1st June 2011 9:00
By Blue Tutors
The government has laid out plans to implement a new system to monitor and react to the performance of school teachers in the UK, which means that, in future, poor-performing teachers could lose their job within a month. The new guidelines could be in place by September 2011, and have been met with mixed reactions from those in education.
Michael Gove, the education secretary, argues that existing procedures contain too much bureaucracy, and mean that under-performing teachers continue in their job, despite being identified as weak. He insists that the vast majority of teachers don’t fall into this category, and are a credit to their profession, but when a head teacher sees a problem, Gove wants to give them the power to act quickly. This follows a study in the US, where, over three years, top performing teaches were shown to have a significantly improved effect on their students than low performing teachers.
Spokespeople for the Association of School and College Leaders, and for the National Assoication of Head Teachers praised the plans, and said that the removal of red tape from the process of identifying and dealing with under-performing teachers will be of great help. However, Christine Blower, from the National Union of Teachers, said that the proposals will allow heads to bully teachers, and rather than removing red tape, actually remove protections and support that many teachers need.