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This guide walks you through setting up the Professional Development module and running your first appraisal cycle. The module manages an annual process in which staff have objectives set and reviewed in collaboration with their appraiser — covering objective setting, interim review, and final sign-off in a structured, auditable workflow.
Initial setup requires the Administrator role. Once the module is enabled and roles are assigned, your Professional Development Manager takes over day-to-day administration of the cycle.

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Setup Steps

1

Enable the Professional Development module

Go to Administration > Modules and enable the Professional Development module. The module is sometimes referred to as the Performance Management or Appraisal module.
2

Assign a Professional Development Manager

Go to Administration > Users and assign the Professional Development Manager role to one or more staff members. Managers can access and oversee all appraisal reviews (unless marked confidential) and are responsible for quality-assuring the process across the school.
3

Configure Staff Types

Create Staff Types to reflect the different groups of staff in your school — for example, Teacher, Head of Year, or Site Staff. Each Staff Type can have its own set of template objectives to speed up the objective-setting meeting.
A whole Staff Type can be marked as confidential. This is especially useful for senior leaders, whose appraisals should not be visible to other leaders who happen to have a manager role in the system.
4

Assign Appraisers to staff

Go to Administration > Users and assign an Appraiser to each member of staff. Every member of staff must have an appraiser assigned before their appraisal cycle can begin.

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Running the Appraisal Cycle

The appraisal process moves through four distinct phases. Both the appraiser and the appraisee must actively agree at the end of each phase before the process can advance to the next stage.
Both the appraiser and the appraisee must agree at each stage before the process can move forward. This ensures both parties are aligned and the record accurately reflects a shared understanding.
1

Phase 1 — Objective Setting

The appraiser and appraisee meet to agree objectives for the year. Objectives can be:
  • Added from Staff Type templates
  • Copied forward from the previous year’s appraisal
  • Written fresh for the current year
Each objective must include:
  • Success criteria / indicative evidence — what will demonstrate the objective has been met
  • Professional development needs — what support or training the member of staff will need (these can be marked as TBC or N/A if not yet known)
Once both parties are happy, the appraiser and appraisee agree the objectives on the system to close this phase.
Use template objectives for each Staff Type to make the objective-setting meeting faster and more consistent across the school. Staff can also copy objectives forward from the previous year and then update them as needed.
2

Phase 2 — Interim Review

Part way through the year, the appraiser and appraisee meet for a mid-year check-in. Either party can add an interim comment to each objective. Once every objective has an interim comment, both the appraiser and appraisee agree the interim review on the system.
3

Phase 3 — Final Review

At the end of the year, the appraisee completes a self-review of each objective, then submits it. This automatically notifies the appraiser that the self-review is ready.The appraiser then:
  • Adds a final review comment for each objective
  • Records whether each objective was Met, Partially Met, or Not Met
  • Adds overall comments covering professional standards, strengths, areas for development, and a summary
The appraisee adds a final comment, and both parties agree the final review on the system.
4

Phase 4 — Sign-off

The appraiser formally completes the review, providing the final sign-off on the completed appraisal cycle. A copy of the completed review is automatically emailed to both the appraiser and appraisee for their records.

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Confidentiality

Appraisals are confidential by nature. Only the appraisee and appraiser can view a review by default. The Professional Development Manager can also access reviews to oversee the process and quality-assure objectives — unless a review has been individually marked as confidential by the appraiser, in which case only the appraiser and appraisee can view it.
If you manage appraisals for senior leaders, mark that Staff Type as confidential to ensure those appraisals are not accessible to other leaders who hold a manager role in the system.