What is the procedure for dismissing someone for poor performance in school?

Normally this would involve inviting the employee to a meeting to discuss their performance, setting out your concerns and then setting a performance improvement plan (often called a “PIP”) which sets out the necessary improvements.  If the required improvements are not made then formal meetings are arranged, resulting in performance improvement warnings and ultimately, if there is no/insufficient improvement, the employee may be dismissed.  For a clear visual explanation of the process please refer to the following flowchart:

P2: flowchart of performance management process

The performance improvement process broadly involves:

• Identify the performance issues
• If the performance issues have not been addressed with the employee at all an informal discussion should usually take place to provide an opportunity to improve before moving on to the formal stage.
• Invite the employee to a performance improvement meeting, setting out the performance concerns, see:

P3: Invitation to stage 1 performance improvement meeting

P7: Letter of invitation to short serving employee potential dismissal for poor performance

• Hold the performance improvement meeting with the employee and allowing the employee to respond to the performance concerns and agreeing a timescale for improvement, see:

P15: Guide to Conducting Formal Performance Improvement Meetings

• Deciding on an appropriate sanction, confirming this in writing, see:

P8: Written warning (poor performance)

P12: Termination of Employment Short Serving Employee (Poor Performance)

• If the performance does not improve then invite them to a further meeting, see:

P4: Invitation to stage 2 performance improvement meeting

• Confirming the outcome, see:

P9: Final Written Warning (Poor Performance)

• If the performance still hasn’t improved invite the employee to a final meeting to consider their potential dismissal, see:

P5: Invitation to stage 3 performance improvement meeting.

• Confirm the outcome in writing and give them the right to appeal, see:

P10:Termination of Employment (Poor Performance)

• If someone exercises their right of appeal then invite them to an appeal meeting which will usually take place with Governors / Trustees, see:

P9: Invitation to Appeal Hearing

• Hold the appeal meeting and decide on an outcome to the appeal, confirming this in writing, see:

P16: Guide to Conducting Appeal hearing

P11: Appeal Hearing Outcome Letter