Teacher Per­for­mance Appraisal for
New Teach­ers:
A sup­port­ive process that encour­ages
pro­fes­sional growth

By Joanne Lan­guay and Susan Thede

You are hired and you cel­e­brate. Then you enter the class­room to con­front the chal­lenges and excite­ment of teach­ing. After you feel you have estab­lished a rou­tine, it is time to pre­pare for your teacher per­for­mance appraisal (TPA).

Along with the other ele­ments of the New Teacher Induc­tion Pro­gram (NTIP), new teach­ers must achieve two sat­is­fac­tory per­for­mance appraisals within the first 24 months of teach­ing, to suc­cess­fully com­plete the program.

The foun­da­tion of the TPA is pro­fes­sional dia­logue based on mutual respect, trust, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and a pos­i­tive rela­tion­ship. It is meant to be a sup­port­ive process that encour­ages pro­fes­sional learn­ing and growth. Here are the steps in the process.

1. Pre-observation meeting

At this meet­ing you will want to be pre­pared to discuss

• com­pe­ten­cies to be addressed and exam­ples of how you will demon­strate each
• your suc­cesses and strengths, as well as any­thing you would specif­i­cally like feed­back on
• char­ac­ter­is­tics of your students/class
• les­son to be observed (includ­ing mod­i­fi­ca­tions required)
• cur­ricu­lum expectations
• assess­ment
• resources used.

Con­sider bring­ing sam­ples of stu­dent work, port­fo­lios, and arti­facts to demon­strate evi­dence of your prac­tice and strengths.

2. Class­room observation(s)

These should occur on the date and time agreed upon in advance. Check your pre-observation notes to review the com­pe­ten­cies being focused on. Pre­pare your class so they are aware that there will be an observer in the class. This is not the time to try a new instruc­tional strat­egy, or ignore a behav­iour issue that arises. Jot down some notes fol­low­ing the obser­va­tion. Ask for feed­back as soon as pos­si­ble afterward.

3. Post-observation meeting

At this meet­ing the eval­u­a­tor will

• dis­cuss the class­room obser­va­tion includ­ing the com­pe­ten­cies pre­vi­ously identified
• pro­vide feed­back and make recommendations.

Be pre­pared to ask ques­tions so you fully under­stand the feed­back, and to pro­vide input on rec­om­men­da­tions made – after all, it is your pro­fes­sional growth. This is your oppor­tu­nity to iden­tify any con­cerns you have about the process.

4. Sum­ma­tive report

There should be no sur­prises in the con­tent of the report or the rat­ing or rec­om­men­da­tions. Your sig­na­ture acknowl­edges receipt of the report. Mem­bers can con­tact ETFO at any time through­out the process. If you receive an unsat­is­fac­tory rat­ing, it is very impor­tant to con­tact the fed­er­a­tion as soon as pos­si­ble for sup­port and advice.

Reflec­tions from a new teacher on the TPA process

“When I first found out about NTIP and the TPA, I imme­di­ately became anx­ious and dreaded the whole eval­u­a­tion. Lessons hardly ever go exactly as you’ve writ­ten them on paper, and I could think of a mil­lion things that could go wrong while my prin­ci­pal was observ­ing me.

“My men­tor helped me by dis­cussing which lessons I should choose. For my first obser­va­tion my prin­ci­pal was going to observe my grade 2 les­son on prob­a­bil­ity, which included a lot of manip­u­la­tives and hands-on tasks – so a lot of oppor­tu­nity for chaos. I con­tin­ued to feel anx­ious until after I had my first meet­ing with my principal.

“Dur­ing that meet­ing my prin­ci­pal made sure I under­stood that this was an obser­va­tion, rather than an eval­u­a­tion, and it was not meant to point out my every flaw and mis­take. The goal was to show off my strengths as a teacher and per­haps dis­cover some ben­e­fi­cial areas for pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment. After speak­ing with her I instantly felt more relaxed.

“At the start of my first obser­va­tion les­son, I felt a lit­tle ner­vous about hav­ing my prin­ci­pal in the back of my room, sit­ting in a Pri­mary student’s chair, with a clip­board. As she patiently sat through my entire les­son with a smile on her face, I could feel her sup­port and I knew that she was only hop­ing for the best. Within min­utes, I became so absorbed in my les­son and the excite­ment of my stu­dents that I com­pletely for­got she was there. My les­son went really well and I got excel­lent feed­back from my principal.

“Look­ing back I can say that I found my TPA to be extremely help­ful and an inte­gral part of my learn­ing process as a begin­ning teacher. Do not fear your TPA; instead, think of it as a chance to have some­one reaf­firm that you are mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in the lives of your students.”

— Michelle Beau­mont, mem­ber, Ele­men­tary Teach­ers of Toronto Local.

The Ontario Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion has pro­duced two man­u­als regard­ing NTIP:

• The New Teacher Induc­tion Pro­gram: Induc­tion Elements
• Teacher Per­for­mance Appraisal: Tech­ni­cal Require­ments Manual

You can find them at edu.gov.on.ca/eng/teacher/induction.html.

Susan Thede and Joanne Lan­guay are ETFO exec­u­tive assistants