A No. You should be on pound;21,195 if outside London. Paragraph 18.1.3 of the Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document 2006 makes this clear.

It is possible that your school or local authority was waiting for confirmation from your previous employer about your status. I suggest you call payroll and ask why you have not been given the credit for the year of service. The pay should be back-dated to September 1.

Q I took up a permanent post as key stage leader in charge of a subject on TLR 2 (between pound;2,306 and pound;5,638) after acting up while a colleague is on maternity leave. My payment is the same as other key stage leaders in the school, but I am in charge of key stages 3, 4 and 5 whereas other people are in charge of only one key stage.

I am doing a lot of work, getting memos titled SubjectTeam leader but being paid the same as others who are only in charge of one key stage. Is there anything I can do?

A Last autumn schools had to review their staffing policies and arrange to bring them into line with the new TLR framework. I assume your school did this and decided in some subject areas there would be a head of department with overall responsibility, either on an upper TLR2 or on a TLR1.

There would be some other staff with responsibilities on a lower level TRL.

You fall into the second category.

Although you have responsibility for more key stages than some staff on a similar grade, do you have responsibility for the same number of students and the same number of teachers? If you have responsibility for significantly more, then you need to put together a case that shows how others receive a higher TLR, but have less responsibility. This may be difficult. The governors could then be asked to review the staffing structure

John Howson is a recruitment analyst and visiting professor of education at Oxford Brookes university. To ask him a question, email him at askjohnhowson@tes.co.uk