Thread by @DrDavidBoyce

Was reflecting on going into my 14th year of teaching and remembered a curious incident, in my last school, when I didn't go through pay progression. All the result of a series of curious events...

First thing you need to know is I struggle if things are unclean. I need my classroom chairs all to be lined up and brought to the same height after each lesson. After my room is cleaned, I give it a quick clean myself. And people know this.

So performance management came up. My results were good. The kids were enjoying it. There wasn't anything bad to say. But at the bottom of the form it said my room was often left messy.

MESSY? ARE YOU ACTUALLY KIDDING ME? I went and checked it, imagining that a hurricane had swept through whilst I was away. Or expecting to find some goats trashing the place. But no. Everything was in order and the desks were within a mm of where they should be.

I didnt get it. Was it supposed to be a joke? In the end I asked my line manager. He said that others had said my room was a mess. As in it had been reported anonymously through 360 feedback. So I asked him if he thought it was a mess. He said this wasn't the point.

Should things go into your performance management even if they are demonstrably untrue? The people who wrote the feedback knew that it would push my buttons and thought it would be funny. But it wasn't funny on my performance management review. The Head would see this.

So I explained that I didn't want that on my form. He said that I didn't need to worry about it. That it was an easy thing to use as a target for next time. That there had to be something critical on there. It was staying on the form.

So it came back to me for two things. One was to fill in the small reflection box at the bottom of the form and then sign it and hand it to HR. The empty reflection box sat there waiting. Silently willing me to fill it with my thoughts. It was one of those do I or don't I moments

So I did and I didn't hold back. I explained that the document was full of lies. I really made my thoughts known and I refused to sign it. As a consequence I did not go through pay progression that year. And I left a year later.

Now a few years later I wonder if I did the right thing. And with every passing year I grow more confident that it was the right thing. If it isn't true then fight it. If that makes you difficult then be difficult.