Community submits supplementary evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body

We have recently submitted our Supplementary Evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), setting out the need for a comprehensive and fully-funded approach to teacher pay over the coming years.

As pressures on schools continue to mount, from rising operational costs to challenges in retention and recruitment, it is essential that teacher pay keeps pace not only with inflation but with the real demands of the profession.

We acknowledge that over this parliament, teachers have received above inflation pay awards totalling almost 10%.  However, with inflation totalling almost 6% over that same time the real-terms increase in teacher pay was just 4%.

With inflation still high, the Government’s proposed 6.5% increase over three years risks becoming a real-terms cut unless inflation falls quickly.

To protect retention and improve recruitment, Community is calling for:

We also welcome the £4.2bn increase in school funding, but rising costs mean many schools, especially smaller ones, will see little real-terms improvement without additional support for pay awards.

Helen Osgood, Director of Operations at Community Union, said:

“Community welcomes the recent spending review settlement that means that overall schools funding is increasing by £4.2 billion between 2025 and 2029 – a real-terms increase of around 6.6%. However, the overall costs for schools are forecast to increase by around 6.5% in the next academic year alone. This suggests that schools will not be in any better financial position by the end of the parliament and does little to protect small schools whose funding is more impacted by per-pupil funding and affected by falling roles.”

For our full submission and complete analysis and recommendation, read the full supplementary evidence here.