Blunkett's madness - our sorrow

The DfEE have circulated the forms for 'going through the threshold'.

There is no boycott, but Lambeth Teacher states the case as to why you shouldn't apply.

threshold applications

Performance Related pay and conference.

Despite every effort being made by the executive majority, the press, politicians from all parties and of course that well known teachers' friend, Chris Woodhead, NUT conference voted as follows for a one day strike against perfomance related pay.

Despite Doug McAvoy's claim that the conference was unrepresentative, the size of the vote for the action (56%) is very much in line with the union's own survey showing 60% in favour of strike action.

Doug McAvoy has spent more energy helping members with their threshold forms than advising members not to apply for the divisive payment.

Lambeth Teacher is nevertheless of the view that calling for a boycott of the threshold application is inappropriate as for many teachers, given the lack of fight for salaries, going through the threshold is the only way to get a pay increase of £2000, cynically calculated as its on a par with the union's own claim. We do not however recommend participation in the scheme. We want effective action to overcome it, not just sitting back to wait for it to fail, as has happened with appraisal, SATS, other pay issues and many more governement inititiatives.

What's going on, Doug?

TEACHERS' PAY SHAKE-UP HAS BECOME A MONSTER, SAYS UNION By Dominic Hayes, PA News

Performance-related pay for teachers has become a "monster of the Government's creation" with the first round of applications dogged by confusion and inconsistency, the National Union of Teachers claimed today. The NUT said it was starting a "Threshold Watch" to monitor complaints by teachers after its regional offices received thousands of calls in the past few weeks.

But the Department for Education and Employment said the NUT's findings seemed to be based on "anecdotal evidence which is not supported by the large scale analysis carried out by the department". Just under a quarter of a million teachers are eligible to apply for a performance-related rise of £32,000 under the Government's flagship policy for keeping good teachers in the classroom. To do so, they must have reached a salary "threshold" of £23,958 at the beginning of the current school year.

But some teachers had received the wrong advice on how to apply from heads who have not been properly trained to deal with PRP, the union said. Others had not received application forms until the end of May, when the deadline was June 5. Some heads were advising teachers on what to do while others said they were not allowed to provide help, the NUT said.

Some staff had been told - wrongly - they could not apply if they were over 50. Husbands and wives who were both teachers had been mistakenly informed that only one partner could apply, the union added. Even the Department for Education and Employment has been giving "inaccurate information" to callers, the NUT insisted. NUT general secretary Doug McAvoy said: "Right from the word go, this scheme is proving to be incapable of even-handed and fair application. "The training for heads has been of extremely variable quality with the trainers often unable to answer straightforward practical questions."

Written guidance to heads was capable of differing interpretation and that was happening in schools throughout England, he claimed. "Some head teachers are abusing the application process," he added. Funding for the scheme has been guaranteed for the first two years but the NUT said the picture after that was not clear.

As a result, the union had heard of heads telling their staff they could not afford to retain teachers who successfully applied for the pay rise on offer. Mr McAvoy vowed to assist union members who had been penalised by the PRP application process. He added he had been right to warn the Government that the scheme would cause division between teachers and heads and tension in the staff room. He had already got Cambridge Education Associates, the company administering PRP, to issue new guidance on portfolios needed to back applications. "This scheme is a monster of the Government's creation but it is the schools and the children who will suffer as a consequence," he declared

The above article was issued by the Press Association on 19.6.00