ALNCo Pay in Wales: A Statutory Leadership Scale England Has No Answer To
Wales has written a mandatory five-point ALNCo pay scale into its statutory pay document and made ALN coordinators members of the leadership group alongside heads and deputies. England's SENCo has no pay scale at all. The paragraphs, the figures, the dates and the contrast.
Independent guidance, not affiliated with the DfE, Teachers' Pensions or any teaching union.
Short answer
Most cross-border education comparisons are a matter of degree. England pays a bit less here, Scotland negotiates rather than reviews, Northern Ireland settles late. They are differences of calibration within a shared idea of how school pay works, and writing about them honestly means resisting the urge to make small gaps sound like chasms.
This one is not like that. On the question of how to pay the person responsible for additional learning needs in a school, England and Wales have arrived at genuinely opposite answers, and both have written their answer into statute. England's statutory pay document does not mention the role. Wales's statutory pay document mandates a scale for it, on the leadership spine, in every maintained school in the country. If you want a clean natural experiment in education policy, this is about as clean as they come.
The finding, in one paragraph
The Welsh statutory pay document lists four leadership group posts: headteacher, deputy headteacher, assistant headteacher, ALN coordinator. Not three plus an optional fourth, not three with guidance encouraging schools to consider a fourth — four, in the interpretation section, as the definition of the term. Every ALNCo in a Welsh maintained school is therefore a member of the leadership group as a matter of law, must be paid from the leadership spine, and must have a five-point scale in their school's pay policy. The English equivalent role has statutory duties, a mandatory qualification, a legal requirement on every mainstream school to designate someone to it, and no pay provision of any kind.
4
Leadership group posts defined in Welsh statute — headteacher, deputy, assistant head, and ALNCo
What an ALNCo is in Welsh law
Start with the role rather than the money, because the Welsh ALNCo is not simply a SENCo with a different acronym. Wales did not rename SEN as ALN; it replaced the system.
The Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018, together with the Additional Learning Needs (Wales) Regulations 2021 and the ALN Code, swept away the statement of special educational needs and put the Individual Development Plan in its place, extended the framework from birth to 25, and made the maintaining of an IDP a duty on the school rather than something arrived at after a lengthy assessment process. It is a more expansive system than England's, with a wider population inside it and a heavier documentary duty attached to each pupil in it.
The STPC(W)D's interpretation section defines an "ALN coordinator" as "a person designated as an additional learning needs coordinator, in accordance with section 60 of Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018", and paragraph 48.1 of the contractual framework says that a person appointed as an ALN coordinator "is required to undertake the duties of an ALN coordinator as set out in the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 Act, the Additional Learning Needs (Wales) Regulations 2021 and the Additional Learning Needs Code in addition to carrying out their other professional duties."
Note where paragraph 48 sits: in Part 7, the contractual framework for teachers, immediately after paragraph 47 on deputy and assistant headteachers and immediately before paragraph 49 on leading practitioners. The document treats the ALNCo as a role with a defined place in the school's leadership structure, not as a responsibility bolted onto a classroom post.
The four statutory paragraphs that do the work
Four provisions between them create the Welsh ALNCo pay position. It is worth reading them in order, because each one closes a door that a school might otherwise have walked through.
The relevant body must determine a salary for ALNCos
"Having complied with the requirements of paragraphs 4.4, 5 and 10, the relevant body must determine a salary for headteachers, deputy headteachers, assistant headteachers and ALN co-ordinators."
The ALNCo is named in the same sentence as the head, in a mandatory obligation ("must determine"), under the heading of leadership group pay. That is the door to "the ALNCo is a classroom teacher whose pay we'll sort out under Part 3" closing.
That salary must be based on the leadership group pay spine
"An ALN coordinator must be paid such salary based upon the leadership group pay spine set out in sub-paragraph 4.4e as the relevant body determines in accordance with paragraph 9."
