We have started the new school year on the back of an important step forward in our fight for improved pay and conditions.
Just before the summer, the government accepted the recommendation of the School Teachers Review Body (STRB, 2023) that it should offer school leaders and teachers a 6.5% pay uplift for 2023/24.
It also agreed to establish a working group to tackle unsustainable workload and to talks between the education unions, the Department for Education (DfE), and the incoming Ofsted chief inspector to address grave concerns over inspections.
This package was enough to end a protracted industrial dispute which had lasted for more than a year.
In a ballot of our members, 85% voted to accept the offer. It represented a significant increase on the government’s previous 4.5% proposal, which had been roundly rejected. Crucially, it came with more funding to help schools cover the cost of the rise, with ministers agreeing to fund the first 3% of the award.
While more would of course have been welcome, many schools will have been advised by their local authority or trust to budget for a 3.5% pay award – the amount the government originally proposed in its submission to the STRB back in February.
To have secured an award almost double the amount the government first recommended is a significant achievement, as is persuading ministers to commit additional funding towards the costs of it when they had previously refused.
While the proposal does not deliver everything we want, it took enormous resolve and solidarity from our members to drag a reluctant government to this point.
The pressure brought to bear by our ballot for coordinated strike action this autumn with other unions undoubtedly helped pressure ministers to accept the STRB recommendation. Our members’ solidarity with National Education Union colleagues who went on strike in February, March, and July, was also important.
The government seemed taken aback when the STRB proposed its largest ever pay uplift. By the time the government publicly accepted it, strike ballots by NAHT and other education unions had been open for several weeks and were drawing to a close with indications that they would comfortably pass necessary thresholds.
It seems the prospect of potentially protracted, coordinated strike action may have been decisive. More than four-fifths (82%) of NAHT members voted for strike action, showing just how serious they were, and this should serve as a major warning.
As dedicated professionals, threatening strike action was not something our members wanted to have to do. But we were clear that the disruption caused to families by day-long strikes would be nothing compared with the on-going disruption to children’s education caused by the growing recruitment and retention crisis gripping schools.
DfE figures show that 31% of school leaders leave their post within five years of appointment. Our Gone for Good report (NAHT, 2022) revealed that more than half (53%) of them go on to leave state-funded education. The government is consistently failing to hit recruitment targets for new teachers too (see Headteacher Update, 2023).
Tackling the recruitment and retention crisis is one of four pillars of NAHT’s industrial action campaign. The other three – pay and funding, workload and wellbeing, and inspection and accountability – all contribute to the worrying shortfall in school leaders and teachers.
Increasing workload, and high-stakes, single-word graded inspection, are placing dedicated education professionals under intolerable stress. This is not conducive to their wellbeing or to pupils getting the best possible education, and it deters people from joining and staying in teaching.
In a survey of 2,000 NAHT members last year, 70% said a reduction in workload would make leadership more attractive. And the tragic death of Berkshire head Ruth Perry after her school received an inadequate Ofsted rating opened the floodgates to powerful testimonies from school leaders about how inspection was leaving them at breaking point.
Members told us how they had been left suffering sleepless nights, struggling with their mental health and with PTSD. Many felt forced to quit the profession.
It was crucial that the government’s pay offer came with pledges on workload and inspection. It has committed to urgently establishing a taskforce to tackle unsustainable workload, with initial recommendations promised by October. It has also pledged to review all aspects of inspection with education unions, the DfE, and the new chief inspector.
The government has also pledged a further £40m to support schools facing significant financial difficulties. And last autumn, additional school funding was pledged of £2bn for 2023/24 and £2bn for 2024/25. But we know that real-terms funding is still not set to return to 2010 levels in real terms until 2024/25 and schools continue to face difficult decisions amid persistently high inflation.
Funding provided to help schools cover some of this pay award will not alleviate those broader pressures and we will fight hard for further investment.
The pledge to review workload is welcome, but this must lead to tangible reforms which make a real difference. While some changes to inspection have already been proposed by Ofsted, much more needs to be done to address fundamental problems.
Our members have told us that the government’s offer, for now, is an acceptable compromise. But we will not be letting up in our campaign for improvements on workload and inspection. We will be pushing for concrete proposals on both, as well as further progress in improving pay for 2024/25.
Paul Whiteman is general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. Read his previous articles for Headteacher Update via www.headteacher-update.com/authors/paul-whiteman/
Headteacher Update Autumn Term Edition 2023
- This article first appeared in Headteacher Update's Autumn Term Edition 2023. This edition was sent free of charge to every primary school in the country in September. A digital edition is also available via www.headteacher-update.com/content/downloads
Further information & resources
- Headteacher Update: Where are all the teachers? 2023.
- NAHT: Gone for good, 2022: https://tinyurl.com/69kkyxpz
- STRB: School Teachers’ Review Body 33rd report, 2023: https://tinyurl.com/ypwc3j6r