Welcome to Our Summer Edition

Welcome to our summer edition

Spring saw the launch of our new look ‘HR Gazette’ which was well received by schools. In this, our second edition, you can find the summer term roundup of human resources issues impacting on schools. All articles in this edition were published on our website during summer term 2015. Our website continues to be updated regularly and the latest news can always be found on our home page:

In this edition, you will find articles on industrial action, teachers’ appraisal and pay, and head teacher appraisal and pay, as well as information on appointments in the schools human resources team during the term.

This will be the last newsletter I oversee in my role as schools human resources manager at Wandsworth. I will be leaving the team on 30 September 2015 to take up a new role outside of the council. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support during the 7 years I have been working with Wandsworth schools. I have had the pleasure of working with some incredibly talented people in my time in the role. It is heartening to reflect on how quickly the schools human resources service has been able to grow and develop during this time, reflecting the commitment and dedication of all the team to our vision of excellent customer service.

Brendan Ryan will manage the schools human resources team from 1 October 2015 and I am working closely with Brendan to ensure a smooth transition. The development of the servicewill continue under the direction of Pete Gaskin, head of contracts, human resources and school support, to ensure the team continue to deliver the best possible services to schools and are well equipped to develop the service further.

I wish you all well for the future.

Julie Chow

Schools human resources manager

Appointments in the HR team

The summer term saw a number of changes in the human resources team. Our recruitment campaigns were a great success. Selina Gilbert was appointed to the team as a human resources officer on a temporary basis from 1 June 2015 and Lesley Lynch was appointed on a permanent basis as a senior human resources officer from 1 July 2015.

Both Selina and Lesley have taken on the challenge of their new roles with great enthusiasm. Lesley has many years previous experience working effectively with our schools and had been acting in to the senior role whilst we undertook recruitment. Selina had worked with the team previously and joined us from the council’s central human resources team. Selina’s temporary appointment was to enable a review of the future team needs and is due to end on 30 September 2015. Thank you for making them welcome in their new roles.

Lesley has continued to work alongside Mel Fletcher, human resources officer, as lead officers for their current allocation of schools. Selina is working with Alison Trehearn, senior human resources officer, supporting Alison’s current allocation of schools as well as providing general support across the team. Angela, Anna and myself are still here to support you too and you can of course contact any member of our helpful team for advice.

Our contact list has been updated to reflect the changes. To see which officers are linked to your school visit: contact us.

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Escalation of union action short of a strike

In May, the council received notification from NASUWT of their intention to escalate the action short of a strike which originally commenced on 26 September 2012. They instructed their members “not to comply with any marking and assessment policy which generates excessive workload.” NUT also publicised this issue to their members.The original ballot on joint action short of a strike by NASUWT and NUT took place in 2011. Their dispute with the Secretary of State for Education continues. We verified the legitimacy of escalating the action, given the length of time elapsed since the original ballot, and updated our guidance for schools in light of this.

Unions have highlighted the recent Ofsted inspections: clarification for schools document, which comments on marking, and have set out their own expectations of what a reasonable policy may comprise. It is expected that schools will have well established marking and assessment policies in place and that these will have been duly consulted on and communicated to staff. As such, we are hopeful that any impact of this escalated action will be minimal.

We advise schools to read through our updated guidance document so they are fully prepared for any action arising. Schools are also advised to display an updated notification to staffto highlight the contractual and salary implications of such action. If you should have any questions about the action then please contact us.

Teachers Pay Survey 2015

To inform our recommended approach to appraisal and pay discretions in Wandsworth, we undertook a survey of schools in June 2015. The uplifts that we were expecting will be applied to the teachers’ pay ranges in the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document 2015 are:

•Unqualified pay range 1% to minimum and maximum values

•Main pay range 1% to minimum value and 2% to maximum value

•Upper pay range 1% to minimum and maximum values

•Leading practitioner range 1% to minimum and maximum values

•Leadership range 1% to minimum value and no increase to maximum value

•School group ranges 1% to minimum values and no increase to maximum values

•TLR / SEN allowances 1% to minimum and maximum values

Whilst schools must ensure all teachers are paid at least at the minimum of the relevant pay range, there is no requirement to apply any uplift to teachers currently paid above this. We are aware of the recruitment, retention and financial challenges facing schools would like to encourage a consistent approach to how this is applied in Wandsworth and across London. As part of this we sought your views on:

1) how you had planned for the 2015 pay uplift,

2) whether performance based pay progression and the ‘cost of living’ uplift should be considered together as part of the overall review of performance or separately,

3) whether you wished to retain points based pay ranges,

4) what you would like our published pay reference points to look like, and

5) invited any other comments.

There was not a great number of responses but from those received, and from our conversations with schools over the term, it was apparent that schools had budgeted for a 1% across the board uplift, wished to keep performance and ‘cost of living’ separate, and preferred to keep points based pay ranges. In light of this, our pay reference points retained 3 and 6 point pay ranges for classroom teachers, applied an across the board uplift to the existing reference point values (except where the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document required otherwise). These were published in June in draft form to help schools plan for the new academic year, and will be updated if needed when the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document 2015 is agreed by parliament later in the term.

