Suspended From Teaching: Are You Still Paid?

If you have just been suspended, this is probably the first practical question after the shock wears off, and it is one of the worst-served questions on the UK internet. Search it and you will find forum threads, anxious replies from strangers, and a great deal of "I think it's normally full pay". It is not a matter of opinion or of employer generosity. For teachers in maintained schools in England it is written into secondary legislation in a single, unambiguous sentence, and this guide starts there.

This page deals specifically with pay. If you want the broader picture of what a suspension involves — the first 48 hours, realistic timescales, how it ends, how to look after yourself through it — read our companion guide on being suspended from school and what happens next, which covers the process. What follows here is the money, the legal authority behind it, and the specific situations where the simple answer stops being simple.

The legal answer, and where it comes from

The School Staffing (England) Regulations 2009 (SI 2009/2680) govern the staffing procedures that governing bodies of maintained schools must follow. Two regulations deal with suspension, and both end with the same definitional subsection.

Regulation 19, sitting in Part 2 of the Regulations, reads in full:

(1) Subject to regulation 21, the governing body or the head teacher may suspend any person employed or engaged otherwise than under a contract of employment to work at the school where, in the opinion of the governing body or (as the case may be) the head teacher, such suspension is required.

(2) The governing body or (as the case may be) the head teacher must immediately inform the authority and the head teacher or (as the case may be) the governing body when a person is suspended under paragraph (1).

(3) Only the governing body may end a suspension under paragraph (1).

(4) On ending such a suspension, the governing body must immediately inform the authority and the head teacher.

(5) In this regulation "suspend" means suspend without loss of emoluments.

Regulation 31, in Part 3, is drafted almost identically. Its paragraph (1) empowers the governing body or head teacher to suspend; paragraph (3) again provides that only the governing body may end a suspension; and paragraph (5) again provides that "In this regulation 'suspend' means suspend without loss of emoluments." The only substantive difference is in the notification duties, covered below.

The drafting technique matters here, and it is worth pausing on. The Regulations do not say that a suspended teacher should be paid, or that they are entitled to pay, or that pay may be withheld in certain circumstances. They define the word. In these regulations, suspension is suspension on full pay. A governing body or headteacher purporting to suspend a teacher without pay is not exercising the regulation 19 power imperfectly; they are doing something the power does not extend to.

That is why this is a better answer than "it is normal practice" or "your policy probably says so". It does not depend on the school's policy being well drafted, or on HR being well advised, or on anyone's goodwill. In a maintained school, the power being used to suspend you is a power to suspend on full pay, and no other power to suspend is conferred.

What "emoluments" covers

"Emoluments" is archaic, which is presumably why the drafters of the 2009 Regulations chose it over the narrower modern alternatives. It denotes the profit or remuneration arising from an office or employment — the whole financial package attaching to the post, not the basic salary line on its own.

Applied to a teaching post, that ordinarily means:

• Your full salary at your normal pay point on the main or upper pay range, or your leadership pay range point, paid on the usual date through the usual payroll.
• Any TLR payment attaching to your post, which under the STPCD is part of the remuneration of the post rather than a bonus for work done.
• Any SEN allowance you receive.
• Any recruitment and retention payment that forms a contractual part of your remuneration.
• Contractual non-pay benefits that attach to employment rather than to attendance — continued pension membership being the most significant.

The test to apply to any individual payment is whether it forms part of the remuneration of the post, or whether it is consideration for particular work actually performed. A TLR is paid because you hold a post carrying a defined additional responsibility; it does not become payable session by session. An hourly rate for invigilating a summer exam series, by contrast, is paid for invigilating. The first is an emolument of the post. The second is discussed under extra earnings below, where the position is genuinely less comfortable.

Which schools each regulation applies to

The 2009 Regulations are organised by school category, and the Part headings are explicit about scope. This matters because it also tells you, by omission, which schools are not covered.

Between them those two Parts cover the whole of the maintained sector in England. Pupil referral units are brought within the regulation 19 regime separately: a note to the Regulations records that regulations 12 to 22 are applied, with modifications, to PRUs by the Education (Pupil Referral Units) (Application of Enactments) (England) Regulations, as amended in 2012.

