Managerialism, Teacher Culture and Performance Review: a comparative study of state and independent schools Michael John Howie Carslaw Institute of Education, University of London Submission for the degree of PhD April 2005 Declaration and Word Count I hereby declare that, except where explicit attribution is made, the work presented in this thesis is entirely my own. Word count (exclusive of appendices, lists of reference and bibliography): 77 860 words. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Peter Earley, for his support and encouragement. I would also like to thank the headteachers who participated in this study, particularly those headteachers and teachers of the case study schools who so freely gave their time. I will also be eternally grateful to those friends and colleagues who were prepared to discuss my progress in a critical, thoughtful and entirely helpful manner over the last six or so years. Finally, I would like to thank my uncle, Dr SA Hutchinson, who set me off on this particular academic adventure. Abstract The view that the adoption of certain managerialist procedures and practices (such as performance management or performance-related pay) will inevitably lead to performance improvement has had an enormous impact on the state maintained sector. This study, which uses mixed methods, examines the complex and contested relationship between managerialism, teacher culture and teacher performance review in state and independent schools. Schools in the independent sector are not under any statutory compulsion to implement a particular model of performance review — for example performance management — in the same way as state maintained schools. Evidence from case studies (supported by national survey data) suggests that the predominant discourse in state schools is one of managerialism. Teacher cultures can be described as being generally improving and learning in nature. Performance review schemes have moved from being less managerialist, richly contextualised, and summatively reassuring to being explicitly managerialist, less contextualised, normative and developmental following the introduction of statutory performance management in 2000. In contrast, the predominant discourse in independent schools is one of anti-managerialism or, to a certain extent, amanagerialism with little engagement with managerialist notions of teacher culture. Because of the prevailing anti-managerialism, performance review schemes are largely ineffective, the schemes' main function being to summatively reassure teachers that they are doing a good job. Table of Contents List of Abbreviations List of Tables Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Part One Literature review Chapter 2 Organisational, school and teacher cultures 10 Chapter 3 Performance review and employee 45 motivation Chapter 4 The implementation of performance review 73 systems in schools Part Two Research methods and data analysis Chapter 5 Research methods 95 Chapter 6 Approaches to qualitative data analysis 124 Part Three Teacher culture and performance review: evidence from the independent and state sectors Chapter 7 Teacher culture in independent schools 137 Chapter 8 Performance review in independent schools 155 Chapter 9 Teacher culture in state schools 188 Chapter 10 Performance review in state schools 215 Chapter 11 The national picture: evidence from the 263 surveys Part Four Conclusions Chapter 12 Conclusions: teacher culture and 280 performance review Bibliography 305 Appendix A Summaries of State Surveys 1 and 2, and 329 Independent Surveys 2 and 3 Appendix B Examples of case reports: Fairlands (state) 355 and Westlands (independent) List of abbreviations CPD Continuing Professional Development DES Department of Education and Science: The Government Ministry which introduced the 1991 model of performance appraisal. DfEE Department for Education and Employment: The Government Ministry which introduced the 2000 model of performance management and succeeded the DES. DfES Department for Education and Skills: The Government Ministry which succeeded the DfEE. HMC The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference: A group of over 250 secondary independent schools (schools which primarily rely on fee income for support) whose headteachers are members of HMC HRM Human Resource Management INSET In-service education and training IPD Institute of Personnel and Development ISI Independent Schools Inspectorate: The inspecting agency of most independent schools ITT Initial Teacher Training LEA Local Education Authority NCSL The National College for School Leadership NQT Newly Qualified Teacher OfSTED Office for Standards in Education: The inspecting agency of state schools PRP Performance-related pay SCITT School centred initial teacher training SHMIS The Society of Headmasters and Headmistresses of Independent Schools: A group of over 50 schools whose headteachers are members of SHMIS. TTA Teacher Training Agency List of Tables and Figures Table 2.1 A summary of organisational culture models 23 (adapted from Furnham and Gunter, 1993) Table 2.2 A summary of some school organisational culture 26 models Figure 3.1 The performance management cycle (Armstrong, 49 1999) Table 4.1 A summary of the views of managerialists, anti- 92 managerialists and amanagerialists on various aspects of organisational culture Table 5.1 Questions relating to 'trustworthiness' (Bassey, 100 1999: 75) Table 5.2 Timeline for the case study strand 108 Table 5.3 Summary of the timing of surveys of headteachers 111 of state and independent schools Table 5.4 Response levels suggested by Cohen et al 113 (2002:263) Table 5.5 Stratification of schools according to size of LEA 118 Table 5.6 Survey timeline and response rates 122 Table 5.7 A table to show the matching of research 123 instruments to research questions Figure 6.1 Stages of the 'constant comparative method' (from 127 Wellington, 2000: 137) Figure 6.2 Elements of qualitative analysis (from Watling, 128 2002: 266) Table 11.1 Purposes of performance review schemes given a 266 high level of importance by state and independent respondents. Table 11.2 Performance indicators given a high importance by 268 state and independent respondents. Table 11.3 Expected and actual benefits of performance review 269 as reported by independent school respondents in 2001 and state school respondents in 2002 Table 11.4 Expected and actual benefits of performance review 270 as reported by state school respondents in 2000 before the introduction of statutory performance management and independent school respondents in 2001 Table 11.5 The nature of state schools' performance 273 management schemes (pre-PM in brackets) and independent schools' performance review schemes in 2001 (1997 in brackets) Table 11.6 Level of support for the performance review 274 process by teaching staff Table 11.7 Who reviews the performance of subject teachers in 277 state and independent schools? Table 12.1 The key defining characters of the state and 283 independent case study schools Chapter 1 Introduction The undertaking of this thesis was inspired by a long standing general interest in people management processes in organisations — not just schools. For the last twenty five years or so my career has taken me through the various levels of the formal school hierarchy - firstly as a classroom teacher and subsequently into middle and senior management - in a number of independent schools. During this journey, I have been puzzled as to why some people management processes and practices have been either regarded as absolutely essential for organisational and individual success or damned as an unnecessary management intrusion to be ignored or implemented in ways that negate any original intent. I was also intrigued, following discussions with colleagues and friends working in the state and independent sectors as well as commercial organisations and other professions, that some processes and practices, which were regarded as absolutely essential in one field, were judged in a completely different way in another. Surely they couldn't all be right? This interest (or puzzlement) was a major reason for my undertaking a part-time MBA in Education at Nottingham University from 1994-1998. The course programme was attractive to me in that it was structured to involve contact with students from a range of organisations — businesses, state and independent schools, health service professionals etc. For my dissertation, I chose to investigate a people management process being widely discussed at the time, individual teacher performance review in the form of appraisal — a process that was widely regarded as 1 having failed in state schools but which anecdotally seemed to be reasonably well established (albeit with little empirical evidence) in the independent sector. The main findings of the dissertation were that: • The timing of a school inspection and the introduction of an appraisal scheme were closely related in many schools; • There was a variance in views of the nature and purpose of appraisal at different levels of the school hierarchy. Having completed the MBA in 1998, I started this PhD thesis in 1999 — the introduction of statutory Performance Management (PM) in state schools in 2000 presenting a further opportunity to proceed with a larger scale study comparing the purpose and nature of performance review systems in