Performance Management.
Performance Management.
And 10 books to help improve performance
Welcome back! A new year. A fresh start. Ambitious goals. With that in mind…
Performance management is on the horizon.
As a school leader you want to do it well. As a teacher you want it done well.
But what does it look like?
This week’s highlight from the We Are In Beta Community explores some answers.
Headteacher - and one of our Policy and Practice Researchers - Tej Lander, shares what he found analysing what 13 successful schools do.
We - Schools - Are In Beta - always learning (when we appraise and manage performance well)
This week
📈 Performance Management - what does it look like in successful schools?
📣 Changes ahead for the We Are In Beta Newsletter
📚 10 non education books worth reading.
📈 Performance Management-what does it look like in successful schools?
A school’s staff are not only its most expensive resource, but also the one that has the greatest potential to improve pupil outcomes.
It comes as no surprise, then, that the country’s most effective schools have carefully refined practices and policies to support their teachers to constantly improve and to challenge underperformance robustly.
However, for school and trust leaders - and indeed classroom teachers - looking for examples of ‘best practice’ in this field, it can be difficult to find useful, detailed and practical information.
How many appraisal objectives should there be?
Who should set appraisal objectives?
What do good appraisal objectives look like?
Access a bank of example performance management resources here.
📣 Changes ahead for the We Are In Beta Newsletter
The focus and format of the We Are In Beta newsletter will be changing soon.
What’s changing?
To deliver better research, resources and recaps to the 3.5k pastoral colleagues in the network, we’ll soon be launching a dedicated Pastoral Champions bulletin.
Apply to be its Author and Curator here (deadline: Sun 15th September)
We’ll also be launching newsletter for the 500 MAT Directors of Education and School Improvement Leaders in our network.
Apply to be our first Community Writers Programme Manager here (deadline: Sun 15th September)
Why?
TLDR: to better serve the needs of the different audiences in the community.
How did we get here?
Since we launched the Pastoral Champions Community in March 2023, the newsletter has focused on sharing the excellent pastoral work going on across the system.
Before that, it had a curriculum focus to support paying members of the Curriculum Thinkers Community, which we launched in November 2020.
What enabled that shift?
We launched the Curriculum This Week bulletin - where we deliver deeper research, richer resources and more subject specific content to curriculum specialists.
In a similar vein, now it’s time to better serve our pastoral and MAT leaders.
What does that mean for the We Are In Beta newsletter?
You’ll still be able to access all of our free events, research and community conversations.
But the focus will be exploring topics beyond curriculum and pastoral here too.
Watch this space.
📚 10 non education books worth reading.
If you like learning about how leaders achieve success in different industries, the list below is for you.
If you enjoy talking about what you’ve learned afterwards, I’m about to make your day.
Here’s why.
We’re looking for guess for the 6th series of the PiXL Leadership Bookclub podcast (produced by We Are In Beta).
We’re particularly interested in contributions from underrepresented school leaders - people of colour, women, people with protected characteristics such as disability or who are LGBTQ+.
Read some of the books below already? Like talking to smart people about interesting ideas? And learning how they used them to improve their leadership?
10 books we’ll be reading in the book club this season…
Crisis Communication strategies – Amanda Coleman
Poor – Katriona O’Sullivan
Leading Remotely – Mike Parkes
Languishing – Dr Corey Keyes
The Friction Project -Robert Suttun and Huggy Rao
Women Who Work Too Much – Tamu Thomas
Never Split the Difference – Chris Voss
Ruthlessly Caring – Amy Walters Cohen
The One Thing – Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
Glad we Met: the art and science of 1:1 meeting – Steven Rogelberg.
Not read any of these books yet? But up for the challenge?
(It’s really fun and Rachel - PiXL’s CEO and the podcast host - is lovely).
Like the list above? Find reading hard like me? Prefer to listen?
Inside the table below, there’s a link to every episode of the PIXL Leadership book club AND links to all the authors’ own podcasts.
(Best viewed on a desktop).
On a personal note.
At the start of my teaching career, performance management wasn’t a very enjoyable experience.
Lots of focus on the single lesson observation and pupil driven data targets.
It was hard not be performative and avoid being defensive through the process. I’ve been guilty of both.
But as the sector’s understanding evolved - and the focus shifted - I came to enjoy powerful conversations about improvement, ambitions and next steps.
Being given that space to reflect back, be listened to and look forward in holistic, celebratory and supportive was something I really valued. I still do today.
Three (and a half) questions I enjoyed being asked were:
What are were most proud of this year? (and why did it go well?)
What do you want to achieve this year?
How can I help you do that?
If any of that resonates, I’d recommend reading this thread on changing performance management and watching this short video on powerful, developmental questions.
What questions have you been asked that have unlocked another level of performance within you?
I’d love to hear them, Just reply to this email.
Thanks for reading.
@NiallAlcock and the We Are In Beta team
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🆕 New here? Catch up with previous editions, podcasts and webinars via the archive.