Teachers' pay needs to be in the hands of schools, not Ofsted

By Kathy Gyngell for The Daily Mail

Published: 17:00 GMT, 30 May 2012 | Updated: 17:01 GMT, 30 May 2012

The current pay system for teachers is rigid, complex and difficult to navigate, Michael Gove said a couple of weeks ago. It makes it difficult for schools to recruit and train high quality staff.

That’s why teachers’ pay could be left entirely to the discretion of head teachers in state schools. He thinks that school pay deregulation is the answer. That is what we heard him propose.

I am sure he is right, though head teachers may have to go through a learning curve to accept this novel idea.

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Deregulation: Michael Gove has said teachers' pay should be left entirely to the discretion of schools

Reportedly this idea is now being mulled over School Teachers Pay Review Body (a quango that surely could be dispensed with?).

But in the meantime Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools and the head of educational quango Ofsted, appears to have his own ideas.

Poor-performing teachers could be denied a pay perk worth thousands under Ofsted moves to tackle the ‘indiscriminate’ awarding of salary rises, it was announced today.

Sir Michael is concerned that many under-achieving teachers have been handed unjustified increases. It seems that the current so-called performance pay has become little more than a ‘time served’ increase. Only that can explain, he says, the 90 per cent success rates of those applying for an increase – hard to reconcile with his inspectorate's reports of poor-quality teaching.

I am sure he is right too. But his solution is less persuasive than his analysis. In fact it would run a coach and horses through Michael Gove’s principled solution of head teacher discretion and pay deregulation.

Inspection: Chief Inspector of Schools Sir Michael Wilshaw wants to check schools are awarding bonuses based on performance

That’s because from September, Ofsted inspections of schools are, he says, to include checks of anonymous internal information on teachers’ pay and performance appraisals. Its inspectors will use the data to determine whether heads and governors are ‘showing strong leadership and management skills and using performance management effectively to assist in the drive for improvement’.

Needless to say the two stroppy teachers’ unions’ bosses, Chris Keates and her alter ego, Christine Blowers, have been virulent in their criticism of both of the Michaels' suggestions – going to show that whatever reform or change is announced they are against it – on principle.

But it does show that educational reform still sits on the horns of a dilemma. It is still in a cleft stick between devolving autonomy and discretion and more top-down performance management by the DfE.  Michael Gove is pulling one way and Ofsted the other.

Ofsted appears to be winning. The simple fact is that it is not in Ofsted’s DNA to trust schools and heads to get on with it. And Sir Michael Wilshaw seems as prone to top-down management and monitoring as his predecessors.

For what he is proposing here is a performance management exercise on the performance management skills of the heads no less – by his inspectorate. Heads will have to show 'strong leadership and management skills' and be able to use 'performance management effectively to assist in the drive for improvement’.

This process is meant to act as a disincentive for their indiscriminately awarding pay rises  - since Ofsted’s verdict on school leadership feeds into the school's overall grade.

But will it produce better teachers, or for that matter better heads? Or will it drive them even madder?

Perhaps Sir Michael should first performance test this idea on the heads of one or two of the best public schools who are always using their discretion and to very good effect. He should see how it and they fare. My best guess is that an Anthony Little (Eton) or an Anthony Seldon (Wellington) would find it an infuriating waste of time and would tell him so.

Sir Michael Wilshaw’s heart is in the right place. But he needs to 'get it' that Ofsted is part of the problem and not the solution; that initiatives such as these, like the school league tables incentive – have perverse outcomes. If he doesn’t get it soon, Michael Gove will have to rein him in.

The endless performance management, testing programmes, micro monitoring and evaluations conducted to date have done nothing to raise standards and have probably overall lowered them.  That’s despite Ofsted’s huge staff and performance-managed, multi million-pound payroll, guided by the now compulsory Equality Impact Assessment gobbledygook.

This allows 'for annual reviews (of Ofsted staff) to include the setting of personal objectives, mid-year assessments, activities targets, and learning and development for individual employees… and their satisfactory achievement.'

Very nice that they are all guaranteed their 1 per cent rise regardless, but inspires neither hope nor the right attitude

Trust and common sense have to be the name of the game. Everyone can remember the teacher who made a difference to them, who seemed to be a fount of knowledge on their subject, who knew what and how to explain, who inspired curiosity, who raised ambitions and gave that extra mile to help them come to fruition. We remember too the teacher who could control unruly children and stop them upsetting the class’s peace and calm. We also recognized those ‘far and few between’ teachers we could confide in – and trust.

We, and the DfE, have to trust that head teachers too know who these gems are, what their respective qualities are – which may have nothing to do with how A, Bs or Cs their classes achieve at GCSE - and let the heads reward them accordingly.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb Can hopes to stamp out incentives to ‘game the system’. Rightly so. He has said that the game is up for schools that put league tables before real learning.

Unfortunately Sir Michael’s latest inspection wheeze may encourage different but equally perverse outcomes, all in the name of a good intention. It should be stopped.

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