Vivienne Porritt questions the whole basis of the current approach to performance management and shows how this can be transformed through developing a coaching culture which focuses on ultimate learning games for children.
“I thought I was a good teacher, but after that review, apparently I’m not. I’ve got lots to do to get better.”
These words of a teacher about a performance management review open a Teachers TV programme about looking afresh at what performance management is doing, and can do, for colleagues in schools. The words are spoken by a drama student from Brampton Manor, a secondary school in Newham, London. The quotation is supposed to be a fictional representation of the perceptions some teachers have about performance management and it reveals issues about the nature of the professional relationships and the quality of the dialogue within this process.
Is this quotation a caricature or do you recognise these words as coming from some of your colleagues? Maybe you have felt something similar yourself at times. Or is such a perception a historical view of performance management (PM) and, as a result of the revised regulations introduced in September 2007, do schools now have a more dynamic and motivational approach to this key improvement process?
What does PM feel like for you?