{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/education-school-teachers-pay-and-conditions-of-employment-order-1987/note",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/education-school-teachers-pay-and-conditions-of-employment-order-1987/note.json",
  "legislation": "uksi/1987/650",
  "legislation_title": "The Education (School Teachers' Pay and Conditions of Employment) Order 1987",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/education-school-teachers-pay-and-conditions-of-employment-order-1987",
  "path": "note",
  "kind": "note",
  "number": null,
  "heading": "Explanatory note",
  "text": "(This note is not part of the Order)\nThis Order, made under section 3 of the Teachers' Pay and Conditions Act 1987 (“the Act”), makes provision with respect to the remuneration and other conditions of employment of school teachers in England and Wales. School teachers are defined in section 7 of the Act to mean teachers in primary and secondary schools maintained by local education authorities or other persons employed by a local education authority as teachers in the provision of primary and secondary education, except persons employed as teachers in establishments maintained by a local authority in the exercise of a social services function. The Order applies to all such teachers, including head teachers and deputy head teachers (article 3).\nArticles 4 and 5 of the Order provide that the conditions of employment of all head teachers, deputy head teachers and other school teachers shall include the conditions set out respectively in Schedules 1, 2 and 3 to the Order. Section 3(6)(b) of the Act, applied to this Order by section 3(8), provides that these provisions shall have effect as terms of these teachers' contracts of employment. They do so, by virtue of the Act, from the date on which the Order comes into force—30th April 1987—except that the provisions of paragraph 4 of Schedule 3 (Working time) are expressed to have effect after 1st August 1987. Section 3(6) goes on to provide that the provisions of such teachers' contracts of employment shall have, or continue to have, effect only so far as they are consistent with the provisions in this Order.\nThe first condition in Schedule 1 indicates the extent to which head teachers are, when carrying out their professional duties, subject to overriding requirements, including those of the Education Acts.\nOther conditions relate to the head teacher’s general functions and his duty to consult (paragraphs 2 and 3), and set out in paragraph 4 a number of specific duties which are included in his professional duties as a head teacher. Paragraph 5 provides for him to be allowed a reasonable break in the course of each school day.\nThe conditions for deputy head teachers in Schedule 2 apply in addition to those set out in Schedule 3, which apply to all teachers other than head teachers.\nThe conditions in Schedule 3 require a teacher to carry out the general professional duties of a school teacher, which include those duties set out in paragraph 3, under the reasonable direction of the head teacher (and of the local education authority, if the teacher is not assigned to a particular school)—paragraph 1. A teacher must similarly perform such particular duties as may be assigned to him or her (by virtue of the Interpretation Act 1978 masculine references include the feminine) in accordance with such reasonable directions—paragraph 2. Paragraph 4, which applies after 1st August 1987, makes provision as to working time. This paragraph does not apply to deputy head teachers—Article 5.\nArticle 6 of the Order directs that the document published by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office entitled “Scales of Salaries for Teachers: Primary and Secondary Education, England and Wales 1983”, as amended by the Orders specified in Schedule 4, (“the 1983 Document”), shall have effect from the 1st January 1987 for the purpose of determining the remuneration of school teachers in England and Wales subject to the amendments contained in Schedule 5 to the Order and to the transitional provisions in article 7. This Document may be obtained from Government Bookshops and through booksellers. By virtue of section 3(6)(a) of the Act, as applied by section 3(8), the remuneration of teachers to whom the Order applies is to be determined, and paid to teachers by local educational authorities, in accordance with the scales and other provisions set out or referred to in this Order.\nParagraph 10 of Schedule 5 substitutes new scales of salaries for those currently set out in Appendix I to the 1983 Document, as amended; and relevant figures elsewhere in the Document are amended (paragraphs 4(1), (4) and (5), 6(2) and (3) and 11(4) and (6)). In addition to amendments consequential on the repeal by the Act of the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965, under which the 1983 Document was published, the main amendments to the 1983 Document are as follows:—\nFirst, the three scales (A, B and C) previously applicable to unqualified teachers are replaced by five scales, U1 to U5, and provision is made for placing such teachers on one of those scales (paragraphs 2 and 10). Secondly, sections 8 and 9 of the Document, which relate to unqualified deputy head teachers and head teachers, have been deleted since there are now no longer any such teachers (paragraph 3). Thirdly, the additional allowance payable under section 10(b) to teachers with qualifications for teaching blind or deaf children and who teach such children and who have reached the maximum of their scale will now be a flat sum of £462 instead of one increment beyond the maximum of the scale (paragraph 4(2) and (3)). Fourthly, the position of teachers who are transferred to a different salary scale between 1st January 1987 and 29th April 1987 is preserved (paragraph 11(2)). Fifthly, provision is made for the salaries of teachers who move between scales to be calculated by reference to the scale point to which they would have moved under the provisions superseded by this Order (paragraph 11(7) to (9)).\nA transitional provision provides that a teacher who would be paid less as a result of this Order shall continue to be paid at the rate he was being paid at 31st December 1986 until the new salary payable matches or exceeds his old salary (article 7).\nThe retrospective effect of the Order in relation to pay is authorised by section 3(5)(f), as applied by section 3(8), and section 3(9) of the Act.",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1987/650/note",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T16:28:24.446741+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}