The government’s failure to publish details of a replacement for performance-related pay (PRP) progression by the end of the spring term has been described as “frustrating” by headteachers’ leaders.
The Department for Education pledged to scrap PRP progression and said it would reinstate a revised list of administrative tasks that teachers should not have to do after initial recommendations were made by a workload task force in January.
The workload reduction task force was set up after the teacher pay deal last summer to look at how to cut five hours from teachers’ working week.
The DfE had said it would conduct a “rapid government and trade unions review of current guidance” to ensure a replacement for PRP is in place from 1 September.
Education secretary Gillian Keegan has reinforced this commitment today in an end-of-term email to schools, and has not said it will be delayed.
‘Sense of urgency would help’
However, the DfE also said in January that by “communicating any changes in spring 2024, schools will have sufficient notice to enable them to prepare during the summer for September 2024 implementation”.
But with the Easter holidays beginning this week, school leaders say it is “frustrating” that the government has not yet communicated these changes to schools.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, today urged the DfE to “get on with communicating this change”.
He also called for guidance to be published that “supports schools in implementing appraisal which is not linked to performance-related pay but supports professional development”.
Mr Barton said such a move would help to support staff retention and “it would help to have a sense of urgency on this matter”.
Final recommendations from the workload task force aimed at tackling increasing concerns over teacher stress will not be published until the summer term, Ms Keegan said in her email to schools today.
The DfE had previously said that the final recommendations from the task force “would follow [the publication of initial recommendations] in spring 2024”.
A department spokesperson said this means the recommendations were due to go to ministers in the spring, rather than publication.
In her email this morning, Ms Keegan said: “We published the early recommendations from the workload reduction task force to help reduce teacher workload.
“This includes a commitment from the department to remove performance-related pay in schools by September 2024, following a rapid review of the current appraisal and under-performance processes and guidance.”
“The task force’s final recommendations will be published in the summer term,” she added.
Feelings of burnout
In the initial recommendations, the DfE said that the task force “will make final recommendations to government, Ofsted and school and trust leaders by the end of March 2024”.
The move to form the task force followed repeated warnings from teachers and heads that workload plays a major factor in attrition.
More than a third of state school teachers and school leaders told the latest DfE’s Working lives of teachers and leaders survey that they were considering quitting the sector over the next 12 months.
Workload was the main reason given by teachers and school leaders, with 94 per cent saying it was an important factor.
The proportion of senior leadership team members experiencing consistent feelings of “burnout” has more than doubled over the past five years, according to separate recent research.
As well as committing to seek to cut five hours from teachers’ working week, the DfE is also working on updates to its 2019 recruitment and retention strategy.
Tes revealed last November that the update had been delayed due to “uncertainty” over future planning and the prime minister’s plans for the Advanced British Standard qualification.
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