Workload and Workforce

Pay

How we teach

Monday April 7, 2003

Today is an important day for education and for all those who work in schools. We launch the corporate plan of the teacher training agency (TTA). We extend the training schools programme. And we publish a series of documents that are proof positive of the power, the momentum and the benefits of January's national agreement on workforce reform. Teachers, headteachers, support staff, governors, pupils - all will feel the impact of the proposals being tabled today.

The TTA is achieving its goals because of its leaders and staff, but also because it has situated its work in a wider context - examining the demands on pupils in the 21st century, and then preparing teachers to meet them. The starting point is not complex. The moral foundations of our education programme are simple: every child is special and every child has the right to fulfil their potential. Our shared aim is clear: every school with standards and styles of teaching, organisation and support for learning, culture and ethos of aspiration and respect that bring out the best in pupils in their care. That approach puts teachers and their support staff - the whole school team - centre stage.

For a long time English education has enjoyed vibrant debates about what we teach, and where we teach. These issues remain important. But a focus on how we teach is key to pupil success. Teaching method reflects and determines the values, skills and attitudes we want children to acquire. Creative teaching promotes pupil creativity. Group work promotes collaborative working. Adventure, investigation and reward encourages students to be entrepreneurial.

The ways in which teachers achieve these tasks - to motivate, inspire, and support young people - are critical for the country's future. The test of every policy is in the end that it supports the teaching and learning process. That is why our goal is a teaching force with the flexibility, the support, the training, the information, the leadership, the funds and the motivation to tailor educational provision to the needs of pupils.

First, a profession of power, respect and quality needs an appropriate pay system.

Since 1997, there have been some significant improvements. Spending on teachers pay in maintained schools has increased by over £4bn since 1997.

This enables, among other things, a good honours graduate who joined on point two in 1997 (£14,280 pa) to, by normal salary progression, be on over £26,000 pa on 1 September 2003, a real increase of almost 70%. An experienced teacher on the maximum (point nine) in 1997 will have seen their basic pay increase by 13% in real terms since 1997 and by 22% if they have passed the performance threshold. Reforms to the pay system for new entrants to the profession mean they can expect annual increases of over £1,000 in their salary.

But an appropriate pay system does more than boost basic pay:

· We need to audit, accredit and reward proven performance, which is why the threshold system is important.

· We need to provide flexibility, which is why we back the STRB proposals for London teachers, and encourage heads and governors to use recruitment and retention allowances according to local circumstance.

· And we need to recognise excellence in classroom teaching and in whole school contribution, notably on the upper pay spine above the threshold and for advanced skill teachers.

It is important to remember the facts on teacher workload. They show that the problem is not that teachers are teaching too much, but that they are too burdened by other tasks.

On average, whilst teachers spend less than 20 hours a week teaching, they spend between five and six hours on administrative tasks. Bureaucracy and excessive cover are time consuming. And we also need to look carefully at the average of eight hours a week that teachers spend on non-teaching contact.

Hence, alongside the expansion of the teaching profession, the national agreement makes vital commitments to:

a) the devolution of 25 tasks including: chasing absentees; bulk photocopying; record keeping and filing; and ordering supplies

b) limits on the requirement to cover for absent colleagues

c) guaranteed PPA to help ensure classroom time is geared to bringing the best out of students

d) a reasonable work-life balance

e) and an overall reduction in hours.

It is to take forward this vision that today we open consultation on change in key areas.

Teachers are leaders in the classroom. They are not interchangeable with support staff. But their effectiveness can be significantly enhanced when they lead a team rather than being asked to do everything themselves. So the support staff will work to support a qualified teacher, under the direction of that teacher, and subject to the confidence of the Head teacher that they have the right skills. This is part of the process towards embedding reform in teachers' professional work, and includes proposals to reduce administrative and clerical tasks and cover for absent colleagues, and to provide time for leadership and management duties.

No one suggests that nurses should do brain surgery. But no brain surgeon would work without a nursing team. These proposals are about giving teachers the professional support to do their jobs to the highest standards.

Already there are some 350,000 people working in a wide range of support staff roles in schools. We are committed to increasing their numbers and expanding their roles in four key areas: administrative, for example secretarial support; pastoral, for example learning mentors; managerial, for example bursars; and pedagogical, with high level teaching assistants actively engaged in the teaching process.

They will enrich the curriculum, provide more personalised help for children, and reduce the workload and raise the status of teachers. In a few years' time I anticipate people will wonder what all the fuss was about.

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