Headteachers on performance related pay: how will it work in practice?
How do headteachers feel about performance related pay for teachers? And can schools afford it? Louise Tickle explores some of the big questions around pay reform.
When Michael Gove announced in December that he was scrapping national pay scales for teachers in favour of performance related pay, there was a collective howl of outrage from many staff rooms - and heads' offices - across the country.
Under the system announced on Tuesday, teachers will no longer progress automatically up nationally set pay 'bands'. Instead, headteachers will have the option to link an individual's salary to their annual appraisal. Pay bands will be kept as a reference point, but instead of teachers steadily moving up points within a band, heads will have complete discretion over where in the band to place any member of staff.
Not everyone disagrees with the principle, but it is hard to find a senior leader who thinks the measure will work in practice.
"We operate performance related pay anyway," says Lawrence Montagu, headteacher at the 'outstanding' St Peter's High School and Sixth Form College in Gloucester. "When people progress from the main pay scale to the upper pay scale, they're given targets. And if they don't hit them, they don't progress any further."
What concerns him, Montagu says, is the impression that teachers are just allowed to get on with what they do and nobody holds them accountable.
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... (The Guardian - 31 January)