Letters: Teachers' pay

Sir: I have followed the series of letters and articles in your paper on performance-related pay for teachers with a mixture of dismay and resignation. Why has nobody raised the simplest issue of all? To cross the threshold teachers have to commit themselves to three weeks of extra work in the year.

My wonderful staff, working in almost ideal conditions with small classes of eager, well-disciplined children and high levels of professional support in the classroom, are not putting themselves forward. Why? Because they are all fully committed already, they are all exhausted by the end of term, and of course, they are all women!

They care deeply about their performance and their responsibilities and they agonise about their career prospects. But they won't apply, and it causes me real anger to see this kind of unfair exploitative pressure continuing under a government which should know better, uncritically supported by a paper which should be campaigning for this particular gender issue to be dropped.

JOHN PEASNALL

Head (and only man)

Rauceby School

Lincolnshire