1,300 heads paid £100,000 salary MAC IS AWAY

...as parents warned of ‘cash-starved schools’

A RISING number of head teachers are taking home bumper pay packets, with 1,300 handed at least £100,000 last year.

As salaries continue to soar among senior staff, latest figures from the Department for Education reveal the number now earning sixfigure salaries rose 8 per cent on the previous year.

Of those, almost half earned more than £110,000.

But it comes as head teachers from 4,000 schools have sent a letter to two-million families complaining that the £4billion of extra funding promised by the Tories for schools over the next five years would not cover rising costs.

It claimed many schools are at ‘crisis point’ and have had to reduce staff numbers, and calls on parents to get involved with local activist groups to ‘campaign vigorously’ on behalf of ‘cash-starved schools’.

School leaders in 17 council areas agreed to send out the appeal, which tells families ‘it is crucial that the new Government responds quickly and effectively to a growing crisis in our schools’.

Yesterday there were concerns that head teachers appeared to be benefiting from huge pay packages at a time of apparently squeezed budgets.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said: ‘It is deeply concerning to see the number of head teachers on six-figure salaries increasing while teachers’ pay is being held back and is not keeping pace with inflation.

‘These statistics should provide a wake-up call to the Government to end the practice of schools paying head teachers what they want while paying teachers what they can get away with.’

A breakdown of the 2016 figures shows the majority of those earning six-figure wages were working in secondary schools – 900 compared to 400 in primaries. The average head teacher’s salary – taking into account all state schools – has risen to £68,300 from £67,300 the year before.

Classroom teachers from all types of state school have seen their wages rise by around £500 in a year, with average pay now standing at £35,100 compared to £34,600 in 2015. The data, which gives details of England’s state school workforce as of November last year, has been published by the DfE in an effort to make head teacher pay more transparent.

Many of the highest salaries are paid to senior staff running multi-academy trusts – groups of schools that have linked together – which are free of local council control and are able to set their own pay scales.

Academies claim that paying large salaries ensures they attract the best people for the most senior roles, but critics say greater restraint needs to be shown with taxpayer money.

The highest-paid academy leader is believed to be Sir Daniel Moynihan, who earns £420,000 to run the Harris Federation of 41 schools. His pay is almost three times that of the prime minister.

Britain’s highest-paid primary school leader is Sir Craig Tunstall, the £374,000-a-year executive head teacher at the Gipsy Hill Federation of nine primary schools in south London. The federation is run by Lambeth Council, and he is its best-paid employee.

A DfE spokesman said: ‘The pay of individual head teachers is a matter for governing boards who are in the best position to decide how they should spend the funding available to them to ensure the best outcomes for their pupils.’

Able to set their own pay scales