COLD hard cash isn’t going to keep teachers in their posts — what they want is better training and development, researchers say.

A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that heavy workloads and poor pupil behaviour, rather than wages, were preventing teachers from taking up posts in challenging schools.

“Increasing teachers’ pay, even if it was affordable, is not the answer,” says Jodie Reed, a research fellow at the institute. However, the report notes that increased pay could make teaching a more attractive option “in some areas”.

Performance-related pay for teachers also gets an airing in CentrePiece (Summer), with an evaluation of where it works and where it doesn’t.

Research carried out by the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) finds that “only a small minority” of classroom teachers are likely to respond to performance-related pay.

The IPPR report, meanwhile, says that performance-related pay “can actually deter teachers from working in schools which do not achieve such good results”.

Bad classroom behaviour appears to be a major disincentive for teachers working in challenging schools. Teachers who participated in the IPPR surveys felt that pupil behaviour only improves if it is very clear who is responsible for managing discipline.

Inadequate training was also an issue, as many teachers felt that their training had not prepared them for the job. And time pressures made professional development very difficult once they had started teaching.

Good working relationships, however, were found to act as a strong incentive for staying in a school. Teachers in challenging schools were far less likely to report a “positive and supportive atmosphere”.

www.ippr.org.uk/

http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/

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