If there was any doubt that the government’s honeymoon period was well and truly over, then it came last week with the gathering storm over teachers’ pay.
The government set the hares running in December with its submission to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) proposing a 2.8% unfunded pay award (DfE, 2024a).
The problem is two-fold. First, a pay award of 2.8% isn’t enough to correct years of pay erosion and tackle the chronic problem of teacher shortages.
Such a pay deal won’t get close to achieving the government’s manifesto commitment to recruit 6,500 new teachers – particularly as it was actually 10,000 trainees short of achieving its target for postgraduate initial teacher training recruitment this year (DfE, 2024b).
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