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

Performance at GCSEs / SATs / end of year tests etc are dependent on so many things (SEN, attendance, TA etc)

A sensible offer from a grown up government

The concept of PRP is fine when it's within your control. Eg creating resources for a new GCSE curriculum / planning schemes of work/ introducing a new method of teaching / wellbeing / producing a new way for parents to communicate with teachers etc etc

The bit that is often outside of your control is 'students in X class achieve 100% of their target grades at GCSE'. I once failed mine because one girl stopped coming to school, and she didn't attend the GCSEs. Or one of my students didn't write a single thing on his GCSE exam paper.

@NorthernGirlie
Wow, love to know the reasons for that 🙄

Our timetable is done by a member of SLT...

Because we have little to no control over:

• sets we're being given (there is a huge difference between teaching 30 top set students and 15 bottom set students, half of whom rarely attend and most of whom will do what they can to disrupt)
• the amount of GCSE/ A-level classes we're resposible for (far easier to be in charge of one class rather than 5)
• the teachers we split with (in my subject usually 2 others)
• the numbers of students in our sets and their level of motivation
• whether or not we have TA support for all of our SEND students

All of those will massively influence the end of year results, but every teacher is being given the same target. So then there are arguments about who gets which sets because, inevitably, someone will end up with a set that will not reach their targets no matter how much hard work is put into them.

And I have yet to work in a school where my first of 3-5 targets was not "90% of all classes achieve their target (determined by their Y6 SATs).

Our timetables are all done by the deputy head.

Because it’s so affected by things outside of your control.

If your target was to get 80% of your class to x grade or make x% progress, but you have a class with hugely difficult SEMH needs, pupils who have suffered a bereavement, 3 x EHCPs with no support and your colleague has a completely different cohort with the same targets, I’m sure that would annoy you more.

Because performance related pay for teachers is bollocks. It was when it was introduced and it has been all along.

Good plan. I approve.

I don’t work for an academy (hopefully I never will!)-the rules seemed a bit vague on whether they have to give the pay rise. I hope they all do, or if they don’t-teachers just leave!

Does that mean that everyone gets the same percentage increase every year with no performance related pay? Or does that mean no performance related pay = no increase?

The 5.5% is applied to every teacher on any pay point. It's a national pay increase.

In addition, there are pay scales. In the early years of teaching you are supposed to move up one point on the main pay scale per year, because experience in teaching is valuable. Then Gove introduced performance related pay which meant that cash-strapped schools used this to introduce unreasonable targets that prevented teachers from moving up this pay scale. This is now being scrapped, so teachers should move up the pay scale automatically again.

Well that’s great for teachers, but I don’t understand how it’s funded, given the black hole in the finances that Rachel Reeves has talked about.

The Shadow Chancellor, who until recently the Chancellor was on the radio this morning complaining that the pay rises were not linked to increases in productivity. Leaving aside who knows what productivity means for teachers, all he seemed to be doing was demonstrating that he is too stupid to understand that paying people properly, treating them well, so they feel good about themselves will lead to them working better for you.

Edited to add: Quite why he was entirely absent on national media during the election campaign instead of outlining how he wanted to pay public sector workers less I don't know.

I think they form part of the black hole because they are the pay rises that were recommended by the independent pay review body but the government refused to announce what the recommendations were so no one knew that it was 5.5%.

The Shadow Chancellor, who until recently the Chancellor was on the radio this morning complaining that the pay rises were not linked to increases in productivity

An utter bellend who doesn't realise that the lack of pay rises were linked to an absence of teachers. A black hole of productivity, one could say, that needs filling with teachers.

Well said @absquatulize

Given that Jeremy (name rhymes with) Hunt set the rules for the public sector pay review bodies, he presumably would have accepted their recommendations as well, or cost the country more in strikes than the pay rise. As such these pay rises are very much part of the 22billion in year black hole.

The PPA at home thing sounds good in theory but in practice I think it could be quite divisive in secondaries. I can see people who don’t have any PPAs at the end of the day being a bit resentful if there are other people who have 5 per fortnight that fall all the end of the day and therefore get to finish early 50% of the time. I don’t see how we could possibly timetable for everyone to be able to take all their PPA at home and with the timetable already written, we can’t even say that everyone can even take some of it at home as many people’s will fall in such a way as to make that impossible. I’ve heard of schools that try to ensure everyone can take 1 PPA per week/fortnight at home, but I can’t see how all PPA could be taken from home in a secondary. There’s just too much complexity in the timetable, I think.

Performance related pay isn't fair across different school settings and for different roles. Some schools haven't really been doing it as they've tied it to general monitoring targets which are part and parcel of school life and responsibilities.

First schools don't do y6 sats, send schools may not do any, and other assessments are unique to the school.

As you move up the pay points you're supposed to take on more responsibilities. You must also demonstrate this to move through threshold to upper pay scale (I'm so old now I've no idea if that's still a thing?!)

Pay is performance related in other ways eg gaining a teaching and learning position which would give some extra pay but also more responsibility and an expectation to be more knowledgeable.

Weve been doing ppa at home and the head makes sure staff get different slots year in year out. Not everyone uses it but it can be of great value to some.

Interesting. Is this in secondary?

Does everyone get to take all of their PPA at home or do they timetable it so that everyone gets to take 1 at home? I can’t quite get my head around how we could possibly timetable so that everyone could take it all at home. I can see that setting it up so that everyone gets one at home could be possible, even if complicated. But it seems inevitable to me that a big chunk of people’s PPA periods will not be at the end of the day.

I suppose people could also take them at the start of the day as long as we have enough people to cover all the registration groups, but that still means 60% of lessons are middle of the day and don’t suit being taken from home if that’s where your PPA falls.

I don't agree with performance related pay being scrapped. Pay should absolutely be linked to performance, but performance should be based on the actual performance of the teacher, not relying on students to get certain grades. Good lessons, good planning, going above and beyond for example, same type of thing as in the private sector in many companies. As for PPA time, it's good that there will be flexibility to do this at home when timetables allow. People need to be grown up about this though and understand that sometimes timetables won't allow it, and not complain when others can and they can't. I'm very pleased teachers have got a 5.5% pay rise, it's well deserved.

Good lessons, good planning, going above and beyond for example

And how would this be measured in a way that is actually reasonable?

Ofsted scrapped lesson gradings for a reason.

Good planning? Mine is in my head....they're supposed to be reducing workload so requiring evidence of planning for checking would be outrageous.

Going above and beyond - no way.