More than 1,000 teachers and support staff at Harris Federation sign letter urging improvements to their pay and conditions

More than 1,000 teachers and support staff have signed a letter urging the leadership of England’s second-largest academy chain to negotiate improvements to their pay and conditions.

The move, by National Education Union members working in secondary schools and sixth forms within the Harris Federation, sets up a significant challenge to the south London-based trust. Harris boasts sector-leading academic and Ofsted results but also sky-high executive pay and a reputation for working its staff hard.

The NEU members’ collective letter sets out four priorities for negotiations with Harris’ leadership: increasing the amount of planning, preparation and assessment time teachers receive, and protecting it from being used for other activities; ensuring that teachers do not work beyond the 1,265 hours a year of “directed time” which features in the national contract; ensuring automatic pay progression for teachers; and paying all support staff a salary at least in line with the inner-London living wage of £23,300.

Some 55 per cent of Harris teachers who completed an NEU survey last year said they felt stressed at work “very often,” while the figure was 49 per cent for Harris support staff.

The letter is due to be delivered to Harris’s headquarters in Croydon this afternoon (Friday February 23^rd).