I AM about to become a review officer. As a registered childminder with no professional qualifications who has not worked outside the home for nearly 30 years, I must confess to being rather proud of my new status.
What’s more, this is not just a fancy title, I shall have real power. Under the performance management structure, members of the school’s senior management team appraise, monitor and evaluate teachers’ performance against agreed targets.
Teachers assessed by their line managers can appeal against their review to the head. Those assessed by the head appeal to the review officer wo is the chair of governors - me!
Clearly even after a lifetime’s experience of teaching, seven years as a head and extensive professional development, my head can still make mistakes. It must be reassuring for her and the staff to know they can rely on me to put her right. I am promised a two-hour training course on performance management and, like everyone else, I can recognise a good teacher when I see one. Having carefully left myself off the personnel committee to avoid the head’s annual appraisal, I now find I am her review officer too, should she dispute it. I can hardly wait.
