Senior teachers are threatening to strike over the government’s ‘modernising’ pay cuts.
Heads of departments and teachers with management responsibilities may lose thousands of pounds as part of the government’s agenda proposals to replace management allowances with payments rewarding “teaching and learning responsibility”.
The National Union of Teachers (NUT) told the Daily Telegraph that members from 40 schools were considering industrial action over the changes, which are due to be implemented at the end of the year.
“This is having a bad effect on morale and we are balloting to gauge the depth of feeling,” a spokesman from the NUT said.
The cuts are part of the government’s national agreement to reduce the workload of teachers and reward those who take on additional responsibility.
The management allowance currently ranges between £1,638 and £10,572 and will be replaced in January 2006. But teachers will be allowed to keep the money for three years before changing to the new pay scale.
The NUT, the biggest teachers’ union, was the only union not to sign the agreement but the National Association of Head Teachers and the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers have also expressed concern over the proposals.
Mick Brookes, the newly elected general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said his members were divided between those who see it as a very “useful tool” for restructuring school management and others who believe it will demoralise staff.
“We have serious concerns about the level of stress this is causing,” he said.