What is absent from both lists is academies, free schools and alternative provision academies. They are not a category of maintained school; in law they are independent schools operating under a funding agreement, with the academy trust as employer. That is the reason for the separate treatment below.

Regulation 19 also opens with the words "Subject to regulation 21". Regulation 21 deals with school meals staff, for whom the local authority is responsible for appointment, discipline, suspension and dismissal. It has no bearing on teaching staff.

Who can suspend you, and who can end it

The allocation of powers in regulations 19 and 31 is asymmetric in a way that catches people out, and it has real practical consequences.

Either the governing body or the headteacher may suspend

Both regulations give the power to the governing body or the head teacher, acting on their own opinion that suspension is required. In the overwhelming majority of real cases it is the headteacher who suspends, often at very short notice, because they are the person present when the situation arises. Where the allegation concerns the headteacher, Keeping Children Safe in Education provides that the case manager is instead the chair of governors or chair of the management committee, and in an independent school the proprietor.

Only the governing body may end it

Paragraph (3) of each regulation is short and absolute: "Only the governing body may end a suspension." A headteacher who suspended you cannot simply decide a week later to lift it. The decision to reinstate belongs to the governing body, whatever the headteacher's view.

This is genuinely useful to know. If you are being told informally that "we are just waiting for the head to make a decision" about lifting a suspension in a maintained school, that is not where the decision sits. It also means that representations about ending a suspension — and there is nothing to stop you or your union making them — are properly directed to the governing body, not only to the headteacher.

Notification duties differ between the two Parts

Here the two regulations part company, and the difference is often glossed over. Under regulation 19(2), whoever suspends must immediately inform the authority as well as the other of the head teacher or governing body, and under 19(4) the authority must be informed immediately when the suspension ends. Those duties reflect the local authority's position as employer in Part 2 schools.

Under regulation 31(2) and 31(4), the governing body and head teacher must inform each other, but there is no corresponding duty to notify the local authority. In foundation, voluntary aided and foundation special schools the governing body is the employer, so there is no authority to notify in that capacity. It is a small point, but if you read elsewhere that the local authority must always be told immediately when a teacher is suspended, that is accurate for Part 2 schools and not for Part 3 schools.

None of this affects safeguarding reporting, which runs on a separate track. Where an allegation may meet the harm threshold, it goes to the local authority designated officer under Keeping Children Safe in Education regardless of the school's category.

Suspension is not a disciplinary sanction

The full-pay rule is not an accident of drafting. It follows from what suspension is for.

Acas guidance on suspension during a work investigation is direct: suspension does not mean an employee has done anything wrong, and should not be used to discipline someone. It is a precautionary step, available where a situation is serious and there is no alternative — for example where there is a genuine need to protect evidence, witnesses, other staff, the organisation, or the person being investigated. Acas also advises employers that it is usually best to avoid suspension if possible, and to check first whether a temporary change to duties, working location, shift pattern or system access would achieve the same protection.

On pay specifically, Acas is equally clear: employees should continue to receive their pay and their contractual benefits while suspended, and an employer who reduces or stops pay during suspension risks legal action — a risk Acas says exists even where the contract appears to allow reduced or no pay. That warning is aimed at employers outside the maintained sector, where no equivalent of regulation 19(5) applies, and it is the single most useful thing to quote to an academy employer that is querying the point.

Acas further advises that a suspension should be kept as short as possible and kept under review, that the decision can be reconsidered if circumstances change, and that employers should plan for the wellbeing of the person suspended, since being suspended is stressful.

Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026: the wording actually changed

Most teacher suspensions arise from safeguarding allegations, which brings Part four of Keeping Children Safe in Education into play. KCSIE is statutory guidance which governing bodies of maintained schools and colleges, and proprietors of independent schools — including academies, free schools and alternative provision academies, where the proprietor is the academy trust — must read and follow. Its Part four covers safeguarding concerns and allegations about staff, including supply teachers, trainee teachers, volunteers and contractors.

