My journey with faculty leadership and management.

Soon my school will venture down the path of performance planning for all staff.  It begins with a faculty review process conducted by the upline deputy principal in consultation with the Head of Department.  Following from that will be the development of a performance plan for the Heads of Department, then performance plans for teaching staff.  This has identified as critical the need for me to provide feedback to staff on performance.

This realises a fear I have held for a long time – providing corrective feedback where required.   I have had no problems doing this for pre-service teachers, yet when it comes to providing such feedback to practising teachers (and teachers I need to maintain a working relationship with) then I have been fearful to the extent that I withhold my professional opinions.  I generally attempt to modify practice by implementing various department strategies and expectations, but this is a roundabout method of achieving what I desire, and generally does not result in the change I see as reasonable.

So, its time to suck it up and do the hard yards.  Think back to those university lectures – feedback sandwich, congratulate before you criticise, correction over critical etc etc.

My plan is to begin with the teachers in my department who identify as beginning teachers.  They are keen for feedback and they will allow me to “practice” my provision of critical feedback.  At least I have the expectations and standards I’ve worked hard to promote to fall back on when basing feedback on a framework.  This should be no different when providing feedback on the performance of my teachers who identify themselves as established.

I think at its base, the fear is about disagreeing with a teacher on the perceived quality of their practice.  In other words they believe they are a better educator than I believe they are.  Confidence is a key ingredient in teaching, and my disruption of one’s confidence may ultimately impact heavily on their performance.  However, if I don’t disrupt them will they improve?  Don’t we all need some disruption to push us to improve?