The U.K’s Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services, and Skills (OFSTED) is proposing to toughen up the link between salary increases and performance as part of a major overhaul of the school inspection regime in England. For the first time, the watchdog plans to evaluate the “robustness” of systems used by schools to evaluate teaching standards, with the goal of ensuring that only high-performing staff receive rewards.
This move is likely to lead to a drop in the number of teachers receiving increases of up to £5,300 in one year for progressing onto senior pay scales. Currently, almost all full-time teachers automatically claim the raise, prompting fears from the government that it is being used as a “reward for time served,” not performance.