Letter: School teamwork

Sir: This morning (3 December) Messrs Blair and Blunkett came to Chiswick Community School in order to stimulate public interest in the Green Paper on Education to be presented to Parliament later in the day.

Although we recognise it as a compliment to the management and teaching teams of this school that it was selected as the launch pad for this event, we, the undersigned members of the teaching staff, wish to dissociate ourselves from the proposals in the Green Paper. We are strongly opposed to performance-related pay.

Successful teaching depends on teamwork both within a school and between schools through the sharing of good practice. We consider therefore that any attempt to reward teachers in some schools more generously than in others, or individual teachers in the same school more than their colleagues, would be extremely divisive.

We urge the Government to rethink these retrogressive proposals and to take on board the views of classroom teachers.

CAROL MACDOUGALL

and 25 others

Chiswick Community School

London W4