Teachers and school leaders must receive a pay rise this year, as supply “teeters on the brink”, the five leading education unions have warned today.
In a statement published this morning, heads’ and teachers’ leaders have called on the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) to reverse the “devastating impact of the attacks on teacher and school leader pay levels” as members face “huge rises in energy costs and the National Insurance increase.”
The Association of School and College Leaders, the NAHT school leaders’ union, the NEU teaching union, the NASUWT teaching union and Voice Community warn in the statement that the STRB and the government must “listen to the united voice of the teaching profession and make the changes necessary to recruit, retain and properly value teachers and school leaders”.
The joint call comes as the deadline for recommendation submissions to STRB closes today.
It says that staff have suffered from “a succession of pay cuts”, alongside inflation, since 2010, which has negatively impacted the competitiveness of the profession and further exacerbated recruitment and retention issues.
Yesterday, government data revealed that initial teacher training applications had fallen by 23 per cent in February, compared with the same period last year, and were even lower than pre-pandemic levels, amplifying concerns of a teacher supply crisis.
Impact of 2021 pay freeze ‘continues to be felt’
The unions say the 2021 pay freeze impact “continues to be felt”, as inflation “climbs higher”.
In July last year, the STRB urged the government not to freeze teachers’ salaries for another year, warning it could “jeopardise efforts” to attract people to the profession.
In December 2021, education secretary Nadhim Zahawi wrote to the pay review body to ask for a “significant uplift” to teacher starting salaries, and recommendations for both the 2022-23 and 2023-24 pay awards.
Mr Zahawi asked STRB to provide a report on their recommendations “during May 2022 at the latest”.
However, the unions said increases to starting pay must be seen alongside “equivalent increases” for all teachers and school leaders, and that “the increases must be enough to start to restore the pay losses against inflation since 2010”.
They also call for a fair national pay structure, the removal of performance-related pay (PRP), an end to differential pay increases and urgent action to cut teacher and school leader workload.
Last month, it was revealed that almost a third of teachers worked unpaid overtime in 2021.
Pay ‘cut by a fifth’ in real terms since 2010
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, warned school leadership supply is “teetering on the brink”.
“School leaders’ pay has been cut by a fifth in real terms since 2010, and this, in combination with high stakes accountability, crushing workload, long hours and inadequate school funding, is driving leaders from the job they love.”
Mr Whiteman called for a “new, fair deal on pay” to keep teachers in the job.
“The STRB is an independent review body - it must act like one and make the right recommendations based on objective evidence and free from government constraint and interference.”
‘Erosion’ of teacher pay linked to shortages
Commenting on teacher shortages, Geoff Barton, general secretary of ASCL, said they were a direct result of the “erosion” of teacher pay over the last 10 years.
He called for “a significant, above-inflation settlement”, providing an uplift to experienced teacher and leader pay, as well as starting salaries.
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said: “Pay cuts, high workload and the imposition of PRP have already caused huge damage. The government must change course, not add to the damage by inflicting more pay cuts on teachers and school leaders.”
And Dr Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said there was “clear and unshakeable evidence of the enormous damage that has been inflicted on the morale of teachers after more than a decade of real-term cuts to teachers’ pay”.
“Teachers expect the STRB to deliver recommendations that will help to restore teaching as an attractive and competitive career.”
Helen Osgood, national officer for Voice Community, said: “Teachers and school leaders have for too long suffered pay freezes, staff shortages and a staff retention crisis in schools.
“These issues must be addressed immediately, so we have a profession that feels valued and supported, and a profession in which young people aspire to belong to and choose as a career path in the future.”
Jack Worth, the school workforce lead at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), said the fall in teacher trainee applications shows that “the government needs to give teacher supply a shot in the arm”.
He said: “A proposal for teacher pay that is less than that risks exacerbating rather than remedying the teacher recruitment and retention situation, since both are influenced by how competitive teacher pay is compared to other jobs. But the proposals also need to be affordable for schools.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We are incredibly grateful for the efforts of teachers and school leaders over the course of the pandemic, supporting pupils through the challenges faced over the last two years.
“In 2020/21, teachers received a 3.1 per cent pay increase on average, with starting salaries receiving a generous uplift of 5.5 per cent. We remain committed to increasing starting salaries to £30,000.”
