5.5% funded pay rise for teachers and binning performance related pay

[noblegiraffe]

Good news for teachers and schools as the govt accept the independent pay body review recommendation of a 5.5% pay rise across all pay points, and pledge enough extra funding to schools to pay for it.

In addition, they are scrapping performance related pay and allowing PPA to be taken at home.

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2024-07-29/hcws35

Yes, education is devolved.

It would be nice if there was some enforcement of progression through UPS. My school id have to be running half the place to get through UPS. I got to 1 and got stuck.

With wales being labour too I didn’t know if they’d do the same you see

Great news for teachers and doctors today. It’s also great news for everyone else as we will have stronger workforce in both areas now hopefully. We need good teachers and good doctors.

I'm out of teaching now but I'm curious as to your thoughts @noblegiraffe (and other teachers) about PPA at home, specifically in secondary. I never had back to back PPA time, so only an hour at most, and even if it was at the start of the day I'd have to be in to do morning meetings and form time. Is there any appetite in secondary schools to try to make it possible for teachers to actually do PPA from home? I can see it working in primary (my kids' teachers tend to get an afternoon a week for PPA time) but surely it just can't be done in secondary?

It will make P5 PPA very desirable!!

Oh that's fabulous!

I think in secondary it is a bit meh BUT that's because it has been phrased as 'working from home during PPA'. The problem with teaching is that there is so little flexibility to run errands or book appointments during the school day that actually if instead of 'working from home during PPA' it was 'you're allowed off-site during PPA' and you could actually use that time to nip to the post office or a quick dash to the shops or have an eye test or whatever, it would be FAR more well received. Teachers do a massive amount of work at home generally anyway, so if the work is being done, does it matter when as well as where?

Thank god it's fully funded, and by that I am hoping that also means on costs including pension.

Still doesn't compensate schools that can't afford the not funded at all Support Staff wages of the last 2 years (probably more, but the wage rises, totally deserved, have been over 9% without mandatory LGPS contributions).

I don't want to be the harbinger but I wouldn't get your hopes up for next year. There's a lot of vote pleading public spending in the works, and while I'm not saying that's a bad thing for education and health the maths long term are going to need to stack up too.

All in education must now throw weight into ensuring schools can support the increasing numbers of kids with SEN and no funding whatsoever. Money in salary isn't going to fix that, and it's bleeding staff white.

As to the PP post re progress through Upper. This has to be performance linked in my view. If you make the case to progress from the main scale, there should be sustained contribution to pupil attainment in return. Unpopular maybe, but that's the gig. Otherwise coast on at M6.

If you make it to the length of time teaching required to get to the upper pay scale, you bloody deserve a medal as well as UPS. The situation in primary where UPS demands blood sacrifice is ridiculous.

I agree with this for primary too. I'd love to pick my children up from school once a week (and carry on working after as usual) and maybe the occasional optician or dentist appt.

I agree PPA time doesn't necessarily have to be on site. A little bit of flexibility goes a long way to moral boosting. If you plan better in Costa knock your socks off.

In which case, scrap the Main/Upper scales.

I’ve just seen this on Twitter-not sure if it’s accurate?

Would most schools have budgeted 3%?

Yes, they have typically funded 3 maybe 3.5%. I bet lucky last year on 7%, balanced the budget and received some, but not all funding.

The only way to do that though is to kill funding elsewhere intra-year, so there goes your SEN TA support (no HNF either) and there goes those new Chromebooks you can't afford).

Salary costs need to be fully funded, including pension. That has to apply to Teachers and Support Staff. Furthermore the funding needs to coincide with salary raises or budget people are living on a wing and a prayer until May usually when the DfE makes a sudden announcement.

My HT is so going to know who I am if she's reading these posts 🤣

Hi AC!!!

Seems like an excellent start.

Mind, shows what a low bar / expectation we all have, that there is so much positivity and excitement about the fact that the Gvmnt is actually funding the payrise. I mean, that should be standard, shouldn't it?

Funded for 2024/25 after that who knows.

I used to work in a private school where you were allowed to nip off if you had a free period 5. They'd scrapped it by the time I got there, partly because in a fire alarm/drill it meant the form class of the person who'd gone home early don't have their form teacher to go line up with (yes there would be someone but there wasn't a lot of spare staff, no TAs, so it was a bit of a pain in the arse) but mostly because it was a nightmare to timetable as people got very upset at not having an end of day free when others did, lots of drama and accusations of favouritism etc.

I don't think I ever would have felt comfortable going for an appointment during an hour's free; far too high a chance of not being finished in time and being late back!

That is true, but this government appears to see education as an investment, which is necessary for the economy, instead of being a drain on resources, which is how the last government viewed it.

It's going to take a long, long time to turn around the damage done to schools by the Tories. This doesn't even come close to fixing things, but at least it stops the prospect of any strike action.

Most schools would have done their budget for 3% BUT many expect to be in a budget deficit this year.

Whether this extra funding stops schools falling into financial peril will show up in September.

Not for FE according to FEweekly 🙄

Does anyone know what the the steps were announced to reduce workload?

Its the abolishing of performance related pay that annoys me. Everyone else's salary depends on their performance, so why shouldn't teachers'?

As the chances are that they're not getting anything like a comparable payrise due to being Support, I empathise with the temptation.