Sub-paragraph 4.4(e) is the full L1–L43 spine, which we publish in full on our Welsh leadership pay spine page. The wording of 4.4(d) is word-for-word identical to 4.4(a), (b) and (c) for headteachers, deputies and assistant heads, with only the role name changed. There is no qualifying clause, no "where the relevant body considers it appropriate", no size threshold. That is the door to "we'll put our ALNCo on a TLR instead" closing.
The ceiling and the overlap rule
"The maximum of the deputy or assistant headteacher's pay range and the ALN coordinator's pay range must not exceed the maximum of the headteacher group for the school, calculated in accordance with paragraphs 6 to 8. The pay range for a deputy or assistant headteacher, or ALN coordinator should only overlap the headteacher's pay range in exceptional circumstances."
The ALNCo is treated identically to a deputy or assistant head here — same ceiling, same overlap rule, same sentence. This is the provision that ties the ALNCo scale to school size, because the headteacher group is derived from the unit-total formula in paragraphs 6.1 to 6.5.
The five-point scale is mandatory in every pay policy
"The relevant body must include in their pay policy a 5 point pay scale for ALN coordinators relative to the headteacher school group as determined by the paragraphs 6.1 to 6.5."
This is the load-bearing sentence, and the one with genuinely no English parallel. It is not an entitlement an individual ALNCo has to argue for. It is an obligation on the school's pay policy — the document a governing body has to publish and a union can inspect — to contain a five-point ALNCo scale before any individual ALNCo applies for anything. That is the door to "our pay policy is silent on ALNCos" closing.
Why 'must include in their pay policy' matters more than it looks
The mandatory five-point scale
Five points, not a range. That choice is worth dwelling on, because it is the same design logic as the leadership spine itself: a defined ladder with defined rungs, rather than a floor and a ceiling with everything in between left to negotiation.
What the document specifies:
- There must be a scale, in the pay policy, in every maintained school in Wales (paragraph 9.5).
- It must have exactly five points (paragraph 9.5).
- Those points must come from the leadership group pay spine at 4.4(e) (paragraph 4.4(d)).
- It must be set relative to the school's headteacher group, which is derived from the unit-total formula (paragraphs 9.5 and 6.1–6.5).
- Its maximum must not exceed the headteacher group maximum (paragraph 9.4).
- It should only overlap the headteacher's own pay range in exceptional circumstances (paragraph 9.4).
- There must be appropriate scope within the range to allow for progress over time — the general obligation at paragraph 9.2 applies to every leadership pay range the relevant body determines.
What the document does not specify is which five spine points. That is left to the school's pay policy, and it is the honest limit of what any national guide can tell you. Two group 4 schools could lawfully land on different five-point selections. What is nationally fixed is the ceiling, the ladder they must be drawn from, and the obligation to publish the choice.
What the money actually looks like
Because the scale is set relative to the headteacher group, the practical starting point for any Welsh ALNCo is their school's group. Here are the eight group ranges from paragraph 5.3 — the ALNCo scale must sit within the group's ceiling, and cannot reach above it.
| Headteacher group | Total unit score | 2025 group range (statutory) | Ceiling for the ALNCo scale, 2026/27 (derived) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group 1 | Up to 1,000 | £59,597 – £79,288 | £82,063 |
| Group 2 | 1,001 to 2,200 | £62,612 – £85,329 | £88,316 |
| Group 3 | 2,201 to 3,500 | £67,531 – £91,836 | £95,050 |
| Group 4 | 3,501 to 5,000 | £72,579 – £98,836 | £102,295 |
| Group 5 | 5,001 to 7,500 | £80,080 – £109,005 | £112,820 |
| Group 6 | 7,501 to 11,000 | £86,183 – £120,238 | £124,446 |
| Group 7 | 11,001 to 17,000 | £92,754 – £132,555 | £137,194 |
| Group 8 | 17,001 and over | £102,299 – £146,313 | £151,434 |
In practice, no Welsh school is going to set an ALNCo scale that runs to the very top of its headteacher group — paragraph 9.4's overlap rule effectively prevents it in all but exceptional cases, since the head's own range will normally reach the group maximum. The realistic operating zone for an ALNCo scale is the lower and middle part of the group range. The important number for most ALNCos is therefore the bottom of the leadership spine rather than the top of their group.
