Salary boosts for new maths, science and computing teachers

Boris Johnson announced a “levelling-up premium” today which will mean teachers in the early years of their careers will be able to get a salary boost of up to £3,000 tax-free to teach maths, physics, chemistry and computing.

The government say this will “support recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in these subjects and in the schools and areas that need them most.”

It will be available to eligible teachers in the first five years of their careers, backed by a commitment of £60 million in funding.

However critics have pointed out that the government had scrapped a similar scheme earlier. Sam Freedman, a former adviser at the Department for Education, told BBC Radio 4’s the World at One: “It is a policy that existed, was introduced in 2018, lasted a couple of years and then was scrapped.”

“So this is actually a kind of U-turn and they are bringing it back in a slightly tweaked form.”