NUT GUIDANCE
OCTOBER 2013
WHY SECURING APPROPRIATE OBJECTIVES IS SO IMPORTANT
This NUT guidance addresses the growing need to secure fair and reasonable objectives for teachers at the very start of the appraisal process.
Pay progression decisions are now linked to appraisal outcomes and assessments of performance against appraisal objectives and teachers’ standards[1]. There is a clear risk that teachers may face denial of pay progression if their objectives are unreasonable or otherwise inappropriate or if they are not fairly and properly assessed against them. In order to avoid this, senior and middle leaders involved in appraisal will also require training in objective setting, moderating and the use of evidence to support judgements.
There is also a substantial risk that this greater link between appraisal and pay will undermine the value of appraisal for professional development purposes. This NUT guidance will, we hope, help support the principal purpose of appraisal as a process to support teachers to thrive and progress as professionals.
This NUT guidance should be read in conjunction with the joint NUT/NASUWT appraisal policy checklists for England and for Wales, and joint NUT/NAHT/ATL model school appraisal policy in England and Model Performance Management Policy for Schools Template in Wales. You can find these, as well as guidance on teachers’ standards, at
KEY NUT PRINCIPLES WITH REGARD TO OBJECTIVES
Objectives Fit for Purpose
All objectives should be fair and reasonable and set according to SMART principles outlined below.
Limits on Objectives
There should be a limit of no more than 3 objectives for any teacher.
Consultation and Agreement
Objectives should be set following consultation and agreed wherever possible.
Pay Progression
Where teachers who are eligible for pay progression have met their objectives then they should expect to be recommended for progression.
ENSURING OBJECTIVES ARE FIT FOR PURPOSE
Setting meaningful objectives is vital if the appraisal process is going to support student achievement and your own professional development and also inform pay progression decisions.
Most appraisal policies will refer to objectives being set according to SMART principles. SMART is an acronym used to help assess the usefulness objectives - meaning that they should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-limited.
Specific means that objectives are clearly defined and well understood by you and your appraiser - they identify the expected work/behaviour and achievement/outcome in precise terms to help you and your appraiser consider whether the objective has been achieved.
Measureable means that you can decide whether the objective has been achieved by reference to the appropriate evidence.
Achievable (or Attainable) means that the objectives are realistic and linked to factors within your control - they may be stretching targets (although the degree of challenge should be recognised when progress is assessed) but should not be impossible to achieve or outside your control. This should also take into account what a part time or temporary teacher can achieve compared to a full time equivalent.
Relevant means that the objectives are linked to the school or department’s development priorities - but also that they are linked to your professional development as well.
Time-limited (or Time-bound) means that the objectives have a clear timetable for progress and achievement, with interim milestones where appropriate, to help you assess how you are progressing towards them.
Do not agree any objectives which do not meet these criteria, particularly any which are linked to factors beyond your control. Other factors which might be beyond your control and impact on your ability to meet the objective would include class sizes which increase over the year and the introduction into your class/es during the year of pupils with special educational needs.
Some appraisal policies will refer to ‘SMARTER objectives’ - with the E and R referring to Evaluation and Resources. It is clearly necessary to have access to any resources, without which the objectives set for you cannot be achieved.
Other appraisal policies may refer to ‘SMART+ID objectives’ which are often discussed by ASCL. Here, the I and D refer to Impact and Differentiation. Where this approach is mentioned in your school’s policy, you should be vigilant to ensure that any differentiation in objective setting does not lead to unequal or unfair expectations upon particular teachers or particular groups of teachers.
If you have any particular individual circumstances, including any disabilities, or maternity/adoption leave, which might affect the achievement of your objectives, make sure that you raise these with your appraiser. If, for example, you have recently returned from a period of extended absence, you may require time to readjust to your working environment and slightly longer to complete particular tasks.
OPPOSITION TO NUMERICAL TARGETS
Do not agree to your objectives being based on percentage target increases in tests or examinations unless you feel that the use of numerical targets is appropriate. In that case, the objectives should be reasonable taking into account the context in which you work and that factors outside your control (such as those mentioned above) may affect achievement.
Remember - it is impossible for an individual teacher to guarantee that exact percentages will be achieved. Test results are not simply linked to standards of teaching – other factors are involved, such as family circumstances and levels of parental educational achievement. Teachers raise the achievement of learners against such pressures but success linked just to pupil outcomes should be resisted.
Another basic reason why aligning objectives with test results is problematic is that it is very difficult to identify what progress has been made as a result of the particular teacher’s input. It is not just the NUT which is concerned about such an approach. ASCL’s pay policy guidance says that “It remains very challenging to identify and attribute the performance of pupils to any one teacher”.
Finally, there are two further issues which are that not all teachers teach classes which lead to external examinations; and that using end of year examinations to assess individual teacher performance can increase the potential for unfairness in a system where standards of assessment vary.
The NUT/NAHT/ATL joint model appraisal policy says that “where use of numerical targets is appropriate, these will be reasonable in the circumstances in which the teacher works and it will be recognised that factors outside teachers’ control may significantly affect success”. Examples of objectives which are not based on crude exam results are set out at the end of this document.
ENSURING TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT NEEDS ARE ADDRESSED
Your objectives should support your own professional development as well as reflect your school or department development priorities. Professional development may also be needed to support you in achieving the objectives set for you. Do not agree your objectives unless you are satisfied that your training and development needs will be addressed. If it is identified that a particular element of CPD is essential in order for you to meet your objectives, or to develop strengths and address areas for development or professional growth, make sure that this is formally recorded.
