Duncan Higgs was caught in a pay quandary when he returned to secondary teaching after years of working behind bars.
Mr Higgs, a former prison teacher, was ineligible for one award because he had been teaching and ineligible for another because he had not been in a classroom.
Gosford Hill school in Oxfordshire had hoped to put him on the upper-pay scale in recognition of six years’ teaching in secondaries and eight years with the prison education service. But the Government rejected the application because he had not worked as a classroom teacher during the previous year.
The design and technology teacher then applied for a pound;4,000 welcome-back bonus, but was turned down because he had done more than 15 days’ teaching during the qualifying period.
“It is strange,” he said. “One incentive excludes me because I was a teacher, and another because I was not a classroom teacher.”
Michael Shaw
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