Implementing your school’s approach to pay – advice for maintained schools, academies and local authorities

This updated advice is non-statutory and has been produced to help schools and governance boards deliver the statutory appraisal process and make robust decisions on teachers’ and leadership pay.

This guidance should be read alongside the current version of the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD). This advice is also designed to support schools to:

• Set school leaders’ pay
• Reduce workload in the pay and appraisal process
• Manage performance-related pay progression
• Meet their equalities responsibilities
• Use appropriate evidence when making appraisal and pay decisions
• Manage pay decision appeals.

Schools should review their pay and appraisal policies annually to clarify their approach to making performance-based pay decisions and to set out the extent to which any uplift to the national framework will be taken into account when making any individual pay decisions.

When reviewing school pay and appraisal policies, school leaders should consider the recommendations on performance management in the ‘Making Data Work’ report, and may wish to refer to the Department’s School Workforce Planning Guidance, Flexible Working in Schools Guidance, the optional Appraisal and Capability Model Policy and Model Pay Policy or Local Authority versions.

All pay decisions must be made using objective criteria so that there is no discriminatory effect on any teacher or group of teachers with a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.

It is up to each school to decide for itself how best to implement the arrangements and develop its pay and appraisal policies accordingly. No single approach will suit all schools.

Governance boards and headteachers, in carrying out their duties, must have regard to the need for the headteacher and teachers at the school to be able to achieve a satisfactory balance between the time required to discharge their professional duties and the time required to pursue their personal interests outside work. In having regard to this, governance boards and headteachers should ensure that they adhere to the working limits set out in the Working Time Regulations 1998(20).