Stepping up

Nursery nurses in Nottinghamshire schools have achieved a groundbreaking pay deal providing them with a professional career structure and a salary banding which puts senior staff on a par with teachers.

The achievement by the Nottinghamshire branch of the UK's largest union, Unison, is encouraging nursery nurses around the country from London to Scotland to redouble their efforts to win better pay and status.

The package, due to be implemented in September, emerged after 18 months of negotiations between the union and Nottinghamshire County Council. It establishes three grades for nursery nurses based on a 32.5-hour week and 52-week pay year, with paid overtime at time and a half.

It is estimated that about 70 to 75 per cent of staff will be on Grade 2 at pay levels of 13,188 to 14,283 for unqualified staff, and 13,764 to 16,203 for their qualified colleagues. About 10 per cent of nursery nurses will be on Grade 3, which covers qualified, experienced staff with responsibility for management or supporting teaching assistant students, and sets pay between 15,741 and 18,417. The council and union are also looking at different options, such as day courses, for helping unqualified staff to achieve qualified status.

Unison's local branch organiser Mike Scott says, 'It is not only the pay rise that is important, it is the change in status. Our members are so pleased about that. For the first time there will be nursery nurses earning more than teachers in the same school. That is a dramatic change. The top of Grade 3 will overlap the teaching scale.'