Appraisal | Performance Management

Is appraisal primarily a formative or summative activity?

Appraisal can serve a number of functions.It can have a number of personal and performance management functions (selection, retention and termination). It can also play a key role in the formative process of identifying, growing and developing leaders (professional learning functions). It is important to be clear from the outset which functions you are intending to use the appraisal process for.

This section provides guidance on the appraisal of teachers and leaders.

Appraisal of school leaders

Effective leadership is vital to the success of a school. In this context school leadership appraisal processes can be a constructive way of identifying school leaders’ strengths and areas for development. They can be a useful tool for identifying areas for individual improvement, to shape ongoing professional development as well as the improvement of the school. Effective appraisal underlines a culture of on-going learning and continuous improvement through a school organization. It sees and fuels performance. On this page we ask 'why appraise?', ‘what should you appraise?’ and 'how should you appraise so that the process enhances the appraisees' and the schools' learning?'. The page also provides a tool to help you carry out a 360-degree assessment of school leaders based on the seven leadership intelligences described by the IB.

Performance appraisal resources

The key function of performance appraisal is to present feedback on how you are performing in your role and to identify areas for growth. Performance appraisal should add value to you as an individual as well as the school you are working in. Traditionally performance appraisal has been an annual event. In recent years the move in many organizations has been away from an annual event in favor of more regular ‘performance conversations’ in which people are able to discuss their progress against targets. Performance feedback or appraisal remains a crucial aspect of the performance management cycle: a way of reflecting on your work and its contribution to the life of the school.

Teacher Appraisal

What is the purpose of teacher appraisal? Teacher appraisal is a thorny issue for a number of reasons. If we are going to evaluate teachers, we need to know what we are looking for. What is the purpose of teacher evaluation? Is its primary purpose evaluative or developmental? Do we have an agreed understanding of what makes a good | excellent teacher? How has this understanding been agreed at – do you use a national matrix as a benchmark, a recognized framework such as the Danielson Framework for teaching based on competencies for teaching or do we make up our own? What is the connection between teacher evaluation and its impact on student performance? How do we measure when good student learning has taken place as a result of teaching? What matrixes to we use? In cultures of high stakes testing it is tempting to use raw test scores; in other cultures, the focus is on the added value that teachers give to a students’ learning

What makes a teacher great? And who gets to decide?

"In the 23 countries that participated in TALIS in 2013, 83% of teachers who had been appraised and received feedback considered them to be fair assessments of their work; of those, 79% found that the appraisals were helpful in developing their work as teachers. But agreement on how to measure teachers’ skills is harder to come by. Teacher-appraisal systems in most countries are still a work-in-progress – where they exist at all. Some 13% of teachers in countries that participated in TALIS had never received any feedback or appraisal of their work from any source. More often it is because there is no consensus on what criteria should be used to measure teacher performance.

(For example) like all government employees and many other professionals in Singapore, teachers are appraised annually, by a board, against 13 different competencies. These are not just about academic performance, but include teachers’ contributions to the academic and character development of the students in their charge, their collaboration with parents and community groups, and their impact on their colleagues and the school as a whole. It was intriguing for me to see how teachers did not seem to view this as a top-down accountability system, but rather as an instrument for improvement and career development. Teachers who do outstanding work receive a bonus from the school’s bonus pool. After three years of teaching, teachers are assessed annually to see which of three career paths would best suit them – master teacher, specialist in curriculum or research, or school leader. Significantly, the individual appraisal system sits within the school’s overall plan for excellence in education.”

(OECD: World Class - How to build a 21st century school system pages 118-119)

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