachers to prepare for threshold assessment ” (!) and schools to “distinguish more effectively between unsatisfactory performance meriting … withholding of pay progression and serious underperformance meriting capability procedures ”.

The threat of capability procedures is not an empty one either. The RIG advice (5.38) states that “if serious weaknesses are identified … performance management should cease and the school’s capability procedure be substituted”. Heads have been specifically advised at training sessions that they should consider taking such an approach with UPS3 teachers that are no longer making the grade. This alone - along with the pressure on ‘reviewers’ to be firm with ‘reviewees’ -answers those who argue that UPS3 teachers won’t care about these changes.

There are other threats that should have been given more publicity. For example, Regulation 16 allows any reviewer with concerns to call a ‘revision meeting’ and set new targets mid-cycle. Of course, neither the law, nor the model RIG policy, set any limit on the number of targets to be set.

Even where NUT groups can secure our policy of a maximum of three objectives, the problem remains of what those objectives actually say. The NUT guidelines released last year correctly recommended that “objectives should not contain commitments to achieve certain percentages of test or examination results”. Unfortunately, the same statement appears to be missing from the latest NUT model policy for schools.

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To show … that we are engaged in a serious fight, local approaches must be combined with national action.

ailure to show sufficient “pupil progress” is already the commonest cause of rejection of pay progression. In New Labour’s league-table dominated system of competing schools, this will be even more common in future. Unless we organise an urgent fightback, every teacher faces “payment by results”. Staff will end up opting to work where results are easier to get, adding to the growing polarisation between schools.

Performance management isn’t just about pay, it’s also about control. It is bound up with the incessant nit-picking observations that so demoralise and stress teachers. How can such observation be “supportive and developmental” when it’s linked to pay?

The latest blow is the revelation in the latest “NUT News” that any limit on ‘drop-in’ classroom observations has been dropped from the original draft RIG model policy. Teachers could apparently face a visit from a manager at any time – with the prospect of a ‘revision meeting’ being called if they are unhappy with what they see.

Of course the RIG unions will do nothing to advertise these dangers. The ATL’s advice to its school reps states that “local NUT representatives will not necessarily have the same information and understanding of the proposals that representatives of the social partnership will have.” We’d hope not! But has the NUT actually done enough to explain to teachers what is really at stake?

The Executive’s amendment (15.1) accepts the danger of performance pay applying even to main scale staff but reassures us with the thought that the Secretary of State didn’t make any formal change to their pay arrangements – for now ! For them, any consideration of national action is left for when “additional” measures are introduced. By then the new regulations will be in place.

Cambridgeshire’s amendment, reflecting the views of some in both the Socialist Teachers Alliance and the CDFU, calls for school and Division action to be supported where unacceptable policies are introduced or pay progression unacceptably denied. However, consideration of national action is postponed until “there is evidence of general support for such a strategy amongst members”.

But this is really an excuse for continued delay. PRP seeks to divide and isolate teachers. It is best fought by collective action. Of course, as on workload, we must encourage members to take local action. But, to show teachers, and the Government, that we are engaged in a serious fight, local approaches must be combined with national action.

The strategy of relying on individual school reps and Division officers to fight local battles alone will not succeed. As on TLRs, we may win some local victories, but many members lack the confidence to ‘go it alone’ in fighting battles that they rightly recognise are part of a national issue. But, if the Union led from the front and held a ballot for national action over performance pay and the workload driven by it, members would give support. That was certainly what the 96% YES vote in our indicative ballot of Lewisham NUT members demonstrated. That’s why we hope our amendment 15.3 will be reached, and passed, by Conference. No more excuses, give a lead, take action!

Workload and performance management

TEACHERS ARE BEING GROUND DOWN by the pressures of intolerable workload and a divisive system of performance monitoring, targets & observations.
Our stressful lives are bad for our health, our families and the children we teach too. Let’s take action together to call a halt!
MAKE THE GUIDELINES STICK IN YOUR SCHOOL
THE NUT’S NEW GUIDELINES give every school group the chance to take a stand on workload.
The updated policy covers a whole range of issues that schools can use to select their own particular priorities. Teachers need to identify what needs to be changed in their school and - if nothing is done - be ready to take strike action in their school.
Where schools pursued similar action over TLRs, teachers won significant victories in opposing cuts to their pay. Let’s see what gains can be made in reducing workload!
ORGANISE A SCHOOL MEETING
Organise a union meeting at a time when most people can attend. Ask colleagues to come ready with suggestions. Decide on some priorities that most members think something needs to be done about. Use the NUT guidelines to suggest changes that will help with your ‘work/life balance’.
NEGOTIATE WITH YOUR HEAD
Approach your Head with your priorities. See what changes can be negotiated. But don’t just take “NO” for an answer! If talks fail, get NUT members together again. Get ready for strike action - first of all with an indicative ballot - to win your demands.