And that bottom number is the one that makes this reform bite. L1 was £52,680 in the confirmed September 2025 document — roughly £54,524 after the 3.5% award for September 2026. Compare that with where a Welsh ALNCo would previously have sat as a classroom teacher:
| Position | September 2025 (statutory) | September 2026 (derived) |
|---|---|---|
| Top of the Welsh main pay scale (M6) | £46,595 | £48,226 |
| Top of the Welsh upper pay scale (U3) | £51,942 | £53,760 |
| U3 plus the maximum ALN allowance | £57,537 | £59,551 |
| Bottom of the leadership spine (L1) | £52,680 | £54,524 |
The bottom rung of the leadership spine is £738 above the top of the upper pay scale. An ALNCo who had spent years at U3 was, on the day the leadership provisions took effect, entitled to be paid on a scale whose lowest point exceeded anything available to them as a classroom teacher — and, under the assimilation rule set out below, would in most cases land above L1 rather than on it.
How you get assimilated onto it
The statutory guidance accompanying the Document contains the rule that decides what an existing ALNCo actually gets, and it is more generous than a bare transfer to the bottom of the spine would be. Paragraph 11 of the guidance says:
"When moving ALN coordinators from the main pay scale or upper pay scale to the leadership group pay range, ALN Coordinators should be paid on a scale point which is either equivalent to, or the nearest point above, their consolidated existing salary and allowances."
— STPC(W)D 2025/26, statutory guidance, paragraph 11
Three words in that sentence carry the weight. "Consolidated" means the comparison is against your total, not your base — so an ALNCo previously on U3 with an ALN allowance compares the sum, not the scale point. "Nearest point above" means the rounding goes your way: where your consolidated figure falls between two spine points, you go up, not down. And "allowances" confirms that a TLR or ALN allowance held for the coordinator role counts into the comparison rather than being disregarded or paid on top.
Paragraph 11.2(a) of the Document itself carries the parallel rule for assimilation between scale years: existing salary points should be assimilated to a corresponding point on the appropriate 2025 scales, and anyone whose current salary does not exactly correspond to such a point "should be assimilated at the next highest scale point". The same rounding-upward principle, applied twice.
'Consolidated existing salary and allowances' is where disputes will live
Progression once you're on it
This is where being in the leadership group pays a second dividend, and it is the finding we think is most under-discussed on either side of the border.
Paragraph 11 of the Document governs pay progression for leadership group members — which now means ALNCos too. Sub-paragraph 11.2(b) says progression "should be on an annual basis from 1 September, with an assumption in favour of progression unless an individual has been notified that capability procedures are underway in respect of that year." Sub-paragraph 11.2(c) allows the relevant body to award an additional point for excellent performance, provided that discretion is written into the pay policy. Sub-paragraph 11.2(e) confirms that a decision not to award progression may be made where the person is subject to capability proceedings.
So a Welsh ALNCo does not merely get a better scale. They get a scale on which movement is the statutory default. An ALNCo who was previously stuck at U3 with a discretionary allowance — the classic English SENCo position, and the previous Welsh one — now has an annual increment that the school must actively justify withholding, on capability grounds, in writing.
Our leadership spine page goes into the progression assumption in full, including the arguments against it. For an ALNCo the point is simply that inclusion in the leadership group brought it with them.
The conditions change nobody mentions
Every piece of coverage we have seen of this reform describes it as a pay change. It is also a conditions change, and the conditions half runs in both directions.
Paragraph 51.2 requires a full-time teacher to be available for work for 195 days, of which 190 may involve teaching pupils and 5 may only involve other duties. Paragraph 51.5 requires them to be available to perform duties as specified by the headteacher for 1,265 hours — the directed time budget that is the backbone of workload protection for classroom teachers in England and Wales alike.
