Only the most committed teachers should be given pay rises, the chief inspector of Ofsted has said.
Sir Michael Wilshaw believes that “good" teachers are “irritated" when some school staff who do not go the extra mile are rewarded. He said that headteachers and governors should concentrate more on performance management.
Speaking at a Royal Society of Arts (RSA) event, Sir Michael said around 92 per cent of school teachers can get a £5,000 pay increase if they become a head of year or a head of department. He said this was not right and suggested that 40 per cent of lessons are “less than good".
Sir Michael said: “Teaching is a noble profession. The thing that irritates good teachers, people who work hard and go the extra mile, is seeing the people that don't do that being rewarded. Headteachers and governors should worry about performance management more than they have been doing.
“I know from my own experience that heads need to performance manage their staff properly. This means only promoting and increasing the pay of those who are committed, teach well and show the desire and capacity to improve.
“It means not rewarding everyone indiscriminately. I want Ofsted to focus more sharply on how well heads are doing this."
Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, told SecEd: “People deserve clear feedback on how they are doing, they deserve to have their achievements celebrated and they do become demoralised when underperformance is tolerated."
The event was held to discuss a report that the RSA published in December. Entitled (Un)Satsfactory? Enhancing Life Chances by Improving “Satisfactory Schools", the document paved the way for Ofsted proposals to scrap the “satisfactory" category and replace it with a grading of “requires improvement".
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