A school leaders’ union in England has voted overwhelmingly to reject the government’s salary offer for teachers.
The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), which mainly represents primary school heads, is considering re-electing members over strikes.
It is the third union to reject the offer – including the National Education Union (NEU), which plans further strikes.
The government says further strike action is “extremely disappointing”.
Most state school teachers in England had a 5% pay rise in 2022.
They were offered a 4.3% increase next year and a one-off payment of £1,000 this year. Starting salaries would also rise to £30,000 from September.
The government said it believed schools could afford to fund most of the pay rise from their budgets and that extra money would have been set aside to make up for the rest.
But unions have lobbied for a fully-funded pay rise, arguing that taking the money out of school budgets could mean they have to make cuts elsewhere.
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Paul Whiteman, general secretary of NAHT, told the BBC that members were “offended” by the offer, which was not “adequately funded”.
“Almost all of our members have told us it’s not affordable in their budget,” he said.
“Government operates with large averages throughout the system but I’m afraid that doesn’t tell you what’s happening in each individual school.
“Each school is unique and finances very different things depending on the situation.”
He urged the government to “come back to the negotiating table” – although the government said this offer would be their last.
Joanne Hall, the headteacher at Merritts Brook Primary School in Birmingham, told the BBC that teachers deserve a raise, but funding them from the school budget means making cuts elsewhere.
“I think that’s a pretty scary prospect for a bunch of principals, because what do you do next?” She asked.
“What do you cut next when you’re already on a very tight budget?”
A spokesman for the Department of Education said: “The offering has been funded, including large new investments of over half a billion pounds, and is helping to address issues teachers are facing such as: B. Workload.”
Unions’ rejection of the offer would “simply result in more disruption for today’s children and less money for teachers,” they said.
The government added that “after children had taken almost a week of school time and exams were fast approaching”, the NEU’s vote to vote again for further strike action next school year was “extremely disappointing”.
NAHT, which has 37,000 members working in schools, has not gone on strike in England.
It elected its members to take industrial action that year, but failed to meet the 50% statutory turnout to organize strikes.
In a poll of NAHT members last week, 78% of respondents said they plan to vote again and take industrial action, and 90% voted to reject the improved salary offer.
The NEU and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) also rejected the deal, and voting by NASUWT union members ends this week.
NEU members voted for five strike dates in the next term, three of which have yet to be confirmed.
The dispute is formally about pay, but unions have also campaigned on issues such as workload and employee recruitment and retention.
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, between 2010 and 2022, inflation-adjusted teacher salaries fell by an average of 11%.
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