This paper is drawn from a case-study which tracked the development of the national scheme of teacher appraisal in one Region in Scotland over a three year period. It will focus on ambiguities in appraisal. Ambiguity has been seen as an endemic feature of UK appraisal (Elliot 1989) and more generally as functional for innovation (Bates 1989). In this case, contradictory project aims meant that classroom observation became disconnected from the appraisal process and that direct impact of appraisal on teaching and learning was negligible. Appraisal proved neither to be the 'normalising gaze', of its critics (Ball 1991), nor the means of reflecting on practice of its proponents. However, the case study offers some support for a view of appraisal as an expression of the limiting of critical reflection encouraged by fast capitalism (Gee & Lankshear 1995). It could also be seen as another layer in a 'sedimenting' (Townley 1993) process of increasing managerialism in education.