Gender Pay Gap

We publish information regarding our gender pay gap on an annual basis, and the information is based on a snapshot date of 31 March each year, as per national requirements.  This report summarises the key findings of the report.

Key Findings

Our gender pay gap is 26% mean and 56% median overall.

If we split teaching and non-teaching staff, the mean for teachers is 8% and the median is 0%, and for non-teaching staff the mean is 3.5% and the median is 0%.  Our previous gender pay gap across TEAL was 23% mean and 47% median, therefore regardless of our attempts to reduce the gap, it has increased.

Gender Split per Quartile 2023 – Overall

This is the information we submit nationally, which details our gender split against four quartiles:

Whilst we have more females in every quartile, the percentage of males increase throughout the quartiles, hence the gender pay gap.  The lower quartile includes roles such as cleaners and catering staff, and they are roles that have a high volume of staff attached to them, paid at the lowest point within the non-teaching national pay scale.

Gender Split per Quartile 2023 – Teaching Staff

Our gender pay gap breakdown for our teaching staff is as follows:

Gender Split per Quartile 2023 – Associate Staff

Our gender pay gap breakdown for non-teaching staff is as follows:

As mentioned, the roles that are captured in the lowest quartile are all non-teaching roles, such as cleaner, catering assistant, administrator, caretaker, teaching assistant and technician. The majority of post holders in those roles, apart from caretakers, are females.  This may be due, in part, to the part-time term-time nature of those.

Our data illustrates a good gender balance in the top layers of the organisation, in that 40% of TEAL’s top ten earners are female and 44% of the top 50 earners are female.

A key factor in the gender pay gap is the significant difference in pay between teaching and non-teaching staff.  For example, the hourly rate for the lowest earning teachers at the snapshot date was £22.13, whereas for associate staff it was £10.60, which is a difference of over £11 per hour and equates to a 48% difference.  This is reflected in the table below, which shows how many teaching and non-teaching staff sit within each quartile.

Number of teaching and associate staff in each quartile

We have encouraged more staff to work part-time in our trust, recognising the need to attract and retain staff, enabling flexible working and helping staff achieve a good work-life balance.  The number of part-time staff we employ in each quartile, and split for teaching and associate, is detailed in the table below.  The high level of part-time non-teaching staff reflects the fact that some non-teaching roles do not allow for full-time working (e.g. a TA generally works around 32-33 hours as a full-time member of staff and the national terms and conditions have full-time work for non-teaching staff at 37 hours per week, as opposed to 32.5 hours per week for teachers) and the majority of non-teaching roles are term-time which means the post holders have an element of unpaid leave during school holidays and their salary, annual leave and bank holiday entitlement is therefore paid on a pro rata basis.

We have developed career pathways and encouraged female staff to apply for promotional posts in our trust, and we continue to review the development pathways we have for our non-teaching staff.

Number of part-time staff

Next Steps

TEAL employs more females than males in all quartiles, however, the gender split is less significant in the upper quartiles than the lower quartiles.  This results in a significant pay gap if teaching and non-teaching staff are considered together.  If the two categories are split, the gender pay gap is much reduced.

Nationally, guidance to address the gender pay gap includes the following activities:

• Include women in recruitment processes (e.g. shortlisting, interviews)
• Use skill-based assessment tasks in recruitment, rather than simply relying on interviews
• Interviews to be structured
• Encourage women to negotiate their starting salary
• Ensure promotion, pay and reward processes are transparent
• Appoint diversity managers/task forces
• Improve workplace flexibility for men and women
• Encourage use of shared parental leave
• Recruit returners (e.g. where people have had a career break)
• Offer mentoring and support, and networking opportunities
• Establish targets to improve the gender pay gap
• Deliver unconscious bias training and diversity training
• Review leadership development training to ensure it is inclusive, alongside performance review processes
• Encourage diverse selection panels for recruitment

As our organisation employs more women than men, our recruitment processes already include a range of women.  We already used skill-based assessments, and structured interviews with technical and competency-based questions.  Most of our non-teaching roles have spot salaries, therefore there isn’t an opportunity to negotiate a salary, however, where we do have progressive pay scales, our Pay Policy encourages new starters to commence on the first point at which they would receive a pay rise.  This is something we could review, as we have already removed the need for candidates to include salary details in their application form.

Our promotion, pay and reward processes are already detailed in our policies and procedures, which are located on our website for all to see, and we have an equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) group, led by HR and including EDI champions from all our schools.

We have a flexible working policy and approach, which means that our adverts include part-time/full-time contracts and encourage potential candidates to talk to us about flexible working.  Our policies and procedures are aligned to this approach (e.g. our templates and guidance for family leave include encouraging statements regarding flexible working).  We offer coaching, mentoring and collaborative networks across TEAL and have a range of offers and options available for staff, including buddying systems for returners and support groups (e.g. menopause). 

We encourage our staff to undertake qualifications and professional development in a number of ways, including the apprenticeship route, and this is something that we intend to review and enhance over the next 12 months to encourage more non-teaching professional development.

We will continue to review our workforce data (e.g. age/gender profiles) and ensure our workforce projects (e.g. equality, diversity and inclusion and employer of choice) align.  Our aspiration is to reduce our gender pay gap and create an inclusive culture for all staff.  Work underway at the moment includes the following:

• Review of non-teaching pay, terms and conditions, development opportunities and career pathways.
• Review of recruitment to ensure it is inclusive, free from unconscious bias, creative and effective (e.g. more inclusivity detailed in the Recruitment and Selection Policy).
• Review of EDI training and development.
• Review of leadership development training.

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