Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
In my experience (granted, it's only a couple of schools, so it's not universal) doing ranking, teachers who add more value to holistic development outcomes in higher needs classes than teachers who add little value to low needs classes will always be ranked higher.
Value add doesn't only mean exam results. Boosting conduct grades, improving school-parent working relationship, developing students' self-confidence or leadership skills, is also something one can declare in their EPMS and be validated for during appraisal.
It is possible to make high impact in difficult classes. But also must be thick skin to write in EPMS form, and be ready to give examples and show evidence during work review. I know many experienced, older teachers don't care about perf grade anymore and don't bother boasting about this type of good work. But this is aimed at those who think they are condemned to get C grade forever just because they "specialise" in high needs students.
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The scenario is not simply a comparison between teaching high needs vs low needs class.
The situation on the ground is that different teachers hold different types of portfolios, as different as apples and oranges. But management seems to prefer apple or orange over the other.
For example, take a comparison of 2 teachers of same age and same paygrade.
Teacher A:
Due to manpower shortage in the department, need to take on additional classes and graduating classes. Timetable is overloaded. In other areas, just an ordinary committee member, ordinary CCA teacher.
Burn 80h weeks doing T&L related stuff (lessons, homework marking, exam-related stuff, testimonial, additional classes for grad classes)
Teacher B:
Normal class load, or maybe lower, and appointment as CCA OIC and committee head/2ic. Placed in charge to plan and lead a major school event, for example, NE week leading up to national day, or organise the school's anniversary celebration and coordinating with the VIPs attending the event. Also burn 80h work weeks doing all these stuff.
In terms of time and effort, both teachers are definitely not slacking, and are working too hard.
But when it comes to appraisal, teacher B will be favoured over teacher A, because the system deems such non-academic work as being 'more impactful'.
Which is not necessarily true.
Just because an event involved the entire school population, got VIPs involved, it doesn't make it more important than learning in the classroom.
At the end of the day, if we ask the real stakeholders, the parents and students, if they were to choose to between lessons and school event, which would they think is more important, the answer is quite obvious.
The priorities are severely misplaced in the appraisal of teachers.