Performance Management in Education

A Step-by-Step Blueprint for Performance Management in Education

Educational establishments like schools, colleges, academy’s and universities are complex organizations with lots of people, usually thousands, as well as lots of stakeholder groups. These include students, teachers, faculty heads, leadership teams, governors and of course, government.

Having plans, systems and processes that help you manage this complexity, focus on what matters most, and puts people, their wellbeing and development at the centre of what you do is essential.

Performance Management in Schools and Education

Creating the right systems and processes

Let’s now discuss how education leadership might go about creating those systems and processes in a way that is helpful – not an extra administrative overhead or burden.

These are systems to help you thrive – not just move from one term or academic year to another.

Let’s start at the beginning – why?

If you were asked why your educational institution exists, what would you say? What’s your Mission, Vision and Purpose? Here’s an example we’ve written. What would yours be?

Mission

What do you do and who do you do it for?

We educate and develop young people and prepare them for adulthood.

Vision

What does achieving this Mission look like?

Young people, through our education and nurturing, become happy thriving adults.

Purpose

Inspire everyone: Describe the cause everyone is signing-up for?

We take a child and develop them to be the best they can be. The children and young adults’ lives we have played a part in are well prepared to lead a happy, healthy and full life. They have a positive impact on society and many of them achieve the extraordinary.

Now Let’s Build On Your Pillars

If you were to take this one step further and have to define the ‘Pillars’ or ‘Key Battlegrounds’ you must win in order to achieve your Mission, Vision and Purpose, what would they be? What order would you put them in?

For example, are these the pillars you can achieve your Mission, Visions and Purpose with?

Culture and Behaviour
Teacher Welfare & Excellence
Pupil Attendance
Care and Inclusiveness
Extra and Co-curricular Programmes

You might want to add others like:

Results
Standards & Regulatory Oversight e.g. Ofsted in the UK

But before you do, you might find that they are lagging indicators of investment in the pillars above!

Put another way, would you worry about results or how you were going to be assessed as an educational establishment if you had:

A great culture
Teachers were happy and were great at teaching
Pupils turned up
You caught pupils that might need support
And you developed pupils in extra-curricular ways

Time For Metrics – Sorry!

The fact is we are going to need to ‘measure what matters’, whilst not getting bogged down in measurement and analysis paralysis.

Leading & Lagging Indicators

So we need to define and target the fewest number of leading indicators – KPIs that would align with your Pillars and predict the lagging indicators – KPIs like Academic Result achievement and Regulatory Grading. Although you could argue that great results are a great predictor of future success and they are both a leading and a lagging indicator.

We also should not worry about whether we have access to that metric right now as well. Worry more about whether it is the right metric to have and focus on. We can always start to measure a metric and get a baseline of where you are now.

Here are some ideas:

Pillar – Culture & Behaviour

Metric – Pupil Awareness Of ‘Cultural Values & Behaviour’

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading

Metric – Parents Awareness Of ‘Cultural Values & Behaviour’

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading

Metric – Serious Incidents

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading

Metric -Minor Incidents

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading

Pillar – Teachers

Metric -Non Subject Expert Hours Taught

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading

Metric -Supply Teachers Hours

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading

Metric – Work From Home Hours

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading

Metric -Continued Professional Development Hours

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading

Metric – Average Length Of Employment

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading & Lagging

Metric – Time To Hire

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading & Lagging

Metric – Teacher NPS

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading & Lagging

Metric – Initiative Suggestions

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading

Metric – Initiative Adoption

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading

Pillar – Pupils

Metric – Pupil Attendance

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading

Metric – Persistent Absence

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading

Metric – Excluded Pupils

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading

Metric – Subject Grade Attainment

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading & Lagging

Pillar – Organization

Metric -Progress 8 score

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading & Lagging

Metric -OFSTED Rating

Leading/Lagging/Both – Leading & Lagging

Pillar

Metric

Leading / Lagging / Both

Culture and Behaviour

Pupil Awareness Of ‘Cultural Values & Behaviour’

Leading

Parents Awareness Of ‘Cultural Values & Behaviour’

Leading

Serious Incidents

Leading

Minor Incidents

Leading

Teachers

Non Subject Expert Hours Taught

Leading

Supply Teachers Hours

Leading

Work From Home Hours

Leading

Continued Professional Development Hours

Leading

Average Length Of Employment

Leading & Lagging

Time To Hire

Leading & Lagging

Teacher NPS

Leading & Lagging

Initiative Suggestions

Leading

Initiative Adoption

Leading

Pupils

Pupil Attendance

Leading

Persistent Absence

Leading

Excluded Pupils

Leading

Subject Grade Attainment

Leading & Lagging

Organization

Progress 8 score

Leading & Lagging

OFSTED Rating

Leading & Lagging

Setting Objectives & Key Results

Objectives and Key Results or OKRs is the goal setting framework that’s been used by Google, Intel and hundreds of thousands of other companies around the world for decades. It’s a great fit for education as well.

