Teachers Pay Award: Letter to the Secretary of State for Education

On 5th August 2024, we wrote to the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, following last week’s Government announcement that they would be giving teachers a pay rise of 5.5%.  In this letter, we explained how music hubs will be affected by this, and asked that the support for the pay award being provided for classroom teachers and school leaders is extended to all teachers who are on Teachers Pay and Conditions, or those who have similar terms and conditions which link their annual pay award to the agreed percentage rise for school teachers.

Dear Secretary of State,

I am writing on behalf of the Music Mark Membership to ask that the DfE support for the pay award being provided for classroom teachers and school leaders is extended to all teachers who are on Teachers Pay and Conditions, or those have similar terms and conditions which link their annual pay award to the agreed percentage rise for school teachers. Whilst there are many examples of ‘unattached teachers’ across the education provision landscape that are a vital resource in our schools and other educational settings, I am of course writing out of concern for the impact that this pay award will have on music education.

14 years of underinvestment in music education provision which supports and expands on the delivery provided by schools has made it much harder for our colleagues across the country to deliver the high-quality musical learning opportunities every child should have access to. The previous government’s rhetoric on education made this endeavour very difficult, and these additional cost pressures will only serve to worsen this situation. There are only so many times our music education organisations – such as Music Services – can cut back and trim budgets. In the past few years, we have seen an increase across the country in forced redundancies and/or moves to employment contracts, which are devaluing the role of these teaching professionals.

Since the announcement that the recommended teacher’s pay award of 5.5% would be accepted, we have been inundated with emails from our members outlining how there is no money available to cover this unexpectedly high percentage increase. This is primarily due to static government funding despite significant increases in costs and reductions in other funding sources. If the Music Hub partnerships were to raise their prices to cover these costs (and this would be challenging when fees have already been set and published for the new academic year), this will result in musical learning becoming inaccessible to all but higher earning families. We must be clear that the message from our membership is that the likely impact of this pay award not being funded across the Music Hub network will be numerous staffing restructures and a reduction in delivery across the country.

As you and your colleagues begin to reframe the narrative around the value of music and the wider arts, it is vital that we don’t lose more of the teaching workforce you need. As you said last week, “Teachers lay the foundations of children’s lives. An investment in them is an investment in the next generation, and this government is determined to make sure every child – whatever their background – has the opportunity to succeed.” We agree whole-heartedly with your statement and would ask that this investment includes support for the thousands of dedicated, hard-working music teachers working across our Music Hub partnerships.

Although we would like to recommend a review of the funding of music education more broadly, and we are currently working with Demos on a report we hope to be able to share with you in the autumn linked to this, there is now an urgent need to review the current funding settlement for music education – the revenue grant given to Music Hub Partnerships for 2024/25. We request that a 5.5% increase (c.£4.2m) must be found to meet the immediate pressure the pay award will place on Music Hubs and their key delivery partners.

If it would help to hear more about the impact this pay award will have on music education provision across England following many years of under investment, I would be happy to provide details or case studies. Otherwise, I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Yours sincerely

Bridget Whyte

CEO, The UK Association of Music Education – Music Mark