MAKE YOUR DEMANDS:
* Our right to a work/life balance If a particular school procedure or policy causes unreasonable workload, insist that it is renegotiated.
* No more demands on our time If the schools introduces a new initiative, insist other work is dropped instead.
 Give us a break! Demand your legal right to a complete break at lunchtime. ASCL, the Secondary Heads union, thinks ‘half an hour would be perfectly reasonable’. Teachers don’t!
* Give us the time to do the job Timetabled PPA time for all – plus extra ‘Leadership and Management time’ for all teachers with additional duties.
* Plan for teaching, not monitoring If planning demands are unreasonable in your school, insist that policy changes.
* One staff meeting a week Our time is precious. NUT policy calls for just one 60 minute meeting on average.
* Provide admin staff for admin tasks Refuse tasks outside contractual duties.
* No more than 3 observations a year Insist on a school protocol that allows no more than three observations a year
* No more than 3 performance targets Insist on a performance management policy that meets the NUT’s guidelines.
* No class size that breaks NUT limits NUT guidelines are clear – a maximum of thirty, less for early years, mixed age etc.

BUT LET’S CALL A NATIONAL STRIKE TOO !
NUT CONFERENCE VOTED for local AND national action on workload – we need both !
Local negotiations, backed up by school-based action, can win important gains. But this isn’t a local problem, it’s a national one.
The Government promised us a decent ‘work-life balance’. Their own surveys show there have been “no statistically significant changes” in teachers’ working hours.
More staff denied a pay rise
Their new performance management regulations will make matters even worse. Schools will be expected to set teachers more ‘challenging’ objectives and make more ‘robust’ pay decisions. More staff will be demoralised and denied their pay rise; more will accept unreasonable workload so as to keep in line for salary progression.
Line managers, rather than Heads, will be expected to do the dirty work. At the end of each performance management review meeting, they will have to say whether they think members of their team should be allowed to progress up the pay spine or not. Instead of any genuine discussion about teaching and learning, these meetings will now be dominated by pay. Teamwork and morale, so vital to a successful school, will be undermined.
It looked like these threats would only apply to Upper Pay Spine teachers at first, but the 2007 School Teachers’ Review Body report recommends that pay progression is linked to performance management for main scale teachers as well. This will apparently help “teachers to prepare for threshold assessment” (!) and schools to “distinguish more effectively between unsatisfactory performance meriting … withholding of pay progression and serious underperformance meriting capability procedures”. Unless we organise an urgent fightback, this means every teacher faces “payment by results”.
For a one-day national strike
The National Union has to answer these threats with national action. A clear one-day national strike by NUT members would put teachers’ grievances firmly in the headlines and warn the Government to back down from its plans to bully and divide staff and ration pay rises through performance pay for every teacher.
National action would also raise the spirits of members who aren’t yet confident to take action on workload in their school alone. The two approaches go together.
Lobby your NUT delegates
As well as calling for a ballot on toughened workload guidelines, 2005 & 2006 NUT Conferences also instructed the NUT Executive to ballot for such a national strike. Socialist Party teachers helped win that demand – teachers should call on their local delegates to back it in 2007 too!
Unfortunately, the NUT Executive has failed to carry out this part of the policy because a majority lack the confidence that teachers would vote for national action. But if the NUT put out a call for a national strike against performance pay, and the workload and bullying that come with it, teachers would respond positively. That’s exactly what a recent indicative ballot to judge support for national action - carried out by Lewisham NUT Division - found. The Union leaders need to show some leadership!
The civil service union, the PCS, with Socialist Party members playing an important role in its leadership, have recently successfully won a ballot and called national strike action. They linked different threats to jobs, pay and conditions into one national action. The NUT can do the same.
Teachers can’t afford to hold back and let the Government pile more pressure on us. Let’s take action – both local and national – to turn back the tide!