Why Target An “Achievable” Number Of Pupils To Progress When You Can Aim For 100%?
Performance management is a waste of time and effort, says The Primary Head. The solution? Think big…
I’ve been on both sides of the appraisal system. I’ve been the one being force-fed targets, and I’ve been the one holding the spoon.
And over the course of my career, it’s fair to say that the school performance management system has been a waste of time and effort.
Shifting targets
I have never felt the pinch of accountability as a result of performance management. My appraisal booklet, diary, greeting card, online management account tracker system or whatever was always filled in and then dutifully ignored until the review date came along and reminded me that it was ‘important’.
Yet I don’t think I was ever a bad teacher as a result, never considered any of my heads to be ineffective – and who knows, maybe I’m not a total chump of a headteacher either. So, what gives? The only argument I can come up with is this formula: ‘success = teaching + hard work x (appreciation + support) ÷ ∞ time’.
You will notice that a ‘legitimate paper trail’ is nowhere to be seen here. A genuine reason why teachers fail to relentlessly refer back to their performance management document is not because they are coasting accountability deniers, but because they have been too busy dealing with the rather relevant job of educating.
Educating is darn tricky because it never lies still, not even for a moment. The minute your targets, objectives, actions, success criteria and progress measures have been typed, saved and printed, they are out of date. So what to do?
Aim high. Really high.
Liberate yourself
Forget setting numerical targets. Why fix the system and engineer an ‘aspirational but achievable target of ‘x%’ of pupils to make good progress? Go for 100%.
Do it. It’s liberating. Challenge yourself. Commit to it. What if you manage it? By setting any number less than 100% you’re actually intending on leaving some children behind. (I know no one really thinks like that, but it’s kind of true).
I’m aware that progress is not a straight line. Everyone has peaks and troughs, but if you find something that works, keep using it and see how far it will take your pupils. You don’t refer back to your appraisal targets and say, “Well, that’ll do for her”.
I guarantee that this ‘sky’s the limit’ approach will make you more interested in your achievement target than a set target handed down from governors. It will also allow you to embrace your creativity when it comes to setting your teaching target.
No longer will you be a slave to the whole-school system of, oh, I don’t know, ‘Building Bloom’s Learning High Mindfulness Capacity Questioning Strategy Wheel’ (or ‘BBLHMCQSW’ for short). Instead, you’ll be trying out anything that works.
You’ll take to Twitter like a duck to water. TeachMeets will be where you go to get inspiration. And if you’re the only one in the school doing whatever it is you saw being talked about during the TeachMeet down the pub last Friday night, then great – nothing like a fixed set of constant factors to test out just how effective this new approach is.
Go epic
And then there are the leaders among you. What is your target going to be? Something tedious handed down from the Ofsted report, or something that a work scrutiny threw up? Better differentiated history lessons, or more cross-curricular writing in PE? Ensuring a clear breadth of study in geography across in Early Years? Rubbish!
Go for gold! Choose something insanely epic that if achieved, would get you national headlines – for the right reasons. Consider what your children should be entitled to, what they should get to experience when learning about your wonderful subject, something that you feel passionate about – something that they will remember for the rest of their lives.
I know that sounds corny, but hey, why not? Why not go for it?
Of course, by committing to something huge it’ll probably mean you’ll fail. You probably won’t achieve your target. But at least you’ll feel gutted when you do. At least you’ll care. And if performance management can achieve that, then it might just be worth it.
The Primary Head is the moniker of a headteacher currently working in a UK primary school. Follow him at @theprimaryhead