A great deal of published commentary quotes KCSIE as saying that suspension "should not be the default position" and should be used only where "there is no reasonable alternative". Those were the words of earlier editions. The September 2026 edition rewords the provision, and paragraph 462 now reads:

Suspension should not be an automatic response when an allegation is reported. All options to avoid suspension should be considered prior to taking that step. The case manager must consider carefully whether the circumstances warrant suspension from contact with children at the school or college, until the allegation is resolved. It should be considered only in cases where there is cause to suspect a child or other children at the school or college is/are at risk of harm, or the case is so serious that there might be grounds for dismissal.

The substance is unchanged and arguably strengthened — "all options to avoid suspension should be considered" is a firmer instruction than a statement about default positions — but if you are quoting KCSIE in a representation to your employer, quote the current wording and the current paragraph number rather than the version still circulating in older guidance.

Paragraph 465 then lists the alternatives a case manager should consider before suspending, based on advice from the school or college's HR provider or a risk analysis drawn up with the LADO:

• Redeployment within the school or college so the individual does not have direct contact with the child or children concerned.
• Providing an assistant to be present when the individual has contact with children.
• Redeploying to alternative work so the individual does not have unsupervised access to children.
• Moving the child or children to classes where they will not come into contact with the member of staff — only where it is in the best interests of the child, taking account of their views, made clear that it is not a punishment, and with parents consulted.
• Temporarily redeploying the member of staff to another role in a different location, such as an alternative school or college, or work for the local authority or academy trust.

Three further paragraphs are worth knowing about. Paragraph 466 requires the case manager to consider the potential permanent professional reputational damage to employees that can result from suspension where an allegation is later found to be unfounded, unsubstantiated, malicious or false. Paragraph 467 provides that where immediate suspension is considered necessary, the case manager should record the rationale and justification, including what alternatives were considered and why they were rejected. And paragraph 468 requires written confirmation of suspension within one working day, giving as much detail as appropriate about the reasons, and states plainly that "It is not acceptable for an employer to leave a person who has been suspended without any support" — the person must be told at the point of suspension who their named contact is, and given their contact details.

Paragraph 469 confirms where the power sits: local authority children's social care or the police may give their views to the LADO, but they cannot require the case manager to suspend. "The power to suspend is vested in the governing body or proprietor who are the employers." Police involvement does not make suspension mandatory; that decision is taken case by case following a risk assessment.

Academies: contractual, not statutory — and why it still works out

This is the section to read properly if you are employed by an academy trust, because the honest answer has two halves that point in different directions.

The first half: regulations 19 and 31 do not apply to you directly. The School Staffing (England) Regulations 2009 are structured entirely around maintained school categories, and academies are not among them. An academy is, in law, an independent school with a funding agreement, and the academy trust is the employer. The Department for Education's own staffing and employment guidance describes the 2009 Regulations as setting out the procedures that governing bodies in maintained schools must establish for the regulation of the conduct and discipline of staff. You cannot point an academy trust at regulation 19(5) and say it binds them, because it does not.

The second half: you are very unlikely to be worse off, and you have several other things to point at.

• Your contract of employment and the trust's disciplinary policy. This is the operative source. The overwhelming majority of academy trust disciplinary procedures provide expressly for suspension on full pay, frequently because they were inherited at conversion from a maintained-school predecessor policy, or drafted from the same model policies.
• TUPE, if you transferred at conversion. Terms and conditions in force immediately before the transfer carried across to the trust. If your pre-conversion contract incorporated a full-pay suspension term, it transferred with you.
• KCSIE 2026 paragraph 463. Academy trusts are proprietors and must read and follow KCSIE. The expectation of clear written policies on pay arrangements during suspension applies to them squarely.
• Acas guidance. Employees should continue to receive pay and contractual benefits while suspended, and Acas warns that reducing pay risks legal action even where the contract appears to permit it.
• The general law on unauthorised deductions. Stopping or reducing contractual pay without a clear contractual right is a deduction from wages, quite apart from any question of school-specific regulation.

So the practical answer for academy teachers is: full pay during precautionary suspension is near-universal practice and you should expect it — but confirm it from your own contract and the trust's written policy rather than from any general statement about teachers, including this one. Ask HR for the disciplinary procedure and the staff handbook section on suspension, in writing, early.

