'It's unjustified': Parents' shock as they learn primary head earns £276,000 a year


Parents and teachers today said they were shocked after learning a headmaster was earning £276,000 a year.

Mark Elms, who runs a 335-pupil inner-city primary, received £231,400 with a further £45,123 in pension contributions.

He is among around 100 head teachers taking home more than £150,000  -  outstripping David Cameron's £142,500 a year.

Mr Elms did not comment when he arrived at Tidemill Primary in Lewisham, London, on his bike today at around 7.30am.

Mark Elms

Huge salary: Primary school head teacher Mark Elms cycles to work today after it emerged he was paid £276,523 last year

But parents reacted angrily, saying that they were 'shocked' by his salary.

Mother-of-three Suzanne Hayes, 30, who is a teaching assistant at another school, said his pay package was 'unjustified.'

'He has been good but I can't justify the quarter of a million,' she said.

Adriana Patino, 37, a housekeeper from Deptford, said: 'I was very shocked when I heard how much he gets paid. He works a lot, but he should be paid less.'

However, Rhonda Stewart, 42, said Mr Elms was 'worth it' as he had transformed the school.

'I was shocked when I found out how much he gets paid, but considering what he's done it's fair,' she said.

Mr Elms's salary comes from running the school and working on a government scheme to raise education standards in poor areas. 

Unions have branded the huge pay packets 'outrageous' and a 'slap in the face' for teachers and teaching assistants facing a pay freeze.

The GMB union identified 11 heads in London alone who are earning more than £150,000, some of whom enjoyed steep pay increases despite the recession.

Revelations about the rapidly growing pay emerged only days after Education Secretary Michael Gove called for heads to be paid no more than the Prime Minister.

Mr Elms's pay cheque is all the more extraordinary because he is head of a primary school.  Most primary heads get around £55,000.

Pay deals of more than £150,000 are typically found among heads of large secondary schools in areas where the cost of living is high and pupils frequently arrive speaking little or no English with GCSEs just around the corner.

Governors who sanctioned Mr Elms's pay have been investigated and issued with 'formal, confidential advice' by the local authority. 

Outstanding: Tidemill Primary School in Lewisham, South-East London has 335 pupils

Outstanding: Tidemill Primary School in Lewisham, South-East London has 335 pupils

Accounts published by Lewisham Council show that Mr Elms was paid £276,523 in 2009/10, including £231,400 salary and 'fees and allowances'.

Officials said the sum was made up of £82,714.37 basic salary, £10,000 for out of hours work and arrears of £9,317 for work done in 2008/09.

He also received payments totalling £102,955 for work he completed as part of the Labour Government's City Challenge programme, aimed at tackling under achievement in disadvantaged areas.

These awards were £51,997.50 for 2009/10 and a backdated £50,957.50 for 2008/09.
The council was last night unable to account for the remaining £26,413.63, which would take the total to £231,400.

A spokesman said: 'Governing bodies are responsible for setting head teachers' pay in line with the national guidelines in the Schoolteachers' Pay and Conditions Document.

'The local authority has investigated the high pay levels set by this governing body and issued them with formal, confidential advice which they are now considering.'

Mr Elms's pay for 2009/10 is thought to exceed all other state and private school heads, including the head of Eton College, Tony Little, who earns up to £199,000 including pension and benefits.

The highly-paid primary head started work with the City Challenge scheme, which involves offering assistance to nearby schools in 'challenging circumstances', after he was credited with pulling Tidemill off Ofsted's failing list following his decision to take over as head in 2001.

At its latest inspection in 2008, the school was judged 'outstanding by Ofsted. The GMB analysis of head teachers' pay also showed that Jacqueline Valin, the head of a secondary school in Wandsworth, South London, received a pay rise of £20,594 in 2009/10, taking her salary to £198,406, and her total remuneration package to £226,381.

Southfields Community College has been credited with achieving great success with youngsters speaking dozens of different languages but the GMB said her 11.54 per cent salary increase in a year could not be justified.

Ted Purcell, the GMB's public services officer, said: 'It is outrageous that a head teacher in a local community school should earn more money than the Prime Minister.

A pay rise of over £20,000 for one head in Wandsworth is a downright disgrace and a slap in the face for GMB members now facing a pay freeze.'

Other highly-paid heads include Sir William Atkinson, the head of Phoenix High School, in Hammersmith. Accounts show he was paid a salary of £160,640 in 2009/10 and a total remuneration package of £183,290.

In Greenwich, the head of Crown Woods School, Michael Murphy, was paid a salary of £150,292 and a total remuneration package of £171,483.

Mr Gove's initiative to cap heads' pay emerged last week in the Times Educational Supplement.

Pay scales for heads in large London state schools stop at £109,658 but the law effectively allows governors to offer whatever they need in order to attract the right candidates.

Explaining Mr Gove's policy, the Department for Education said: 'The Chancellor is clear that the country is living beyond its means, that the entire public sector must share the burden of dealing with the growing national debt and that if we don't tackle pay and pensions, more jobs will be lost.'





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