Harris Federation ends practice of paying Jamaican teachers as “unqualified,” regardless of their experience

Move announced as strike action affecting 18 academies had been looming.

England’s second-largest academy chain has effectively ended its practice of recruiting teachers from overseas and then paying them as unqualified, regardless of their experience in their home countries, in the face of looming strike action from the biggest union.

The Harris Federation is now paying a “top-up” to overseas teachers who are initially put on the unqualified teacher scale before gaining qualified teacher status. This means they are paid in line with what a UK-trained teacher with the same level of experience would earn, on the main scale.

Overseas teachers at Harris, many of whom have been recruited from Jamaica, are also to be given the right to start the process of gaining qualified teacher status (QTS) as soon as they successfully negotiate their probation period, which usually lasts four months. This ends the scenario whereby some teachers have waited years to be put on the path to QTS.

Harris has also pledged to introduce other changes for all staff, including, for teachers, ending performance-related pay in its schools and having a guaranteed 12 per cent of their working time devoted to planning, preparation and assessment (PPA).

The moves come with Harris having faced the prospect of what would have been the biggest ever strike action against the practices of a multi-academy trust, with the results of a ballot in 18 of its secondary schools and sixth forms due to be disclosed on the day the changes were announced.

 

The background

I wrote about the situation facing some recruits to Harris schools from Jamaica in a piece for the Observer last September, having interviewed five of them. They told me of being paid thousands of pounds less than English-trained recruits with similar levels of experience.

Teachers recruited from countries including the EU and the US can go through a fast-track system to gain QTS in England, and this also applies for teachers recruited from other countries, such as Jamaica, India, Ghana and Nigeria, who teach languages, maths or science in secondary schools.

However, teachers of other subjects from these countries have been put on the “unqualified teacher” pay scale. This has been the case regardless of their experience in their home countries. Although the difference is cushioned because teacher recruits from Jamaica do not pay income tax for their first two years, it has still amounted to thousands of pounds per year (last year, the unqualified teacher pay scale went to £37,362 in inner London, compared to £47,666 for those on the main scale).

The ballot of 700 members in the 18 schools – just over half of Harris’s 34 secondaries and sixth forms – came after more than a year of campaigning by the NEU for improvements in pay and conditions at the south London-based federation. More than 1,000 Harris teachers and support staff had signed a letter to Harris, urging improvements in their pay and conditions. An indicative ballot was held before Christmas at the 18 academies – chosen because more than 60 per cent of members within them had signed the collective letter - on whether the union should poll members on strike action. Some 80 per cent of NEU members at these schools took part in this indicative ballot with, 92 per cent voting in favour.

So, the vote having triggered strike action would appear to have been a strong possibility. Then, on the day those results were due to have been announced – Friday last week - the NEU revealed the outcome.

This came after ongoing talks between the two sides at the conciliation service ACAS, with the NEU then having surveyed its members on whether to call off the threat of the strike, given concessions promised through those talks by Harris.

The results for overseas teachers

Harris has now agreed that teachers recruited from overseas will get the right to a top-up in their pay, meaning they will be paid in line with what a UK-trained teacher with the same level of experience would earn, on the main scale.

And, after their probation ends, they will get to choose when the QTS process begins. Previously, this was in the gift of the head of their school – leaving some recruits to complain as schools could put off the process for months or even years.

One teacher, who we called Michael and who had spent nearly four years on the unqualified teacher scale, told me last year for the Observer piece that “they want to retain as much money as possible by not getting [teachers from Jamaica] as qualified as the rest of the staff are. It just feels like another Windrush situation.” Harris has argued that it does support its new recruits, including with “comprehensive paid inductions”.

After the teachers gain QTS, given sufficient experience they can now apply to go onto the upper pay scale. Importantly, too, the award of QTS then makes it much more straightforward for them to then go and work for other employers, rather than having to remain with the Harris Federation while they are unqualified.

The results for staff more generally

Friday’s announcement also saw Harris pledging to remove performance related pay, whereby progress up the main scale had been dependent on performance, in favour of automatic progression. The federation will also guarantee PPA time at 12 per cent, which is higher than the 10 per cent in national teacher contracts, but comes with the union having argued during its campaign that teachers at Harris could be called to teach lessons when they were supposed to be on PPA time.

The union said there had also been moves to offer greater protection around “directed time”: the maximum that teachers are supposed to work, which stands at 1,265 for the year in non-academies and which Harris has set at 1,295 a year – the extra required hours coming with a “Harris bonus” of up to £2,000.

Union sources said they would be watching closely in the coming months, to ensure that the details of the agreement are reflected in the reality of staff experiences on the ground.

Reactions

The NEU put out a press release in which Daniel Kebede, its general secretary, said: “All teachers and support staff at the 18 Harris academies who stood up for their rights should feel proud of the stance they were prepared to take for fair pay, conditions and the unjust treatment of overseas teacher colleagues. While there is still more to do this is a remarkable achievement and a testimony to the strength of collective action.

“Addressing the exploitation of overseas trained teachers by Harris Federation is a victory. This was Harris Federation’s Windrush. This is a record they should be ashamed of, and it is right that it is finally being addressed…There is still much to do, and the NEU will continue to press for more change to ensure the workforce at Harris is treated fairly and with respect, and that learning conditions for pupils improve.”

The Harris Federation does not respond to requests for comment from Education Uncovered.

The federation was quoted in Schools Week as describing the NEU’s Windrush comparison as “ridiculous” – although readers will have noted that it was made not only by its leader Mr Kebede, but by one of the federation’s own teachers, as quoted above.

The federation also described the union as “chaotic,” Schools Week reported, although it was not clear what this related to, and with Harris adding that it had “been topping up salaries for new starters [for overseas recruits] to the equivalent salary on the main scale since September” and that this “predates the union’s action”.

However, there had been no mention of any such top-up when Harris provided a lengthy statement to the Observer in September, in response to the story then.

Strangely, Harris was also quoted in Schools Week as saying that teachers' experience - presumably overseas teachers' experience - had "always been assessed and recognised on appointment in the same way as it would be for a UK" worker. 

But with Jamaican teachers clearly having previously been put on the unqualified teacher scale despite in some cases many years of experience, it is hard to understand how that statement stood up. 

Harris was quoted in the Guardian on Saturday saying: “The NEU’s leadership has tried and failed to create division between colleagues in our academies, despite ploughing time and resources into their campaign…the most important point is that our ambitious and deserving students will not now have to suffer [school] closures and disruption.”

The Guardian also quoted an overseas-trained teacher, speaking anonymously, who had been part of the NEU’s campaign.

She said: “I’m really pleased about the concessions that have been made by the Harris Federation regarding overseas trained teachers. They are integral for our successful integration as teachers into the schools we join. These changes ensure that we feel valued as an addition to the British workforce and respected not only as teachers but as individuals.”