Teacher Pay Award -Question

Hi

I am interested in seeing how fellow heads are moving forwards with the new pay increase. obviously those at the bottom of Main Scale will receive the 3.5% but are you adjusting pay by 3.5% for everyone else between M1 and M6. My LA's guidance has been that we need to make our own decision based on our pay policy.

Any thoughts?

 

I thought it WAS 3.5 for M1-6?

 

I posted this on another thread, but worth copying here:
STPCD is often wrongly read as having to apply to each point on a pay scale (of which schools are free to label them how they wish). It doesn't.
It says: (my bold)
September 2018 pay award
In response to the recommendations in the STRB’s 28th Report, from 1 September 2018:
i. a 3.5% uplift has been applied to the statutory minima and maxima of the main pay range and of the unqualified teachers pay range.
ii. a 2% uplift to the statutory minima and maxima of the upper pay range, the leading practitioner pay range and all allowances across all pay ranges.
iii. a 1.5% uplift to the leadership pay ranges (including headteacher groups).
Except for teachers and leaders on the minima of their respective ranges or group ranges, schools must determine – in accordance with their own pay policy – how to take account of the uplift to the national framework in making individual pay progression decisions.
All pay uplifts will be back-dated to 1 September 2018.

 

What are other hts in your LA doing? Link up with them and be consistentnin your approach.

 

If you can afford to, just give to to everybody...

 

Problem is I can’t afford it and of course that is going to be incredibly decisive within my team. I have been drop feeding the fact that it is only statutory at the minimum and maximum but the teachers only see the headlines that the DFE have put out.

 

No,on STPCD it's only teachers on the bottom point of each scale who must have their pay increased (because the the scale minimum has increased). Although the top of each scale has also increased you do NOT have to increase the top of your school's pay scale by that amount. So a teacher currently on M1 must get 3.5% increase. A teacher on M6 does not have to be given 3.5%. (Assuming M1 and M6 are top and bottom of scale in your school's pay policy)

 

Yes you are quite correct. The problem remains how do we manage the expectations of the staff in the face of how the pay increase has been sold by the government and unions.

 

Sorry I’m a little confused by this.
If the government says the top of the main pay scale is a certain amount and as a school you say that m6 is the top of the main pay scale.
How do you then not pay the amount the government says is the top of that scale?

Surely then a teacher would never be able to reach the amount the government says it the top of the scale but you as a school have said IS the top of the main pay scale?
Does that make any sense?

 

If the school increases its pay scale so that the top of its pay scale for 2018-19 is the same as the top of the STPCD MPS then yes teachers will get the 3.5% increase. But the school is not obliged to increase the top of its pay scale to align with STPCD maximum. It could decide, for example, to increase the maximum its pay scale by a lesser amount. Someone on TES has already posted about a school that has done that.

 

I think that it will be hard to morally explain to teachers, particularly on main scale, why some of their colleagues are getting a larger increase than they are.

I think that any head who relies on saying 'it's the govt fault' and 'i only have to do it for these guys because of the small print' will find a lot of goodwill disappearing. The moment the small print is applied to teachers on the most fundamental way in which their value is recognised, they very quickly start abiding by the small print themselves.

If you can't afford it, (and I accept the reality of this for most schools) then a way of compromising and agreeing it needs to be found which doesn't rely on teachers accepting a technicality in good spirits.

 

I think the only fair and reasonable course of action is to incorporate the union payscales using the recommended percentages into your pay policy. You can do nothing until this has been consulted on and agreed with governors. I would have thought most schools have done this by now.

Everyone knows that there isn’t enough money but making a budget work needs to be through savings first then cutting hours or posts after that. It’s horrendous when it comes to this but I don’t think tinkering with the payscales is worth it.