The same logic applies, with a different starting point, if you work in an independent school outside the state sector: the 2009 Regulations do not apply, KCSIE does (as a proprietor-facing statutory guidance document), and your contract governs pay.

TLRs, allowances and pay progression

Beyond basic salary, three questions come up repeatedly.

TLR and SEN allowances

These should continue. Both are, under the STPCD, payments attaching to a post rather than fees for discrete pieces of work, which places them within "emoluments" for regulation 19(5) and 31(5) purposes and within "contractual benefits" for Acas purposes. A school that stops a TLR during suspension has, in substance, imposed a pay cut before any finding.

Pay progression and appraisal

This is the live risk, and it is a procedural risk rather than a legal one. Pay progression under the STPCD is linked to appraisal. A teacher suspended from, say, February to November may have no completed appraisal for the cycle, and a school that simply does nothing can leave them un-progressed by default rather than by decision.

The answer is to raise it in writing at the point the appraisal cycle would ordinarily conclude, asking explicitly how the pay decision will be handled given the suspension, and keeping the reply. If a progression decision is ultimately refused for reasons connected to the suspension, that is a pay decision and it is capable of being challenged — see our guide to teacher pay appeals for the grounds and the process.

Pay awards and increments during suspension

A cost-of-living uplift to the STPCD pay ranges applies to your pay point regardless of whether you are at work, because it changes the value of the point rather than moving you along the range. You should see the annual award in the usual month.

Your pension while suspended

Because you remain employed and in receipt of your full pensionable pay, you remain in pensionable employment. Employee and employer contributions continue to be deducted and paid as normal, and your Teachers' Pension Scheme record continues to accrue without a gap. Suspension is not a break in continuity of service.

This is a useful reassurance, and it is also a reason to treat any reduction in pay as urgent rather than merely annoying. A reduction in pensionable pay flows through to the amount accrued in a career average scheme for that period, and a period of unpaid suspension would raise questions about whether the service remained pensionable at all. The cleanest protection is to ensure the pay never changes in the first place.

The earnings you will actually lose

Honesty is more useful than reassurance here. "Without loss of emoluments" protects the remuneration of your post. It does not protect income that depends on doing additional work you are now unable to do. Teachers whose household budget relies on those extras can find a suspension financially painful even on full contractual pay.

The categories that commonly disappear:

• Paid cover or additional teaching sessions beyond your timetable, where these are paid per session rather than forming part of your contracted remuneration.
• Exam invigilation and similar hourly-rate work at the school.
• Paid extracurricular work — holiday revision schools, intervention sessions, paid club supervision.
• Exam marking and examining work, where an awarding body contract may be affected by your employment status or by a safeguarding referral, depending on the body's own terms.
• Private tutoring, which raises separate and more serious questions during a safeguarding suspension — see below.

On private tutoring and other outside work, take advice before doing anything rather than afterwards. You remain employed, so contractual restrictions on other paid work continue to apply, and a suspension may be accompanied by a direction restricting contact with pupils or with the school community. Continuing to tutor children while suspended pending a safeguarding investigation can turn a survivable situation into a much worse one, regardless of how the original allegation is ultimately resolved. Speak to your union representative first, and get any agreed position confirmed in writing by your employer.

When pay genuinely can be affected

Full pay during precautionary suspension is the rule. There are a small number of situations where pay legitimately changes, and it is worth being able to tell them apart from an employer simply getting it wrong.

You become ill during the suspension

If you are signed off sick while suspended, your position moves onto the sick pay scheme, with its own sliding scale and its own half-pay stage. This is a real and common consequence, given the stress involved. It is not a penalty and it is not related to the suspension, but the financial effect is identical to a pay cut if it goes on long enough. Our guide to teacher sick pay sets out the scale and, importantly, the dates you should ask payroll to confirm.

The suspension ends and something else begins

Suspension ends when the governing body ends it. What follows might be a return to work, a disciplinary hearing, a dismissal, or a negotiated exit. Pay after that point is governed by whatever that outcome is, not by the suspension rules. If a dismissal follows, notice pay under Section 3, paragraph 4 of the Burgundy Book (for teachers on those conditions) or your contract governs the final period; if a settlement agreement is proposed, the figures in it are a matter for negotiation and independent legal advice.