Paragraph 51.4(a) lists who those provisions do not apply to:
"headteachers, deputy headteachers, assistant headteachers, ALN coordinators, teachers on the pay range for leading practitioners or teachers in receipt of an acting allowance for carrying out the duties of a headteacher, deputy headteacher or assistant headteacher…"
— STPC(W)D 2025/26 (revised March 2026), paragraph 51.4(a)
An ALNCo on the leadership spine is outside directed time. There is no 1,265-hour ceiling and no 195-day structure applying to them, exactly as there is none for a deputy head. For a role whose workload complaint has always been that the job does not fit the time available, losing the formal time limit is not a trivial development, and anyone weighing an assimilation offer should think about it properly rather than reading only the salary line.
The counterweight sits at paragraph 52.6, which is stronger for ALNCos than anything England offers its SENCos:
"A teacher with leadership or management responsibilities, and ALN Coordinators (see para 8.5 of the ALN Code) are entitled, so far as is reasonably practicable, to a reasonable amount of time during school sessions for the purpose of discharging those responsibilities."
— STPC(W)D 2025/26 (revised March 2026), paragraph 52.6
"So far as is reasonably practicable" and "a reasonable amount" are doing a lot of hedging, and this is not a numerical entitlement. But it is an entitlement, it names ALNCos expressly, and it cross-refers to the ALN Code. England's nearest equivalent is paragraph 6.91 of the SEND Code of Practice, which says a school "should ensure that the SENCO has sufficient time and resources" — a "should" in a code, not an "are entitled" in a statutory pay document. Neither attaches a number. One is meaningfully firmer than the other.
What an ALNCo gains
Leadership group status in statute. A mandatory five-point scale in the school's published pay policy. A leadership spine whose bottom rung already exceeds the top of the upper pay scale. Assimilation at the nearest point above consolidated salary and allowances. An annual increment that defaults to yes. An express statutory entitlement to time during school sessions.
What an ALNCo gives up
The 1,265 hours of directed time and the 195-day structure, both disapplied by paragraph 51.4(a). For a role already prone to unbounded workload, that is a real loss, and it is not retrospective comfort that deputies and assistant heads have always been in the same position. The time entitlement that replaces it is qualified by 'reasonably practicable' and attaches no number.
The ALN allowance is a different thing
Because both contain the letters ALN, these get conflated constantly, including in job adverts. They are separate provisions in separate parts of the document, serving different people.
| ALN allowance (paragraph 21) | ALNCo scale (paragraphs 4.4(d), 9.4, 9.5) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | A classroom teacher in a specified additional-needs post | The designated ALN coordinator, a member of the leadership group |
| Where it sits | Part 4 — allowances and other payments for classroom teachers | Part 2 — leadership group pay |
| What it is worth | £2,838 – £5,595 (2025); £2,937 – £5,791 (2026/27, derived) | Five points on the leadership spine, capped at the headteacher group maximum |
| Form | An allowance on top of a classroom scale point | A salary in its own right |
| England's counterpart | The SEN allowance — a genuine like-for-like | None |
The practical consequence: if you are the designated ALNCo, the ALN allowance is not your mechanism, and a school offering you one instead of a leadership scale point has not complied with paragraphs 4.4(d) and 9.5. If you are a classroom teacher in a designated additional-needs post who is not the coordinator, the allowance is exactly your mechanism and the leadership scale is not.
England's SENCo: the exact opposite
Our SENCo pay guide sets the English position out at length. The summary, for the purposes of the comparison, is stark.
Search England's School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document for the word "SENCO" and you find nothing. Not a range, not a reference, not a mention. The document defines the Main Pay Range, the Upper Pay Range, the unqualified teacher range, the leading practitioner range, the leadership group pay range, headteacher group ranges, TLR payments, SEN allowances and several other allowances. The role that every English mainstream school is legally required to designate appears in none of them.
An English SENCo is therefore paid on the ordinary Main or Upper Pay Range, with any extra coming from a discretionary TLR — the school choosing whether to award one at all, which tier, and what spot value within it — or from appointment to a leadership post if the school decides the role warrants one. The SEN allowance exists but its criteria (special school, mandatory-qualification SEN post, designated special class or unit, or an analogous non-designated setting) are ones most mainstream SENCos do not meet. And there is no statutory minimum time: the SEND Code of Practice asks at paragraph 6.91 for "sufficient" time with no number attached, and says at paragraph 6.87 that the SENCo "will be most effective in that role if they are part of the school leadership team" — an observation about effectiveness, not a requirement.
