Since I started my career, the way in which teachers are paid has changed completely. Many schools are now financially independent academies, nationalised pay scales have been dissolved and performance-related pay has been introduced. There are no longer any guarantees regarding your salary or assurances that if you move school your new contract will match your previous one.
This has given rise to a peculiar aspect of job hunting. More and more teaching jobs are being advertised with no reference to salary and an unspoken understanding that pay will be negotiated if the applicant is successful.
This forces a potential applicant into what is perhaps an uncomfortable self-assessment: as a teacher, how much are you worth?
Personally, I have no idea. I was trained to engender a love of learning, manage a class of children and learn about best practice. I was not trained to negotiate my pay and view myself as a commodity.
We aren’t salespeople, we can’t blag our way to higher salaries. We do it for the children, not for ourselves, so highlighting our own achievements is against our nature.
And yet, in this jobs market, we need to get clued-up fast. Here is a three-step process, gleaned from other teachers’ experiences, for negotiating your salary or contract:
- Research
Scan job websites like TES and look for similar jobs at schools that still use the national pay scale. Teaching union websites also offer interesting insights into this as well, as they publish the teachers’ pay scales. Consider details such as how much time you will spend teaching versus PPA time, and what other responsibilities you will be required/expected to complete.
- Negotiation
Value yourself. Hypothetically, if you want £12, you should ask for £14 - you will probably be offered £10, but, eventually, you will be able to settle midway. The same principle applies with timetable negotiations. If you don’t ask, you DEFINITELY won’t get…
- Be direct
Ask the “awkward” questions, such as: what is the pay progression for this job? How closely is pay progression linked to attainment? What other factors influence pay (extra-curricular activities, for instance)? When, and how, does performance management take place? And, if it is not at the start of the academic year, will any pay rises awarded be backdated to cover the whole academic year? How will this backdated pay affect your tax/pension/student loan payments?
Katie White is a teacher at Kingsbridge Community College, Devon
This is an edited version of a story in the 8 January edition of TES. Subscribers can view the full version here. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here
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