Teachers’appraisal and pay policies published

During June we undertook collective consultation on our recommended model policies for teachers’ appraisal and whole school pay with constituent trade unions on behalf of schools. Following this, draft policies were published for schools to download from our website and start preparing for governors’ consideration. Our policies are recommended for adoption from 1 September 2015.

We took the decision to publish draft policies ahead of the publication of the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document 2015, to ensure schools had time to consider their discretions and prepare their policies for adoption by governors in the autumn term.

Our draft policies were therefore informed by the School Teachers’ Review Body report and the Secretary of State for Education’s response. The School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document 2015 did not stray from their recommendations when it was published on 11 August 2015. In response to the publication we have updated and published our final policies and these are recommended for adoption by schools with effect from 1 September 2015.
During the period of collective consultation, comments were received from the National Union of Teachers only. The NUT remains opposed to the link between performance and pay and, along with the NASUWT, remains in dispute with the Secretary of State for Education on this and other matters. Maintained schools and other schools that have chosen to incorporate the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document into contracts of employment must however abide by the requirements of the Document when formulating their approach to pay.
The Department for Educationmaintains the view that any and all uplifts to pay should be informed by individual teacher performance. The NUT have stated their expectation that any national 'cost of living' increase from September 2015 should be considered separately to any performance related progression and should be applied across the board,not just to the minimum of the pay ranges.Our recent survey to school leaders supported this approach. We therefore published pay reference points based on an across the board pay uplift. Since then, unions have published their own pay reference points to schools. The good news is that we appear to have taken the same approach.
To support the launch of our updated policies we held two briefings sessions for school leaders at Wandsworth Town Hall on 7 July. These were very well received and you can read more about them in the following article.

Teachers’ appraisal and pay briefings

To support the launch of our updated model policies for whole school pay and teachers’ appraisal we held a series of briefings for school leaders during the summer term.

We presented an overview to primary head teachers as part of their regular update meeting on 3 July and followed this with two comprehensive briefing sessions for school leaders at Wandsworth Town Hall on 7 July.

Schools have greater local discretion than ever before and our briefings covered everything schools needed to know to manage these successfully.

The briefings were aimed at all staff that may be involved in appraisal and pay determinations within your school leadership teams. We had a mixed group of attendees including head teachers, school business managers and leadership team members from a variety of different schools. We had representation from primary, secondary and special school phases and from both the maintained and academy sectors.

The briefings lasted 2 hours and covered:

• What is changing from September 2015
• How our policies have been amended to reflect the changes
• How discretions for schools have been increased and how to use these effectively
• A facilitated discussion amongst delegates about how the discretions are being applied in their schools.
• How the appraisal process is used to inform pay determinations
• An opportunity for delegates to share with other school leaders their approach to managing pay and appraisal
• An opportunity for you to raise questions and discuss particular scenarios in your school with the human resources team

There was some interesting debate amongst attendees. Not all schools had picked up the impact of the changes on how the national pay uplift may be applied. It was helpful to hear from attendees that they shared our wish to have a consistent approach in Wandsworth.

We asked for your feedback: 100% of those responding agreed or strongly agreed that the briefing enhanced their knowledge and skills and would help them to do their job better.

We are holding a waiting list for those who weren’t able to attend in July and may be able to re-run the briefings subject to sufficient numbers. If you would like to be added to the waiting list, please contact us.

Headteacher appraisal and pay 2015

Each year we publish guidance for governor reviewers to support them with the annual performance appraisal and pay determination for their head teacher. Our latest guidance was published at the beginning of July and included a new planning and review meeting document for head teachers and reviewers to use during the appraisal process.

On 19 January 2015, Standards of Excellence for Head Teachers were published by the Department for Education. They are intended for use by head teachers and aspiring head teachers for the purposes of shaping practice and professional development. We published a news article about the standards at the time which you can read here: National standards for head teachers
The standards can be used to inform the appraisal process for current and aspiring head teachers. Our recommended appraisal procedure applies to all teachers but in recognition of the different approach required for school leaders we have producedseparate guidance for governor reviewers along with a tailored planning and review documentfor use by head teachers and governors reviewers.
The document provides for a self assessment against the four domains in national standards, which current and aspiring head teachers can use to inform their professional development activities. This in turn is used alongside other key school information to inform the performance objectives that will be used for the appraisal process. Finally, the document records the overall assessment of performance for the appraisal period and the reviewers’ recommendation in relation to pay progression (where eligible). The document was developed in collaboration with our school improvement colleagues, with input from head teachers and link inspectors.
Toview the guidance and download the model document please visit: Headteachers' Appraisal and Pay Determination
We are supporting the launch of the revised guidance and documentation with training for governor reviewers on 22 September 2015. For more details and to book your place please visit: TPD onlineand search course reference SCH GOV36

Laugh a minute

Lighten the day with some HR humour!

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