8th February 2012 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Michael Gove, the education secretary, has confirmed that proposed plans to make it easier for schools to dismiss poor performing teachers will go ahead from September this year. Reported on the BBC, Gove said that schools have been tangled in red tape for far too long when dealing with struggling staff, and that the plans give head teachers more freedom to act quickly when a problem is identified. However, some teaching unions have attacked the plans, and claim that the plans are ‘draconian’ and a ‘bully’s charter’.
The plans were originally announced in May last year, and include a shorter timeframe for teachers to improve (9 weeks rather than a school year) once identified as under-performing. Also, every teacher will have to be assessed yearly to ensure that they meet current standards, and head teachers will be allowed to observe teachers for longer than the 3 hours per year which is currently allowed.
The new measures also address the problem of poor teachers being moved from school to school whenever a problem has been identified. Currently it’s common for teachers to leave a school for another rather than risk being dismissed. However, from September schools will be required to disclose whether a teacher had been through what is known as ‘capability procedures’, if asked by the teacher’s prospective new school.
Russell Hobby, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers welcomed the news, and said that the procedures are simple and flexible, firm, but fair. Unions representing classroom teachers did not react as favourably to the news, and claim that the new measures are an attack on teachers’ professionalism, and will anger and depress teachers in equal measure. Christine Blower, spokesperson for the NUT, said that the government should be supporting struggling teachers, rather than imposing tougher sanctions to deal with their shortcomings.