You are not an employee

Agency and daily-rate supply teachers are in a materially different position, covered below.

Medical suspension is a different thing entirely

Not every suspension is disciplinary. Section 3, paragraph 5.1 of the Burgundy Book notes that the Education (Health Standards) (England) Regulations 2003 — and for Wales the equivalent 2004 Regulations — deal with the health standards of teachers and the powers under which, in certain circumstances, a teacher may have their employment suspended or terminated on medical grounds. Regulation 6 of the 2003 Regulations provides that a local authority or governing body must not appoint or continue to employ a person in a relevant activity unless they have the health and physical capacity for it.

Suspension under that route is a health measure, should be taken on the advice of an appropriately qualified medical adviser, and sits alongside a dismissal procedure (regulation 7) under which the teacher must be given the opportunity to submit medical and other evidence and make representations, which the employer must consider. The 2023 Burgundy Book adds a footnote recording that these regulations must be applied in the context of Part 5 of the Equality Act 2010, which is where the duty to make reasonable adjustments for a disabled employee sits.

If you have been told you are "suspended on medical grounds", establish in writing which process you are actually in, because the pay consequences and the procedural protections are different from a precautionary disciplinary suspension.

Interim prohibition orders

A small number of cases involve the Teaching Regulation Agency imposing an interim prohibition order while it investigates. KCSIE 2026 paragraph 463 provides that where a school or sixth form college is made aware that the Secretary of State has made an interim prohibition order in respect of an individual who works there, it should take immediate action to ensure the individual does not carry out work in contravention of the order — meaning that, pending the TRA investigation's findings, the individual must not carry out teaching work.

This is a materially different situation from an internal precautionary suspension, because the restriction is imposed externally by the Secretary of State rather than by the employer, and the employer has no discretion to disapply it. It is precisely in this context that paragraph 463 tells schools and colleges to have clear policies on pay arrangements. If you are subject to an interim prohibition order, the pay position is governed by that policy and your contract rather than by regulation 19(5), and you should take union or legal advice promptly. Our guide to TRA prohibition orders covers the process.

Supply and agency teachers

A daily-rate supply teacher placed through an agency is usually employed or engaged by the agency, not by the school, and is often on a contract with no guaranteed hours. In practice a school that has a safeguarding concern about a supply teacher will end the placement rather than suspend them, and the regulation 19 machinery does not produce a right to continued pay from the school. Regulation 18 (Part 2) and regulation 30 (Part 3) deal with the checks a governing body must ensure an employment business has completed before a supplied person begins work, which gives a sense of how the Regulations conceive of the relationship.

KCSIE Part four does cover supply teachers expressly — it is titled as covering safeguarding concerns or allegations about staff "including supply teachers, trainee teachers, volunteers and contractors" — so the procedural protections around investigation, alternatives to suspension, and the LADO process apply. The pay protection does not follow in the same way. If you are a supply teacher facing an allegation, your agency contract and your union are the first two places to look, and you should engage both immediately.

If your pay does change: what to do

Sources

Primary sources: The School Staffing (England) Regulations 2009, regulation 19; regulation 31; full contents of SI 2009/2680; Keeping children safe in education 2026, statutory guidance for schools and colleges (September 2026) — Part four, paragraphs 434 to 503; Suspension during a work investigation — Acas; Pay and holiday during suspension — Acas; Staffing and employment guidance for schools — DfE, September 2025; Conditions of Service for School Teachers in England and Wales (Burgundy Book), June 2023; The Education (Health Standards) (England) Regulations 2003.

Where this guide is uncertain: the 2009 Regulations define suspension as being without loss of emoluments but do not define "emoluments" itself, and we have not found a reported education case testing whether a specific allowance such as a TLR falls inside or outside it. The reading given above — that emoluments covers the whole remuneration of the post rather than basic pay alone — reflects the ordinary meaning of the word and standard practice, but it is an interpretation rather than a decided point. The academy position is stated as contractual because it is; we make no claim that any particular trust's policy provides full pay, only that the great majority do. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland operate under separate staffing frameworks and this page addresses England only.