Get pay right or you’re in for a battle, union warns

A real-terms pay cut for teachers and leaders would create an “industrial relations environment” that would make realising the government’s vision for education “very, very difficult”, a heads’ union leader has warned.

Paul Whiteman has also warned politicians not to make education an “easy political football”, as concerns mount among leaders about what future governments might do.

Delegates will gather in Belfast this weekend for the National Association of Head Teachers’ annual conference.

The event comes as the sector still awaits the final report of the School Teachers’ Review Body and government response.

Ministers have recommended that pay rise by 6.5 per cent over three years, but have admitted schools will have to make cuts to fund it. Meanwhile, annual inflation now stands at 3.3 per cent.

‘More damage than help’

Whiteman, the union’s general secretary, criticised the time the review body system took to make a recommendation. “Inevitably, the government’s recommendation and even our evidence becomes out of date by the time the decision is made.

“Our members experience the pain of today’s reality rather than yesterday’s theory, so inevitably with the world as it is today, anything that results in a pay award that is a real-terms pay cut is going to do more damage than it does help.”

It would also, he said, “create an industrial relations environment, a time when the government is ambitious about the future of education, that makes realising that very, very difficult.

“That’s not sabre-rattling from me, and you won’t hear me start to talk about industrial action yet, but if we don’t get into meaningful conversations about a dignified pay award and support of our members, then I think inevitably it takes us into that space of that conversation.”

Mixed mood

Whiteman said leaders were travelling to Belfast with a “mixed” mood, still worried about accountability, funding, recruitment and retention and workload and with growing concern about the “wider political turmoil in the world, and how that played out at the school gate.

“But all of that said, I think we’re at a point where there’s some hope, actually.”

He pointed to a recent deal with the government in Northern Ireland on workload, a “hard-won settlement through some really difficult times”.

And in England, “there’s hope, again, that governments are listening to us”.

He pointed to the schools white paper, published in February. “Our members truly are giving it a cautious welcome. But because they’ve been let down so very often by governments, there is a lot of caution and scepticism in that welcome.

“For the first time, we’ve got a blueprint for an ambition in education that we’ve operated without for a very long time.

“We’ve got a government that’s prepared to not just acknowledge the SEND crisis, but grasp the nettle of the crisis as well, and basically talking the language of school leaders.”

The NAHT recently secured a deal with Ofsted for the watchdog to gather more feedback about the impact of inspections on leader wellbeing.

The data, collected from a representative sample of schools, will then be scrutinised by an advisory group set up by the union.

Significant concerns

But despite the deal and a pause on talk of industrial action over the new framework, Whiteman said his members still had significant concerns.

It published data this week that it said showed Ofsted was more likely to downgrade schools for their achievement, attendance and behaviour if they had poorer intakes or more pupils with SEND.

At the annual conference of sister union ASCL in March, Sir Martyn Oliver, the chief inspector, attempted to bat off criticism of new inspections, saying he would “never acquiesce to the quiet curse of low expectations that would see Ofsted prioritise context over outcomes for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children”.

Whiteman said the chief inspector did not do himself “any favours” with his remarks. Oliver had compared new ‘needs attention’ grades with the old ‘requires improvement’ rating, when he himself had warned against such comparisons.

“There’s a whole problem at the moment. We’re still trying to find a way, or a proxy, for the single-word judgment, when the whole point is to get to a place where we’re having a much broader and more informed view of what school looks like.

“What we’re getting back from our members is the intensity of the new framework. It’s described frequently as brutal. So I think we’re in a fragile situation.”

Whiteman said he was “very worried that government and the inspectorate still haven’t done enough to change the system.

“We still campaign for a different approach to education. But on the other hand, I have to accept the government is the government and the inspectorate is the inspectorate.

“Our efforts to encourage them to change more dramatically haven’t been as successful as we want them to be, so we have to maintain a relationship with them to achieve change over time.”

Wellbeing data

But he welcomed the agreement to collect wellbeing data.

“What I’m hoping that will do is it stop the ping-pong of the chief inspector saying everything’s wonderful, me saying everything’s a disaster, and all we do is shout at one another various levels of abuse.”

He said he wanted to get to a point “where we can have an uncontroversial view of what’s happening on the ground” and look at how to “find solutions for that”.

Whiteman’s priority is to “keep our people safe whilst this thing lands” while encouraging Ofsted to make interim changes, “but then as that data comes through, make those longer-term changes to make sure we achieve a safe and respected inspection system.

“We’re in this for the long game, and one of the things I’ll be doing is reassuring our members our campaign for a more positive inspection system is far from over.”

In Belfast, delegates will debate a motion warning that “considering the current rhetoric of some political parties, conference is therefore concerned about the catastrophic and divisive effects of potential future government interventions into education and communities”.

The motion also instructs the union’s ruling executive to “set out the full range of legal, industrial, political and campaigning actions available to the union that can be used to safeguard education and education workers”.

The rise of Reform

It follows concerns raised at teaching union conferences earlier this year about the rise of Reform UK in opinion polls.

But Whiteman said he wouldn’t single-out Nigel Farage’s party.

“I wouldn’t just put them in the crosshairs of our concerns. Remember, the anti-trade union legislation that’s being repealed was from the mainstream Conservative government of 14 years.

“Their commitment to education and their attack on trade unions was clear to see. I have no doubt a similar attack would come from other parties, be it Reform or other parties on the extremes of politics.”

He said members’ overall point was that “education as a bedrock of this country’s future should not be an easy political football”.

“Don’t attack the profession. Listen to the profession. It’s full of experts and as good public servants, the professionals will do as they are told by the government in power.”