The Objective is a qualitative statement of the objective, and acts a little like the book cover. It makes you want to read on. The Key Results are how you propose to measure success in a period of time like an academic year or term / semester, and are like the chapters telling the Objectives story in the language of numerical achievement.

Here are some examples that build on the building blocks we’ve been through.

Obj – Transform from Good to Great This Year
KR – Increase our Progress 8 score from X to Y
KR – Improve our OFSTED Rating from X to Y

We will achieve this by working towards these other Objectives:

Obj – We have a culture that creates an environment we’re proud of
KR – Pupil awareness of our ‘Culture & Behaviour’ is 100%
KR – Parent awareness of our ‘Culture & Behaviour’ is 100%
KR – Serious incidents are reduced to X
KR – Minor incidents are reduced to X

Obj – The right teachers are teaching
KR – Reduce the Non Subject Expert Hours Taught to X
KR – Supply teachers are below X% of all lesson hours

Obj – Teachers work-life balance is amazing
KR – Work from home hours are less than an average of X

Obj – Teacher supported to get better and better
KR – Average Teacher CPD hours completed per teacher per term are X

Obj – Recruit and retain teaching talent
KR – The average length of teacher employment is X
KR – The time to hire a new teacher is X
KR – The use of supply teachers is reduced to X
KR – Teacher NPS is X

Obj – Bright ideas are all-around us
KR – Number of positive initiatives suggested by teachers and TA’s not leadership has increased to X
KR – Number of suggested initiatives that have been adopted are X%

Obj – Attendance is at an all-time high
KR – Pupil attendance is over X%
KR – Persistent absence rates fall to X
KR – Excluded pupils have been reduced to X

This is an example of a departmental Objective:

Obj – Maths Year 6 are thriving
KR – X% of Pupils attained level Y

You get the idea. We’re setting goals that align with pillars, use lots of the KPIs we’ve identified as good predictors of future success.

Introducing The Initiative

One of the things to avoid when creating OKRs is to mix what you are doing, these are called Initiatives, with what you want to achieve.

The Key to Success

For example, if we take the OKR:

Obj – Teachers work-life balance is amazing
KR – Work from home hours are less than an average of X

An Initiative that might be suggested and undertaken is:

In – Centralized lesson planning – reduce the amount of time spent lesson planning at home

Here’s another example, for the OKR:

Obj – We have a culture that creates an environment we’re proud of
KR – Pupil awareness of our ‘Culture & Behaviour’ is 100%

An Initiative that might be suggested and undertaken is:

In – Recognize pupils for living your desired values and behaviours

The Initiative is the key to any goals success. Setting goals does not achieve goals, working hard or the Initiatives most likely to achieve them definitely does.

What are the Projects / Tasks aka Initiatives that you’re planning to do and doing to improve your OKRs?

Keeping Focused And Agile With Your Finger On The Pulse
In Less Than 30 Minutes A Week

Setting and forgetting the OKRs that are improving your KPIs and will deliver your Mission, Vision and Purpose puts them at risk. What is needed is regular check-in and team meetings. The inputs and weekly agendas look like this:

Individual Check-ins

Owners of Key Results and Initiatives update Status, Progress, Confidence and comment on the blockers (What’s holding them back) – this should take less that 5 minutes a week.

Collaborator / Team Reviews

Collaborators and Team members of the owners of Key Results and Initiatives review the updates and comment on the issues holding their colleague back – this should take less that 5 minutes a week.

Team meeting

In a group, the team meets and discusses the ‘at risk’ Key Results and Initiatives and their blockers, any new Initiative Ideas, and any next steps – this should take about 20 minutes a week

The Best Way Of Embedding This In Your Culture

ZOKRI has been designed from the ground up to help you work through the steps outlined, measure and track Goals and Initiatives, and embed the systems and processes into culture. Where they are not thought about, they are just how you plan and work.

We also have the people that can guide and facilitate the meetings that help your teams learn skills like goal setting. Whatever you need to embed a Performance Management Blueprint like this, we have it.

We also have other key parts of the Performance Management toolkit. Features like Personal Development Plans and Teacher Wellbeing Monitoring.

Want to know more about how this can work for you? Book a meeting now.