www.ie-today.co.uk


“In order to get the most out of an appraisal system, the key staff involved in the process need to be trained on the skills required”


that the meeting ends positively, with action plans to sustain and improve performance in the year ahead. In contrast, a poor appraisal meeting is likely to be controlled by the appraiser; focuses on the person rather than the performance; contains nasty surprises – references to a previously undisclosed disciplinary issue for example; focuses on failures or negatives; and leaves the teacher disengaged and demotivated by the process. When appraisal meetings go well, there should be opportunities to have open discussions with all staff about plans for the future, which is helpful in terms of succession planning, particularly in the absence of a default retirement age, and general planning where staff indicate career aspirations for the future. Training for appraisers should cover the following:


they are appraising on a day-to- day basis. This can cause some concerns for the senior staff due to appraise others if they are aware that they may need to have difficult conversations as part of the appraisal process. To ensure appraisal meetings are effective and transparent, schools should ensure that the appraisers have the necessary skills to deal with the appraisal process and the difficult conversations which may arise. Appraisal meetings provide a perfect opportunity to allow an open discussion with the teaching staff, which has benefits in terms of employee engagement and development and maintenance of a positive relationship between the school and its teaching staff. Training appraisers on the skills required will enable the school to get the most out of the process. A good and constructive appraisal meeting is one which is appraisee led. This means that the teacher does most of the talking, reflecting on past achievements, which are recognised and reinforced; that performance, not personality, is analysed; and


✥ The reasons that the school carries out appraisals – how the process fits with the wider aspects of performance management and how the objectives set during the process can assist the school in achieving their wider strategic goals


✥ How to set objectives for staff and how to gather evidence and examples to judge whether past


objectives have been met


✥ The skills to enable them to get the most out of the appraisal meetings, such as:


✥ How to listen effectively – to be aware of the speaker and their body language and to allow them to speak freely


✥ How to ask the right questions – to ensure that there is a mix of both open and probing questions to encourage appraisees to provide information freely


✥ How to provide good feedback – to reinforce aspects of good performance and to identify areas of concern, with examples and evidence, and agree future action plans


✥ How to handle potentially difficult conversations – in order to be able to approach these as objectively as possible and to be able to agree a way forward to tackle the issues raised


In summary, an effective appraisal system is a valuable performance management tool, increasingly important in the absence of a default retirement age and the increasing links between performance and pay in the sector. However, in order to get the most out of an appraisal system, the key staff involved in the process need to be trained on the skills required so that they are confident and capable of having the open and sometimes frank discussions required with staff and can follow this through into the seting of objectives to support the strategic aims of the school. The final article in this series of will consider using the appraisal system as the essential first step to linking pay to performance for teaching staff. iE


Alice Reeve, partner, and Caitlin Anniss, senior associate, are from leading education law firm Veale Wasbrough Vizards. Alice can be contacted on 0117 314 5383 or at areeve@vwv.co.uk Caitlin can be contacted on 0117 314 5264 or at canniss@vwv.co.uk


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50