When done well, support staff appraisals can be motivating. They provide not just opportunities for reflection and evaluation, but also a spur for increased staff development. They can add real value to your workforce.
Yet the appraisal process in schools is often perceived by staff as being something that’s ‘done to them’.
The appraisal process for teachers is perhaps a little more defined. It’s guided by teachers’ pay and conditions guidance, and more often than not measured against student outcomes.
Conversely, measuring performance based on outcomes isn’t always as easy for the many and varied support roles found within education settings. Sadly, this can sometimes lead to an inadequate process, which can devalue it in the eyes of staff and lead them to see it as largely pointless.
At worst, appraisals for support staff can be actively demotivating and stressful, and can impact negatively on their wellbeing and your staff turnover.
So how can support staff appraisals be made into a valuable and useful process, without generating extra admin?
Validate the value
The basic principles that underpin an appraisal process should remain consistent across teaching and support staff. However, the way this works in each setting can differ. The biggest influencing factor for its success will be the involvement of senior management.
For the system to work, its value has to be validated to ensure a positive impact for all staff.
The financial impact of an appraisal is the hard outcome of the process for all appraisees, and one that’s obviously important. However, an appraisal can become a much more holistic process if it also offers:
- opportunities to review job descriptions
- chances to give praise for achieving or exceeding targets
- time to identify potential training needs and areas for development.
A support staff appraisal system that works
Let’s assume that your school’s appraisal system for teachers is embedded and working well. How should a similarly effective appraisal system for support staff work in practice?
Firstly, should you integrate your processes or separate them? The answer to this question may depend on when you decide to review your support staff pay. Historically, this would be carried out for an April increment because of the tax year and the way schools used to budget.
However, with academies now often running accounts from September to August, some settings have switched to carrying out reviews for all staff in September.
This makes it easier to run an integrated system and creates parity.
Doing both simultaneously will create a bit more work at the time. However, it’s a process that only has to be done once and can be linked to outcomes, particularly for classroom-based staff.
Should the same forms be used for all staff?
The many and varied nature of contracts within schools makes this is a very subjective decision. Using the same design will mean that appraisers use only one style, thus ensuring that some parity can be achieved across the process.
However, due to the different impacts of each role in the operation of the school, setting the same targets as evaluation measures won’t work. Teachers’ targets are straightforward, since they can be measured against Teachers’ Standards and outcomes; support staff, not so much.
You should, however, ensure common evaluation measures for staff undertaking similar roles, such as classroom-based, admin and other support roles. Line managers are often at a loss when it comes to setting targets for support staff, particularly those who don’t have a direct impact on whole school outcomes.
All roles have outcomes – it just sometimes takes a bit of thinking outside the box as to how they can be measured. Devise a pre-written bank of suggested targets, and make sure they are reviewed and updated regularly. This will support staff and reduce the time they spend deciding what their appraisal should look like.
For colleagues who only work a few hours and have very similar roles, such as lunchtime supervisors and cleaners, consider implementing a group appraisal process whereby they’re all set the same aims and targets. This will ensure that the team are all working towards the same goals, and that their practice can be developed to improve outcomes in a specific area.
Should staff have any input?
For support staff appraisals to have any chance of real success, staff will need to have at least some input into the targets they’re set. Sitting a member of staff down and saying ‘Yes, you’ve done well – here are your targets for the next year,’ isn’t going to engage or inspire development in anyone.
For the school to improve our practice needs to improve too.
You may well have whole school targets that you want to give all staff, and these can and should be dictated, but consider setting at least one personal target per individual. This can be anything from wanting to attain a qualification in their specialist field to learning a new language.
The only caveat is that there must be some benefit in for the school, given that staff taking time off will cost the school money. Perhaps they could support a class that includes an element of their chosen skill, or help run a language club?
When to review
Reviews are important for identifying when previously set targets become impractical or irrelevant. A six-month review will enable any necessary amendments and changes to be made.
The benefits of a praise-and-reward culture are clear when it comes to our students. Our staff deserve the same level of consideration. School leaders can provide by being prepared to carry out appropriate and positive appraisals.
What your support staff appraisals should look like
A successful appraisal process for all staff should be SMART:
Specific
Make sure appraisals and associated targets are signposted and communicated clearly. Keep a bank of targets to help enable this.
Measurable
Remember that it must be possible to evaluate all targets and measure them against something tangible.
Achievable
There should be no targets set that aren’t agreed at the outset. If, at six month review, it emerges that they aren’t suitable, change them.
Relatable
An appraisal should be relatable to both the specific role and its context within the whole school picture.
Time relevant
Provide plenty of notice for each aspect of the process, including the six-month review.
Sue Birchall is a consultant, speaker, writer, trainer and business manager at The Malling School, Kent.
