Cast your minds back to July 2018. The summer holidays were in sight, exams were (mostly) over for pupils, and the government announced an “up to” 3.5 per cent pay rise for teachers. Those were the days, hey?

Now, we’re battling through the cold, dark days of a month in which Brexit is dominating the headlines and Ofsted has revealed a massive reform of its inspection framework - and there’s still a week to go until dry January ends.

Enter research from the NASUWT classroom union on teacher pay. Excellent! This should show that teachers across the country received a bump to their pay packet to spend on the January sales, a new gym membership (#NewYearNewMe) or booking a summer holiday to look forward to. Right?

Not quite. The survey reveals that many cash-strapped schools are denying teachers the pay rise, telling them they would have to cut jobs in order to award the salary increase. This is despite schools being given a £187 million government grant to help fund the first 1 per cent rise.

In the survey, 12 per cent of teachers said they had been told that they wouldn’t be getting a pay rise at all, and a further 45 per cent said they were still yet to be informed of a decision.

NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates described the situation was “complete chaos”. The union also found that:

Teachers had been told they’d get a partial pay rise but not the full amount;

Teachers were being given the full pay award but it was being backdated only until January and not September;

More than one in 10 NQTs were not getting any pay award at all because they had signed contracts in July based on last year’s rates

Keates has criticised the Department for Education for not ringfencing the grant for use on teachers’ pay, and said some schools were “using their discretion” to spend it on other things. “Teachers have been conditioned in some schools to not stand up for their pay because they are constantly being told, ‘If we pay you then we’re not going to be able to have supply teachers in and you’re going to have to cover,’ or, ‘You’re gonna lose your job,’” she said.