SUPERHEAD John King OBE is paid over £177,000 a report revealed today.
Mr King, Head of Gable Hall School in Corringham and, since 2006, William Edwards School in Stifford Clays is one of the highest paid headteachers in the country.
The news comes after it was reported that a Primary Head in Lewisham was paid more than a quarter of a million.
Staff, parents and students have robustly defended the salary.
One parent, who did not wish to be named said: “Gable Hall has been the premier school in the borough for years and that is mainly down to the brilliant stewardship of John King.”
“For the past four years, he has done the same with William Edwards indeed he has helped out at Ockendon School and Grays School when they went into special measures and they have never looked back.”
One of the students put it more succinctly.
He said: “Mr King earns in a year what John Terry earns in a week. I think if we had sent Mr King to South Africa he would have come back with the World Cup!”
All this uproar from people regarding the amount of money certain educational people are earning is beyond belief, had these individuals been senior managers in the private sector nobody would have raised an eyebrow but because these individuals work in the public sector there is an outcry.
If these people have turned things around at failing schools, which seems to be the case, then surely they are worth every penny that they have recieved, as the saying goes, pay peanuts, get monkeys……..
Nobody, least of all a teacher, is worth that sort of money.
Why would nobody be worth that amount of money? if a job has been done well the this deserves rewarding, as a head teacher they are senior managers who have to control very large budgets and many staff and pupils under their care, as I said if this was a senior manager of a private company none of thie would be newsworthy.
As for “least of a teacher” I assume that you do not rate this job as worth a large salary? teachers work in a very stressful environment and do more hours than they are contracted to whilst planning lessons, marking, assessing etc, yes we all know about the amount of holidays they get but believe me most of this time is taken up with work and planning for the next term, so to be honest Teachers salaries are a joke, they do not get paid enough in my opinion.
Mr. King HAS achieved positve results for Education Thurrock – without him – as left to local Councillors – it would have crashed. So, on those terms his salary is defendable. Being spilt between Schools with increased responsibility is a daunting task – so, to get it RIGHT is, in fact, on Thurrock reality – priceless. If we consider that we are shortly to receive and reimburse a Chief Executive whose records in National press seem to be less than commendable- despite the misreading of all that by John Kent and crew – whose salary will no doubt be much bigger – with an expenses account too – we are, possibly, focusing on the wrong Executive positions here. Any Great Teacher IS worth their weight in GOLD – which Mr. King also is.