My school isn't in the state sector, but absolutely a probation period is vital for any new employee. It's a fair way to support someone new coming into the school, to make sure they understand the expectations of the organisation, get the training they need, and can deliver the standards expected. The standards of a line manager you've never met, are likely not to be the same as those of your school. The logical extension of their argument is that no one should require a probation period in any role other than their first one. Or that all teachers out of their first year of teaching are consistently excellent.

We have a year's probation period for new teachers, which we try to sign off by Easter (ie after 2 terms), with the last term available if we need to extend the review. There are three points of formal contact within that time (setting targets, review at end of first term and review at end of second term), and both reviews involve a lesson observation and feedback. If there are concerns by the time of the second review, a senior manager will be involved in the second lesson observation to ensure there is consistency.

Let me know if you want any of our paperwork for this.

Good luck.

Nina

The reality is that probation periods are largely a paper tiger. They are only really relevant when an organisation withholds certain non-statutory benefits (such as enhanced holiday, sick pay, entitlement to bonuses etc) pending the successful completion of probation.

However, where you may be able to get some traction is on the applicability of your policies. I know many MATs have it written into their policies that things like the disciplinary procedure apply in full from day one of employment. This means that dismissing anyone for performance, capability, absence or misconduct is a massive headache right from the start.

If, instead, you have policies that make it clear that these procedures are discretionary for staff with less than two years' qualifying service, you have a lot more leeway to dispense swiftly with inadequate performers through the tried-and-tested "Invite - Meet - Appeal" route.

However, if you have made your disciplinary policies contractual, you will need to consult with staff (and their representatives) to make those changes which unions are very unlikely to be pleased with. Not that this should, necessarily, stop you. You may find that many of their members in the MAT are quite keen that the school be empowered to swiftly dispense with dead weight more easily. But that doesn't meant it can't be a challenge.

Even if those policies aren't contractual, you will likely face opposition to the changes from unions, especially if they are already petty enough to contest something like probation periods. All the same, depending on your circumstances, you might be able to pull off a win by conceding on probation periods whilst bringing in discretionary procedures for short-service employees; and if the rep in question isn't paying attention or doesn't really know their business (which opposing probation periods would suggest might well be the case) you could get away with it.

I am not in education but an observation...

If you find it very hard to recruit now how will the introduction of a probationary period affect that challenge? Will it make it easier, or as I suspect, far far harder as people will go to Schools / MATs where there isn't a probationary period. (particularly if you get known for firing new hires)

My opinion (for what its worth) is that the freedoms to bring in new T&Cs afforded to MATs is in most cases illusionary

You see, I just don't think about probation as a negative. At its heart, it should be a supportive process to make sure that a decision you make about a person's fit at interview is correct. All that does it put a structure around something that otherwise will seem arbitrary - effectively scaffolding the bit of line management that is essential for someone to know if they are doing a good job or not. Perhaps the sell to the unions is around that improved communication and clarity of expectations?

In reply to Nina Waters:

Nina Waters said:

I just don't think about probation as a negative

No but many new candidates will and if they are struggling to fill jobs anyway is this an additional hurdle they want to put in the way?

Nina Waters said:

Perhaps the sell to the unions is around that improved communication and clarity of expectations?

Good luck with that :-) (genuinely) 

In reply to Keith:

:-) I'm asked a lot of questions during a recruitment process, but I'd genuinely say that I've never been asked about whether the school has a probationary process. I would be very surprised if that had any impact on what a potential teacher joining your school cares about - it will be pay, workload, and maybe pensions if they're paying attention to the news!

In reply to Nina Waters:

Possibly because you are in the private sector :-) When I used to be a Trustee of a MAT all sorts of things came up :-)

But will leave that one up to the OP

In reply to Nina Waters:

Perhaps a little irrelevant, but knowing there's a 6 month probation period might just put some people off applying I wonder? I'm assuming that some applicants might not know that in effect the real , legal, probationary period is 2 years.

But as you say, supporting new employees should be a normal supportive. management process anyway.

In reply to Nina Waters:

I think that would be as it is expected that they don't exist (in the state sector).

It is worse if the fist time an applicant becomes aware is when the offer in in writing in front of them and they read the contract and see that probation period they were not expecting - if they have multiple offers yours slips down the list and you risk having wasted all that interviewing time etc if they say "no" and you have also missed out on the 2nd choice due to the delay

In reply to Ian:

Maybe ... hard to do a controlled trial on this, but we recruit a lot of staff whose experience has all been in the state sector previously, and it's never even been a question at interview or when they receive a written offer. And I've had plenty of odd questions :-)

Thanks all for the replies.

The majority of teachers are absolutely fine, it's the odd one or two that cause concern, and without a probation period, our other processes take a lot of time and resource to manage the employee out.

I'm hoping a probation period will put off those teachers that know they'll be pulled up from even applying and save everyone a lot of time!

It's also part of a bigger exercise of streamling processes and making as many consistent across all staff, and not just one rule for support staff and another for teachers.

I have a few other policies I'm consulting on atm, but when I put this on the table, I will update you all on the "arguments" put forward by the TUs.