The headteacher of a single secondary school in West London has received a salary of between £280,000 and £285,000, according to its latest accounts.

Holland Park School, a secondary in Kensington, has increased the renumeration band of its headteacher Colin Hall by £10,000 in 2019-20 compared with the previous year.

It is one of a small number of single academy trusts that was challenged by the government over its high levels of executive pay and which has continued to pay a salary of more than £150,000.

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Mr Hall previously earned between £270,000 and £275,000 in 2018-19 and between £260,000 to £265,000 a year earlier.

A government crackdown on high pay in the academy sector included a group of single-school trusts being asked to justify why they paid £150,000 or more at the end of 2017, before they set their budgets for 2018-19.

Earlier this year, Tes analysis of the annual accounts showed that eight out of 20 of the single-academy trusts challenged by the Education and Skills Funding Agency were still paying at least £165,001 in 2018-19.

Education secretary Gavin Williamson said last year that school leaders should not be paid more than the prime minister. 

The annual salary of the prime minister at the time was £154,908, according to Downing Street.

The latest accounts for 2019-20 for Holland Park show it continues to pay two members of staff more than the £150,000 threshold which has previously triggered a challenge from the government.

Along with the head’s renumeration of between £280,000 and £285,000, the accounts also show that the school’s academy head David Chappell was paid between £190,000 and £195,000 in 2019-20. This was an increase from £180,000 to £185,000 the previous year.

Holland Park School has been approached for a comment today.

A section on school leadership on the school’s website says: “Appointed in September 2000, Colin Hall was charged by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea with the task of rebuilding - literally and metaphorically - the fortunes of the school.

“The early years were less than straightforward as leadership sought to alter decades of very different standards but the 2003 Ofsted declared leadership to be ‘outstanding’, as it did again in 2007, 2011, 2014 and 2020.”

Earlier this month, Tes revealed that an academy trust was paying its top earner a salary of up to £300,000 - close to double that earned by the prime minister.

The highest earner at Thomas Telford School in Telford, Shropshire, was paid between £290,001 and £300,000 in 2019-20, according to the latest accounts filed by Telford City Technology College Trust, which runs the school.

This is also a single academy trust and the accounts for Telford City Technology College Trust say its principal activity is the “operation of Thomas Telford School”.

However, the trust also sponsors the separate Thomas Telford Multi Academy Trust, which runs five schools in the West Midlands.

The accounts say that Telford City Technology College Trust supports this MAT through a service agreement.