Appraisal Cycle Traditions

Second Half of Autumn Term starts in traditional fashion with yearly anxiety about end of appraisal cycle review meetings. Tradition consists largely of colleagues panicking because they have variously not: Documented evidence of progress towards meeting targets during year and have left everything to last minute; Scheduled end of cycle review meeting for sometime before week ending 31st October; Completed self-review against the teachers’s standards; Remembered what the school-set targets were anyway. Admit with no small degree of irony that own adherence to these traditions is almost absolute but nevertheless point out that details of How To Do All Of This (including Helpful Videos) were sent out early in the calendar year. Colleagues suggest, in adherence to other traditional activities, that they may need reminding about these kinds of things, to which point out that message including details of How To Do All Of This (including Helpful Videos) was indeed posted several times during rest of calendar year. Follow additional tradition by resisting temptation to suggest actual reading of documentation may be more valuable than filing email in folder marked ‘I’m sure this will be helpful and/or important, but let’s be honest, I’m never going to do anything about it’. Immediately create own folder marked thus and set up rule directing all messages about appraisal into said folder. Proceed to making third coffee of morning.

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