LIMITS TO NUMBERS OF OBJECTIVES
It is not good management practice to set more than 3 objectives. Objectives have to be manageable in order to succeed. The greater the number of objectives, the more difficult it is to achieve them. Setting more than three objectives or using sub-targets can therefore lead to unreasonable workload pressures. Objectives should always be set taking account of what can reasonably be expected of a teacher, given the desirability of the teacher achieving a satisfactory work/life balance. Experience also shows that setting greater numbers of objectives can lead teachers to focus only on those areas of work, to the detriment of other areas of work.
The NUT therefore advises members that, other than in exceptional circumstances, they should not accept more than three objectives.
CONSULTATION AND AGREEMENT
Objectives should be set following consultation with you. As outlined above, they should be clearly defined and indicate what success will look like and how progress will be measured. Sometimes joint objectives are set across a whole team. Where this is the case they are likely to need adapting to each person’s specific role, development needs and current skills.
You are advised to draft your own preferred objectives in advance of any meeting with your line manager. Make sure your appraiser has these in advance of any meeting as this will help focus the discussion and also help pre-empt any other, possibly inappropriate, suggestions from your appraiser.
Every effort should be made to reach agreement on your objectives. Where there is significant disagreement about what objectives should be set, do not be pressurised into accepting objectives about which you have reservations. Your school’s appraisal procedure should set out a process for appealing against proposed objectives or registering concerns. If it doesn’t, the school’s grievance procedure allows you to challenge matters. You should see support from your NUT school representative with the appeal process. At the very least, you should ensure that any reservations you have are recorded in writing for future reference if necessary. Such reservations should be noted alongside the record of the objectives and should also be highlighted again at the end of the appraisal process in the appraisal report.
The NUT and others also recommend a moderation process to help ensure that appraisers work to the same standards and that objectives are consistent between teachers with similar experience and levels of responsibility (see the NUT/NAHT/ATL joint model appraisal policy and ASCL pay policy guidance), and to ensure that part time teachers are treated fairly compared to full time colleagues. If such a process does not already take place in your school, ask for it to be established. Head teachers/senior leaders should moderate the objectives being set and the evidence considered at the end of the process. Governors could also scrutinise moderation using suitably anonymised sampling.
OBJECTIVES AND PAY PROGRESSION
The relationship between objectives and pay progression should be clearly set out in your school’s pay policy. Main scale pay progression as well as UPS may now be linked to appraisal.
In summary, the NUT is clear that teachers who have met their objectives and are assessed as continuing to meet the requirements of the relevant teachers’ standards should automatically be recommended for pay progression.
The NUT/NASUWT model pay policy provides that teachers should be awarded pay progression following a successful appraisal review; and defines a review as being successful unless significant concerns about standards of performance have been raised in writing and not addressed by the conclusion of the process. In such circumstances, a teacher’s failure to meet objectives would not itself justify refusal of progression unless concerns have also been raised.
Some school pay policies may, however, link pay progression to other factors. The NUT view is that all pay progression decisions should be based on evidence considered within the appraisal process and should not be based on matters outside the scope of appraisal.
If you haven’t met your objectives in full, you can think about whether you can refer during your appraisal discussion to other matters which may help you secure a recommendation for pay progression, such as your impact on other areas of pupil progress, improvements in behaviour management or lesson planning or your impact on the effectiveness of other staff. Evidence for this could come from a range of sources, for example self-assessment, peer review, tracking pupil progress, lesson observations etc. You should also highlight any barriers there were to meeting objectives, such as sick leave or lack of CPD. It is important to make contemporaneous notes of these issues, as they occur. All of this should, however, be considered during the appraisal process if it is to influence a pay recommendation - and the NUT is opposed to opinions expressed by parents and pupils being taken into account in any way in making such judgements.
Failure to meet objectives should certainly not automatically mean that you are not awarded pay progression. The DfE ‘toolkit’ guidance, ‘Reviewing and revising your school’s approach to teachers pay’, recognises that “a teacher who has made good progress on, but not quite achieved, a very challenging target, could still have made a significant contribution” while ASCL’s pay policy guidance says that “Not quite meeting a very challenging objective is better than meeting an undemanding one”. The Welsh Government Model Performance Management Policy for Schools states: “Good progress towards the achievement of a challenging objective will be assessed favourably”.
If you have only narrowly missed achieving an objective, you should consider whether the objective was a challenging one and refer to the DfE, Welsh Government and ASCL position when you have your appraisal discussion. This is particularly the case, if the objective is one with which you didn’t agree (see section above on Consultation and Agreement).
You should also consider the provisions of your school pay policy and whether any issues were raised about your progress towards meeting your objectives at any mid-cycle review.
Use the appeals process or grievance procedure, with the support of your NUT school representative, if you are refused pay progression because of failure to meet objectives.
EXAMPLES OF OBJECTIVES
Examples of objectives which are not linked to pupil test/exam results could include:
- Make better use of ICT in the classroom so as to demonstrably develop pupils’ skills in using technology to enhance their learning.
- Develop and implement a strategy/strategies to improve pupils’ extended writing skills.
- Consider how pupil groupings in your classroom can improve pupils’ speaking and listening skills, implement any necessary changes and assess their impact.
- Develop strategies to increase opportunities for reading for pleasure to improve reading skills for your pupils and begin to assess their impact.
- Undertake research including, including observing other colleagues and in other schools, to assess how media texts can improve understanding of how the media works and produce a report setting out recommendations.
- Undertake relevant CPD to develop further the positive behaviour of learners.
- Work with the SENCO to develop distinctive teaching approaches to support those pupils with English as an additional language.
OBJECTIVE SETTING (October 2013)_SL13 October 2018
Created: 31 October 2013/SA
Revised: 4 November 2013/CS
[1] In England’ the Teachers’ Standards; in Wales, the Practising Teachers’ Standards