Wales: statutory duties, statutory pay
ALNCo named in the statutory definition of the leadership group. Must be paid from the leadership spine (4.4(d)). Every pay policy must contain a five-point ALNCo scale (9.5). Scale tied to school size via the unit-total formula. Annual progression assumed unless capability is engaged (11.2(b)). Express entitlement to time during school sessions (52.6).
England: statutory duties, discretionary pay
The word SENCO does not appear in the STPCD. No SENCo scale, no SENCo allowance, no requirement that a pay policy mention the role. Extra pay comes from a discretionary TLR, at a tier and spot value the school picks, which does not transfer if you move school. No minimum time entitlement anywhere — 'sufficient', with no number, in a code of practice.
Two further differences follow from the structural one and are worth naming because they affect real careers.
Portability. An English SENCo's TLR is attached to a responsibility in a specific school's staffing structure, not to the person, and it does not travel. Move schools and you negotiate again from nothing, which is why two SENCo posts advertised in the same town can differ by five figures. A Welsh ALNCo moves between schools as a member of the leadership group, into a school that is statutorily obliged to have a five-point ALNCo scale in its pay policy. The floor travels with the role even though the specific points do not.
The qualification asymmetry. England requires the NPQ for SENCOs of newly appointed SENCos within three years, and offers no pay provision. Wales attaches statutory pay to the role. It is an unusual combination in England: a mandatory qualification for a role with no mandatory pay, which is close to the opposite of how professional credentialling normally works.
How this came about
This was not a sudden decision, and the route it travelled says something about how Welsh education policy is made.
The Independent Welsh Pay Review Body's fifth report, in 2024, made recommendations 4 and 5 on ALNCos: that ALNCos then paid on the main and upper pay ranges be paid on the leadership group pay range, and that ALNCos be included in the leadership pay sections of the STPC(W)D and be subject to the same terms and conditions as leaders. The Welsh Government's response, in a Written Statement of 10 September 2024, accepted the direction and announced £5 million of funding to support the move, while noting that implementation required further detailed work.
That detailed work took over a year. On 4 November 2025 the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Lynne Neagle, announced a consultation on moving ALNCos to leadership pay and conditions, with written comments from key stakeholders due by 2 December 2025, and set out the proposal that the STPC(W)D would specify a five-point scale relative to the headteacher grouping. On 4 February 2026 a further Written Statement confirmed the pay order.
The introductory section of the March 2026 document records the change in its own summary of amendments since 2024: "Further amendments to the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document 2025 and accompanying guidance make provision to implement recommendations 4 and 5 of the IWPRB's fifth report 2024 in relation to moving ALN coordinators to the leadership group pay and conditions."
It is worth noticing the contrast with the annual pay award in the same document. Wales awarded 3.5% against an IWPRB recommendation of 4.25%, declining its own review body's headline figure for the second year running — and simultaneously implemented, in full and with new money attached, the same body's structural recommendation on ALNCos. A review body's structural recommendations and its cash recommendation clearly travel on different tracks in Wales, which is a useful thing to know when reading any future IWPRB report.
Dates, backdating and funding
The date position is genuinely fiddly, because the pay and the conditions were split across two revisions of the same document.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| July 2024 | IWPRB fifth report recommends (recs 4 and 5) moving ALNCos to the leadership group pay range and leaders' terms and conditions |
| 10 September 2024 | Welsh Government response; £5m announced to support the ALNCo recommendation |
| 1 September 2025 | Effective date of the pay change — backdated |
| 4 November 2025 | Consultation announced by Written Statement |
| 2 December 2025 | Consultation closes for written comments from key stakeholders |
| 4 February 2026 | Written Statement confirms the pay order; February 2026 revision gives retrospective effect to the backdated pay award |
| 8 March 2026 | March 2026 revision becomes operative, giving effect to the associated terms and conditions changes — which are not retrospective. The February revision ceases to have effect after 7 March 2026. |
So: your pay as an ALNCo is owed from 1 September 2025. Your conditions — including the disapplication of directed time under 51.4(a) — changed from 8 March 2026 and not before. That split is deliberate, and the Welsh Government's own statement explains the two-version structure in exactly those terms.
