Best Teacher Performance Management Tools

What are performance management tools?

Performance management tools enable you to provide high quality appraisals to teaching staff, manage their CPD, and develop and build on teachers’ skills. With good quality performance management software you can align the career objectives of teachers with your school’s educational goals, and understand the training needs not only of individual teachers, but of entire departments or schools in your Trust.

Online performance management tools can automate and organise many of the tasks involved in appraisal, and give teachers access to self-evaluation and CPD frameworks so they can be active in their own appraisal process. They can elevate appraisals from once-a-year box ticking exercises to a continuous and in-depth process that is tied to your school’s mission statement.

Why do you need performance management tools?

Performance management tools help schools to offer a better standard of appraisal and CPD support to teachers. Here are the reasons why high quality performance management matters to your school:

1. Research has shown that effective performance management helps schools achieve their educational goals.

When staff are offered appropriate training and supervision, their skills set and knowledge base grow, and they will be better equipped to get the most out of their students.

2. Good use of performance management tools can help improve teacher job satisfaction, work ethic and retention of staff.

Research shows that staff report better job satisfaction when organisations have reward and recognition built into their performance management. They also work harder and are less likely to leave their job when they feel their work is valued and appreciated.

3. Better performance management can help overcome the obstacles that are affecting your school’s performance.

Problems with staff attitude or behaviour decrease the ability of a school to achieve its educational goals. Performance management tools offer a means of identifying and addressing issues with attitude and behaviour in your team, to help you figure out what staffing hurdles you need to overcome to achieve your school’s objectives, and how to go about it.

4. Performance management tools support you to offer ongoing appraisals, goal-setting and feedback

The National College for Teaching and Leadership advises that appraisals are more effective when they are an ongoing process, with regular opportunities for reviews and feedback with teachers. Around 70% of businesses are also moving towards a system of regular, ongoing appraisals, in recognition of the limitations of once-a-year performance reviews and their unpopularity amongst employees and supervisors.

What are some typical features of performance management tools?

Here are some of the essential features to look for when deciding which online performance management tools are best suited to your school:

Teacher appraisal: allows you to offer in-depth, quality appraisals with features such as 360 performance reviews. Enables you to store and track appraisals so they can become a continuous and regular feature of staff management.

Goal-setting: helps you agree and track performance goals with your teachers. Importantly, this feature helps you align the individual goal of teachers to the overall mission and aims of your school.

Recognition and reward: notifies you when teachers have performance above and beyond expectations.

CPD tools: stores all of your professional learning and CPD programme in one performance management tool, and allows you to monitor the progress of individual teachers, school departments or your entire Trust.

Quality assurance: enables you to track which members of staff are performing well, who needs extra support, and links to the tools you need to achieve your aims, such as training or CPD.

Strategic development: helps you align teachers’ career goals with the educational targets and mission statement of your school, and monitor how successfully individual and organisational goals complement each other. When used effectively, strategic development software can be one of the most valuable features of performance management tools.

Staff self-development: features such as career portfolios allow teachers easy access to their agreed performance management targets and give them an active say in their career development.

Self-evaluation framework: this feature of performance management tools offers staff guidelines on how to meaningfully evaluate their own performance, identify their learning needs and construct SMART career goals.

Collaboration across school trusts: provides data to help you coordinate Trust-wide initiatives, such as employment programmes for Initial Teacher Training.
Ofsted compliance: allows you to track how closely your school is meeting the Ofsted requirements in areas such as Leadership and Management.

What are the benefits of performance management tools?

Education goals are at the heart of your performance management: align your school’s educational goal with teachers’ career goals and CPD, so you can keep an eye on how the performance objectives of your team help your students achieve their goals.

Continuous appraisal for your whole school: rather than staff appraisals being a once a year endeavour, performance management becomes a ongoing process, something which The National College for Teaching and Leadership recommends.

Teachers are active participants in goal setting: regular appraisals and staff portfolios mean teachers are an active part of their own goal-setting and review process, and can identify where they want to develop and which training will help them achieve their career goals.

Set SMART goals with your teachers: goal-setting frameworks such as SMART goals will help you to create more meaningful, measurable goals with teachers.

No more reams of paperwork in separate filing cabinets: online performance management tools automate administrative processes and keep all of your records and data in one system.

Available, and accessible, 24 hours a day: cloud-based (online) performance management tools can be made available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to staff. This provides your staff with the opportunity to view and reflect on their performance appraisals at any time and can support staff in feeling more empowered in taking responsibility for their career development and job performance.

Give teachers the recognition they deserve: when used effectively, performance management tools should support staff to achieve their learning goals and receive recognition for their talents and achievements.

Retain teaching talent and specialist skills: Research consistently shows that when employees feel recognised and appreciated, they are more likely to stay in a role for longer.

What should I consider when purchasing a performance management tool?

Consider the following questions before deciding which performance management tool is best for your school:

How will the performance management tool help your school meet its goals?
Familiarise yourself with your school’s educational goals, School Improvement Plan or strategic direction, and ask yourself how a performance management tool would help you better track, manage, and achieve those objectives.

What is the national standard for good performance management?
Stay up to date with the latest guidelines on effective performance management available to schools, colleges and businesses, and have these in mind when considering which performance management tools and features are right for you.

Which performance management tools are recommended by other schools?
Look for reviews of performance management tools from other schools, particularly those with similar goals and staff/student demographic to your own. Which features did schools find useful? How has it helped them improve their appraisals and CPD support for teachers? Does the software run smoothly and without technical issues? These are some of the key questions to answer.

Sources

The Relationship Between Performance Management Practices and Organizational Deviations in Schools (accessed 5th November 2021)
Toytok and Yavuz, Journal of Education and Training Studies Vol. 6, No. 11a; November 2018
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1208387.pdf

The effects of teachers’ attitudes on students’ personality and performance Mucella Uluga *, Melis Seray Ozdenb , Ahu Eryilmazc, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 30 (2011) 738 – 742

Technology Advice Guide to Performance Management Software (accessed 4th November 2021)
https://technologyadvice.com/employee-performance-management/

National College for Teaching and Leadership: Performance Management (accessed 4th November 2021)
http://www.inspiringleaderstoday.com/ILTMaterials/LEVEL3_LES-v4.0-2014_08_08-11_49_0/leading-an-effective-school/les-s03/les-s03-t01.html

Performance Management and Appraisal (accessed 4th November 2021)
https://www.theschoolbus.net/topic/performance-management-and-appraisal/157

Transforming Teacher Performance Management is within reach (accessed 4th November 2021)
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/transforming-teacher-performance-management-is-within-reach/

Making the links between teachers’ professional standards, induction, performance management and continued professional development by the Department of Education (accessed 4th November 2021)
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/182227/DFE-RR075.pdf

The Performance Management Revolution, Harvard Business Review
https://hbr.org/2016/10/the-performance-management-revolution