The Department for Education will award teachers a 2.75 per cent pay rise in September 2019.

The announcement means that the DfE has accepted the advice from the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), which advises it on teachers’ pay.

The STRB report says: “For September 2019, we recommend that all pay and allowance ranges for teachers and school leaders are uplifted by 2.75 per cent.”

The DfE said that an increase of 2.75 per cent was equivalent to a £1,000 increase to average classroom teacher pay and a £1,620 increase in the average pay of school leaders.

But school leaders say the package is “derisory”, “unaffordable” and the “worst of all worlds”.

Education secretary Damian Hinds said: “Over the last year and a half, I’ve met hundreds of teachers, leaders and staff in schools and have been inspired by their dedication to do the best for the children and young people they work with.”

Preview: Teachers ‘set for 2.75 per cent pay rise’ in 2019-2020

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In a statement to Parliament, Mr Hinds said: “This year I have decided to accept in full the STRB’s recommendations for a 2.75 per cent uplift to the minima and maxima of all pay ranges and allowances.”

Teacher pay rise

In January, the DfE told the STRB that a 2 per cent pay rise for teachers, in line with inflation, “will be affordable within schools’ budgets”.

Today, Mr Hinds said that schools would have to fund the first 2 per cent of today’s award, and the DfE would fund the extra 0.75 per cent.

In his statement, he said: “As this award is more than the 2 per cent we assessed was affordable in our evidence to the STRB, I will invest a further £105 million into the existing Teachers’ Pay Grant this financial year.

“This is on top of the £321 million funding that schools are already receiving through the Teachers’ Pay Grant in 2019-20”

Today’s news follows speculation last week that teachers would get a 2.75 per cent increase, partially funded by new money from the Treasury.

In their evidence to the STRB, teaching unions argued for a fully-funded 5 per cent pay rise.

Today’s pay settlement comes a year after the DfE failed to implement the STRB’s recommendation that all teachers receive a 3.5 per cent rise.

Instead, it allocated a 3.5 per cent rise for those on the main pay scale, 2 per cent for those on the upper pay scale and 1.5 per cent for school leaders.

Last year, schools had to fund the first 1 per cent of the pay rise out of their existing budgets, with the DfE funding the rest through a new teacher pay grant.

Despite this funding, many teachers did not receive a pay rise.

A survey by the NASUWT teaching union of 6,900 teachers found that 12 per cent had been told they were not getting any pay rise at all.

Separate research suggested that as many as one-fifth of teachers were denied the last national pay rise.