On back pay, the February 2026 statement is candid that arrival will be uneven: employers must determine an appropriate scale point on the leadership group pay scale for each ALNCo, implementation timetables vary by school, and payment will therefore occur in different months. If your back pay has not arrived, that is unfortunately consistent with the published expectation rather than evidence of an error — but it is a legitimate thing to ask your school and local authority about, and the entitlement runs from 1 September 2025 regardless of when it is paid.
Back pay and tax: a real and avoidable trap
What to check in your own school
If you are an ALNCo in a Welsh maintained school, these are the specific, checkable things — in the order it makes sense to do them.
- Open the pay policy and find the five-point ALNCo scale. Paragraph 9.5 requires it to be there. If it is missing, that is a compliance point about the policy rather than a complaint about your salary, and it is the strongest place to start.
- Confirm your school's headteacher group. The scale must be set relative to it. Work the unit total yourself from the roll and phase using paragraphs 6.1 to 6.5 if the school does not state it.
- Ask for your assimilation calculation in writing. It should show your consolidated existing salary and allowances and the spine point that is equivalent to, or the nearest point above, that figure.
- Check that back pay runs from 1 September 2025, not from the date your school got round to implementing it.
- Check the ALN allowance has been handled coherently. If you held one as a classroom teacher, it should have been consolidated into the comparison rather than quietly disappearing or being paid on top of a leadership salary.
- Ask what happened to your directed time. Paragraph 51.4(a) now disapplies it for you. Get the school's answer on what replaces it, referencing the paragraph 52.6 entitlement to a reasonable amount of time during school sessions.
- Ask whether the pay policy contains the 11.2(c) excellence discretion. The additional-point power only exists if the relevant body has written it in.
- Confirm your progression position for next September. Paragraph 11.2(b) assumes progression. Ask for that to be reflected in your pay statement rather than left ambiguous.
What we can't tell you
Four honest gaps.
Which five spine points your school has chosen. The Document fixes the ceiling, the ladder and the obligation to publish, and leaves the selection to the pay policy. There is no national ALNCo scale to look up, and anyone publishing one is inventing it.
Whether the funding covers the cost. £5 million was announced in September 2024 to support the recommendation, and both later statements promise additional funding to local authorities for the then-current financial year and from 2026/27 onwards. Neither the ongoing quantum nor its distribution has been published in a form that lets anyone test it against the actual cost in a given school or authority.
Exactly which "leaders' terms and conditions" apply beyond the ones we have cited. The IWPRB recommended that ALNCos be subject to the same terms and conditions as leaders, and the Written Statements describe conditions changes made "to ensure no detriment to ALNCos" without enumerating them. We have identified the two that are plainly on the face of the Document — the disapplication of specified working hours at 51.4(a) and the time entitlement at 52.6 — and we are not going to guess at others.
How this is actually landing. The reform is months old. We have found no published data on how many Welsh ALNCos have been assimilated, at what points, or whether disputes are arising over the meaning of "consolidated existing salary and allowances". If and when the IWPRB reports on implementation, that will be the place to look.
