Since the introduction of the Education (School Teachers’ Appraisal) (England) Regulations 2012, all maintained schools are required to have an appraisal policy. Academies are not subject to the 2012 regulations and are therefore not required to have an appraisal system in place. The NEU position, which is aligned with that of the Department for Education (DfE), is that appraisal should be a supportive and developmental process which enables teachers to fully develop their skills, access the support they need to carry out their role effectively and develop their professional practice.
Since 2013, the linking of pay to appraisal in the form of performance-related pay (PRP) served to undermine this position.
Therefore, the removal of the statutory requirement of local authority-maintained schools to operate PRP presents an opportunity to establish a genuinely supportive appraisal process in schools.
Reps should seek to negotiate appraisal policies compliant with our appraisal policy checklist.
Threshold progression
We are calling on the Labour government to remove the requirement for an application process to access the upper pay range (UPR) from the school teachers’ pay and conditions document (STPCD). While this remains in place, so does a link between pay and appraisal for local authority (LA) schools.
Adopting our model appraisal and pay policies will ensure the threshold application is not bureaucratic or time-consuming. Crossing the threshold must become the norm for all teachers who have reached point 6 on the main pay range (MPR).
Unlike local authority schools, academies can completely break the link between appraisal and pay, remove the threshold, and adopt automatic and annual progression along a nine-point pay scale for teachers. Below is a list of trusts that have have adopted this position.
