The abolition of the General Teaching Council for England and the future of teacher discipline

International Journal of Educational Management

2016

Self Cite

Understanding performance management in schools: a dialectical approach Abstract Purpose: the purpose of this article is to provide a dialectical framework for the examination of performance management in schools. Design/methodology/approach: the article is based upon a qualitative study of 10 headteachers that involved in-depth semi-structured interviews. Findings: the findings identified four dialectical tensions that underpin performance management in schools: the responsibility to teachers and the responsibility to pupils; external accountability and professional autonomy; discipline of teachers and support of teachers; fixed processes and improvisational practices. Research implications: this article provides a means of examining the performance management of teachers from an alternative perspective, one that embraces tensions and contradictions and gives headteachers a richer understanding of how teachers are evaluated and judged. Originality: this article moves beyond the traditional perspective of performance management in schools as a means of subjugation and control and offers an original dialectical framework within which to examine the phenomenon. IntroductionPerformance management in schools in the UK is a relatively recent phenomenon, arriving in 2000 (DfEE, 2000) in a formalised and mandatory form. For the first time teachers became subject to the human resource practices of the private sector, a means to enjoin the needs of the organisation with the needs of individuals for the sake of school effectiveness. The world's biggest performance management system (Mahony and Hextall, 2001), the success of schools was envisioned as the inevitable result of introducing appraisal and the measurement of competence to teachers. However, the effectiveness of the policy itself was mixed with too little understanding of the concepts and practices of performance management (Brown, 2005). The solution was the introduction of new regulations in 2007 (TDA, 2007) that required schools to make explicit the links between organisational improvement and the performance of individual teachers via the collection of evidence including up to three hours of teaching observation per year, staff training and the scrutiny of pupils' work (Morton, 2011).

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding performance management in schools: a dialectical approach

International Journal of Educational Management

2016

Self Cite

“…Cases of serious misconduct are posted on the Teaching Agency's website for three months with the names of the accused teachers and (usually) their previous school. Such publication is simultaneously offered as proof to the public of robustness in tackling teacher misbehaviour and a warning to other teachers of the penalties for transgression (Page, 2013b), a contemporary 'spectre of the scaffold' in Foucault's terms (1991). As potentially sensational stories, the media regularly covers such cases, especially those at the most serious end of the misbehaviour continuum.…”

Section: Additional Impactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The five influencing factors are then considered within two dimensions of TMB: whether the acts were internal or external to the employing school and whether they concern competence or conduct. While the GTCE once policed both competence and conduct, the NCTL now only manage cases of serious misconduct (Page, 2013b) with competence (and more minor cases of misconduct) now entirely an internal matter for schools. These two dimensions are then translated into six forms of teacher misbehaviour: intrapersonal such as inebriation or solo sexual activity; interpersonal which includes aggression towards colleagues or inappropriate interaction with pupils; political such as deception and falsifying and withholding information; production including pedagogical misbehaviour and procedural breaches;, property misbehaviour such as the misuse of IT equipment and theft; finally, the misbehaviour which is primarily external is criminal, the type that involves the police.…”

Section: Teacher Misbehaviourmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The multiple impacts of teacher misbehaviour

Journal of Educational Administration

2016

Self Cite

Purpose: The purpose of the research was to investigate the impacts of serious teacher misbehaviour in schools from the perspective of headteachers, a largely un-researched area. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected via the documentary analysis of misconduct cases from the Teaching Agency and semi-structured interviews with five headteachers who had managed serious cases. Findings: The research suggests four primary impacts of serious teacher misbehaviour, affecting other teachers, students, the reputation of the school and headteachers themselves. The article concludes by suggesting a fifth impact affecting public trust in the teaching profession. Practical implications: Although rare, serious teacher misbehaviour can be highly damaging. Furthermore, the findings suggest that it is almost impossible to predict and so this article suggests a 'map' of the impacts helping headteachers to manage and contain it when/if the worst does happen. Originality/Value: Empirical studies of the impacts of serious organisational behaviour are scarce; empirical studies of serious organisational behaviour in schools are non-existent and so this article addresses that gap.

“…Finally, at the individual level there is the safeguarding risk, damaged children abused by predatory teachers or teachers falsely accused of abusive behaviours. As a result of risk, surveillance has intensified within schools and looming large in the educational research around surveillance is the panoptic metaphor (Bushnell, 2003;Piro, 2008;Selwyn, 2000), especially to capture the practice of teaching observations, conducted internally by senior schools leaders and externally by Ofsted (Perryman, 2009, Page, 2013.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The surveillance of teachers and the simulation of teaching

Journal of Education Policy

2016

Self Cite

Just as surveillance in general has become more sophisticated, penetrative and ubiquitous, so has the surveillance of teachers. Enacted through an assemblage of strategies such as learning walks, parental networks, student voice and management information systems, the surveillance of teachers has proliferated as a means of managing the risks of school life, driven forward by neoliberal notions of quality and competition. However, where once the surveillance of teachers was panoptic, a means of detecting the truth of teaching behind fabrications, this article argues that surveillance within schools has become a simulation in Baudrillard's terms, using models and codes such as the Teachers' Standards and the Schools Inspection Handbook as predictors of future outcomes, simulating practice as a means of managing risk. And if surveillance in schools has become a simulation then so perhaps has teaching itself, moving beyond a preoccupation with an essentialist truth of teaching to the hyperreality of normalised visibility and the simulation of teaching. This article argues that surveillance -including external agencies such as Ofsted -no longer exists to find the truth of teaching, the surveillance of teachers exists only to test the accuracy of the models and codes upon which the simulation is based. IntroductionA teacher arrives at school, swipes into the staffroom with her keycard and settles down at her desk within the open plan office as her colleagues -who arrived earlier -smile at her then look at the clock. She logs in to her PC, clicking 'OK' on the statement of permitted internet use reminding her that her activity is monitored and accesses the files containing her lesson plans for the morning lesson, entered onto the standardised lesson plan proforma that was designed by the Director of Teaching and Learning after consultation from an external inspector. After a quick check of the curriculum requirements for the topic, she prints off her last entry to the performance monitoring of her class, noting the patterns of attendance, behaviour and achievement. She walks down the glass corridor, waving at her colleagues who are already ensconced within their glass classrooms, and settles at the teacher-desk within the open plan learning space where she will facilitate learning next to the class facilitated by her Head of Department. The learning outcomes projected onto the interactive whiteboard, she begins the lesson, only marginally disturbed by the late arrival of two students who say sorry Miss but they were with the Deputy Head who was conducting a student voice session. The class settle down to student-directed learning (an external inspector in a partner school told their Executive Headteacher this was the way forward), the teacher takes pictures of each students' work and uploads it on her mobile phone to the classes' achievement website for their parents' viewing. Halfway through reviewing and recording student progress, the Headteacher arrives on a learning walk, briefly questioning her about the ...