I am a newly qualified teacher with 10 years’ experience as an instructor.

I am a linguist, so before I trained, supply agencies were happy to take me on board to teach without qualifications. I started my new job in September and my union representative says I should be higher up the scale than M1 on account of my experience. Any advice?

The relevant body that determines your pay - probably the governing bodyin most schools - has discretion to award one point or more for years of experience other than work as a teacher that it considers relevant to the performance of such duties. Points awarded under this rule are permanent and transferable between schools.

But any such additional points are discretionary, so you cannot compel the school to award you extra money, although you could put the case that, as an “instructor”, you were in effect doing the same job as a classteacher.

In the end, a big factor could be how easy the school would find it to replace you.