Poor teachers to be axed after just one school term

POOR teachers will be removed from the classroom after just one term under new Government plans.

Head teachers will be given more freedom to observe staff and dismiss weak teachers as part of fresh reforms designed to raise standards.

The measures will protect children who “suffer when struggling teachers are neither helped nor removed”, according to Education Secretary Michael Gove.

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However union leaders warned that the reforms would give head teachers a “licence to bully.”

Under the proposals, the time it usually takes schools to remove poorly performing teachers will be cut from a year or more to one term. Restricting the time a head can formally observe a class teacher, known as the “three-hour observation rule”, will be scrapped.

Ministers say the current system “fails to respect the professionalism of head teachers and teachers”. The Department for Education announced yesterday that 60 pages of guidance will be axed and it will be made clear that staff illness need not bring disciplinary action to a halt.

But while school leaders welcomed the moves, two major teaching unions objected.

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NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates said: “Not content with subjecting teachers to a significant two-year pay cut, assault on their pension provision and savage cuts to education budgets causing job losses, ministers today have added insult to injury by effectively proposing that teachers will be on a permanent capability procedure.

“Stripping away safeguards to ensure that teachers are treated fairly and professionally will not deliver high performance.”

Christine Blower, general sectary of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers’ union, said: “The Government should be focusing on ways of allowing their professional expertise to flourish, not undermining them by encouraging more overbearing oversight by management.

“Where illness affects teaching, employers should be considering how to overcome the difficulties, not how to remove the teacher.

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“These proposals are about removing protections, not about cutting down on unnecessary red tape.”

However Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), welcomed the proposals.

He said: “There are really very few weak teachers in the country but we must be able to help those that are to move on quickly, fairly and respectfully. This is only right for the vast majority of dedicated and skilled teachers in our schools, as well as for pupils themselves.”

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