Letter: Rewarding teachers

Richard Welch
Friday 09 April 1999 00:02 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Sir: The simplest way to introduce performance-related pay for teachers is to employ them on fixed-term contracts of no more than five years.

In the vast majority of cases jobs would be renewed and, the better the teacher, the better the deal he or she could cut with the school's governors. The incompetent or idle would be warned in good time that their contracts were unlikely to be renewed on present performance. They would improve or pay the consequences.

A simple set of rules would include safeguards to protect senior teachers on higher salaries from losing out to younger, cheaper colleagues.

By comparison with the payment-by-results scheme as outlined by the Government, fixed-term contracts are hassle-free and bring the teaching profession into the real world.

RICHARD WELCH

Denbigh,

North Wales

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in