Sources
- School Teachers' Pay and Conditions (Wales) Document 2025/26 and guidance (revised) — March 2026, GOV.WALES — the statutory source for paragraphs 4.3, 4.4(d), 4.4(e), 5.3, 6.1–6.5, 9.1, 9.2, 9.4, 9.5, 11.1–11.2, 21, 48.1, 51.2, 51.4(a), 51.5 and 52.6, the interpretation of "ALN coordinator", "member of the leadership group" and "leadership group post", and paragraph 11 of the accompanying statutory guidance on assimilation
- School Teachers' Pay and Conditions (Wales) Document 2025: revised February 2026 — GOV.WALES — the revision giving retrospective effect to the pay award backdated to 1 September 2025
- Written Statement: Pay Order related to moving Additional Learning Needs Coordinators to leadership pay and conditions (4 February 2026) — GOV.WALES, Lynne Neagle MS, Cabinet Secretary for Education — the source for the backdating, the two-version structure, the non-retrospective conditions changes and the uneven back-pay timetable
- Written Statement: Consultation related to moving ALNCos to leadership pay and conditions (4 November 2025) — GOV.WALES — the source for the consultation window closing 2 December 2025 and the five-point scale proposal
- Independent Welsh Pay Review Body: Fifth Report 2024 (PDF) — GOV.WALES — recommendations 4 and 5
- Written Statement: Report and recommendations from the IWPRB (10 September 2024) — GOV.WALES — the £5 million funding announcement
- Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 — section 60, under which an ALNCo is designated
- The School Teachers' Pay and Conditions (Wales) Order 2026
Frequently asked questions
Is there an ALNCo pay scale in Wales? +
Yes — and this is the sentence that makes the role different from anything in England. Paragraph 9.5 of the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions (Wales) Document says the relevant body 'must include in their pay policy a 5 point pay scale for ALN coordinators relative to the headteacher school group as determined by the paragraphs 6.1 to 6.5.' That is a mandatory obligation on every maintained school in Wales, written into the statutory pay document, to have an ALNCo scale. Paragraph 4.4(d) puts that scale on the leadership group pay spine. There is no equivalent anywhere in England's STPCD, where the word 'SENCO' does not appear at all.
Are ALNCos really members of the leadership group? +
Yes, definitionally. The interpretation section of the STPC(W)D defines 'member of the leadership group' as 'a headteacher, a deputy headteacher, an assistant headteacher or an ALN coordinator', and defines 'leadership group post' in the same four terms. This is not a policy aspiration or a recommendation in a code of practice — it is the statutory definition, and it means that every provision in the Document that applies to the leadership group applies to ALNCos automatically: the leadership spine at 4.4(e), the pay range rules at paragraph 9, the pay progression rules at paragraph 11, and the leaders' working-time position at 51.4(a).
What are the five points on the ALNCo scale worth? +
The document does not say, and it is important to be straight about that. Paragraph 9.5 mandates a five-point scale and says it must be 'relative to the headteacher school group'; paragraph 9.4 caps it, requiring that the maximum of the ALNCo's pay range must not exceed the maximum of the school's headteacher group and should only overlap the headteacher's own range in exceptional circumstances. Paragraph 4.4(d) requires the points to be drawn from the leadership group pay spine. Between them those three provisions fix the ceiling and the ladder but leave the school to choose the five specific spine points in its own pay policy. So the answer for your school is in your school's pay policy, and the answer nationally is a range rather than a number.
When did this take effect and is it backdated? +
The pay change is backdated to 1 September 2025; the associated conditions changes are not. The Welsh Government consulted from 4 November 2025 with comments due by 2 December 2025, and the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Lynne Neagle, confirmed the pay order in a Written Statement on 4 February 2026. Two versions of the revised document were issued: a February 2026 revision giving retrospective effect to the pay award backdated to 1 September 2025, and a March 2026 revision giving effect to the associated terms and conditions changes, which are expressly not retrospective and became operative from 8 March 2026. Because implementation timetables vary by school, the Welsh Government's own statement notes that back pay will reach different ALNCos in different months.
Does England have anything like this for SENCos? +
No, and the contrast is about as clean as two education systems ever produce. England's SENCo has statutory duties under the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEND Code of Practice, is the only role besides headteacher that a mainstream school is legally required to designate, and requires a mandatory national qualification for new appointees — and has no pay scale, no allowance of its own, and no minimum time entitlement. A SENCo is paid on the ordinary Main or Upper Pay Range plus a wholly discretionary TLR, or on the leadership range if the school chooses to make it a leadership post. Our SENCo pay guide sets that out in full. Wales looked at the same role and reached the opposite conclusion: statutory duties should carry statutory pay.
