What happens when the head recommends more teachers to move to point 2 on the upper pay spine from next September than the school can afford?
Clearly heads have a duty to recommend to their governing bodies that all post-threshold teachers who satisfy the criterion set by the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document should be moved to point 2.
The Secondary Heads Association and the National Association of Head Teachers believe that the funding arrangements now in place should enable most schools to meet the demands of these promotions.
If they are wrong, governing bodies cannot ask the head to reduce the number of recommendations. They would have to consider changes to their budgets - at worst redundancies. The Department for Education and Skills might have to try to persuade the Treasury to make good the deficiency. One is inevitably reminded of flying pigs.