The joint response to the School Teachers Review Body (England)
report from unions representing almost all teachers and school
leaders underlines the consensus in the profession on the key pay
and conditions issues. Teachers and school leaders are clear that
the pay increase for September 2023 must be only the first in a
series of urgent steps to repair the damage to pay and
conditions, and to tackle the recruitment and retention crisis.
Pay cuts and sky-high workload have created major teacher
shortages, damaging our education service. The support for this
year’s pay disputes showed that teachers, school leaders and
parents are crying out for urgent repair to the damage that has
been caused by Government political choices since 2010. For the
sake of our education service, we need a major correction in
teacher pay and urgent improvements in workload and working
conditions.
This year the unions have also sent a separate joint statement to
on performance-related pay
(PRP). The STRB has called for the removal of the obligation on
schools to operate performance related pay (PRP). This
brings the STRB into line with the united position of the
profession and exposes the isolation of the Government on this
key issue. PRP leads to unfair pay outcomes and adds to workload
problems. The unions call on the Government to immediately remove
PRP. Instead of unfair PRP we need a fair national pay structure
to support recruitment and retention. A failure by the Government
to immediately remove PRP will put it at odds with the
profession, the evidence and the STRB.
Both documents are attached. They were submitted today.
Daniel Kebede, General Secretary of the National
Education Union, said:
“The Government must act now to repair the damage to teacher pay,
fix the serious recruitment and retention problems, implement a
fair national pay structure with no PRP, and tackle high workload
and excessive accountability. All of this requires investment in
education, of a level sufficient to achieve a well-supported
school system with valued teachers and school leaders. With a
general election due next year, the Government will be held
accountable by parents and the public, as well as by educators,
for any further failure to invest in our education service.”
Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of
School and College Leaders, said:
“When the Government’s offer on teacher pay and funding for
2023/24 was accepted, we were very clear that it would not be
sufficient on its own to address the recruitment and retention
crisis, funding pressures and the many other problems faced by
schools and colleges. It is vitally important that this
settlement is the beginning of a process to provide the sustained
investment in education that has been sorely lacking over the
last decade.”
Patrick Roach, General Secretary of the NASUWT,
said:
"Over the last 13 years, teachers have been working longer and
longer for less and less whilst reforms introduced by the
Government during that time have undermined morale and led to an
exodus of teachers and headteachers from the profession.
“The Government needs to demonstrate that it is on the side of
hardworking teachers or risk losing any last remaining shred of
credibility it has with the teaching profession.
“Ministers should start by not ignoring evidence from the pay
review body, including its advice to abandon immediately the
discredited system of performance related pay on the grounds that
it is unfair, divisive and discriminatory.”
Helen Osgood, National Officer for Education and Early
Years at Community, said:
“The 33rd School Teachers’ Review Body report is an improvement
on last year's, but it does not go far enough to begin to address
the issues facing the sector, nor does it safeguard the
profession for the generations of teachers to come. For example,
we are deeply disappointed that more is not being done to address
recruitment and retention of school staff.
“We also have concerns on TLR payments, upper pay scales, PPA
time and steps to address workloads that have not been addressed
in this report, which the Government should have published well
before the end of the summer term. We want to make things better
in education and Community will work hard to raise these issues
at all levels, for the benefit of all the pupils, students and
the whole education workforce.”
Paul Whiteman, General Secretary of school leaders’ union
NAHT, said:
“We are very clear that the pay deal agreed with Government over
the summer must be only the first step in restoring teacher and
school leader pay. The erosion seen over the past decade has had
a massively detrimental impact and children’s education is the
worse off thanks to the resulting recruitment and retention
crisis. Competitive pay, alongside serious efforts towards
reducing unmanageable workloads and unsustainable accountability,
is needed to ensure teaching is an attractive proposition for a
life-long career.”