Does moving to the leadership spine change my working conditions as well as my pay? +
Yes, and this is the part that gets least attention. Paragraph 51.4(a) lists the people to whom the specified working hours provisions do not apply — the 195 days and the 1,265 hours of directed time — and ALN coordinators are now on that list, alongside headteachers, deputy headteachers, assistant headteachers and leading practitioners. So an ALNCo on the leadership spine loses the directed-time ceiling that protects classroom teachers. In exchange, paragraph 52.6 gives a teacher with leadership or management responsibilities and ALN Coordinators an entitlement, so far as is reasonably practicable, to a reasonable amount of time during school sessions to discharge those responsibilities, cross-referring to paragraph 8.5 of the ALN Code. Whether that is a good trade depends heavily on how your school runs, and it is the single most important thing to discuss before you accept an assimilated position.
Is the ALN allowance the same as being on the ALNCo scale? +
No — they are separate provisions serving different people, and conflating them is the commonest mistake in this area. The ALN allowance under paragraph 21 is an allowance of no less than £2,838 and no more than £5,595 (2025 figures) awarded to a classroom teacher in specified additional-needs posts. The ALNCo scale under paragraphs 4.4(d), 9.4 and 9.5 is a leadership group salary for the designated additional learning needs coordinator. An ALNCo who is properly on the leadership spine is a member of the leadership group, not a classroom teacher, so the classroom-teacher allowance is not the mechanism paying them. Wales's ALN allowance is the direct counterpart of England's SEN allowance; Wales's ALNCo scale has no English counterpart at all.
Was there new money attached, or are schools expected to absorb it? +
New money, though the published figures are less precise than you would want. The Welsh Government announced £5 million of funding alongside its response to the IWPRB's fifth report to support the recommendation on moving ALNCos to the leadership pay range, and both the November 2025 consultation statement and the February 2026 pay order statement say that additional funding from Welsh Government will be made available to local authorities for that financial year and from 2026/27 onwards. Neither statement breaks the ongoing figure down per local authority or per ALNCo, so we cannot tell you whether the funding fully covers the cost in a given school. That is a genuine gap in the public record rather than an omission on our part.
I'm an ALNCo in a small primary. Does this apply to me? +
The obligation on your school does, yes — paragraph 9.5 admits of no exception for school size, so every maintained school in Wales must have a five-point ALNCo scale in its pay policy. What changes with size is the money, because the scale must be set relative to the school's headteacher group, and a small primary is likely to be in group 1 or 2. Those groups have the lowest maxima on the spine (£79,288 and £85,329 in 2025), so the ceiling is lower than in a large secondary. But the floor matters more than the ceiling here: the lowest point on the whole leadership spine, L1, was £52,680 in 2025, which is already above the top of the Welsh upper pay scale. For an ALNCo previously paid at U3 with an allowance, the assimilation rules in the guidance are what determine the actual outcome.
Related guides
SENCo Pay Explained (England)
The direct contrast: no SENCo pay scale, no SENCo allowance, no minimum time — and why the STPCD never mentions the role.
The Welsh Leadership Pay Spine (L1–L43)
The full spine an ALNCo is now paid from, the eight group ranges, and the progression assumption in paragraph 11.2(b).
Wales Teacher Pay Scales 2026/27
The classroom scales and the ALN allowance that an assimilating ALNCo is comparing against.
NPQH Is Mandatory in Wales
Another Welsh statutory requirement with no English equivalent — and the route from a leadership post to headship.
Welsh Teacher Induction and the NQT Year
Where a Welsh teaching career starts, and why Wales still says NQT when England says ECT.
Assistant and Deputy Headteacher Pay (England)
How England pays the leadership colleagues a Welsh ALNCo now sits alongside in statute.
Special School Teacher Pay Explained
The English SEN allowance criteria in detail — the provision Wales calls the ALN allowance.
Backdated Teacher Pay and Arrears Tax
What to check when a lump sum backdated to September 2025 lands in a single month's payslip.