Greenshaw Learning Trust Teacher Pay

Most pages in this section exist because a trust does something unusual with pay — an above-scale premium, a proposed pension change, a documented dispute. Greenshaw Learning Trust is a useful entry for a different reason: its pay position is genuinely ordinary, but almost everything else about it is not. It is a trust that started as a single Sutton comprehensive, grew into a 39-school network stretching from south London to Devon, and got there almost entirely by absorbing other trusts and taking on schools that needed a new sponsor — a growth pattern that explains both its unusual geography and the genuine uncertainty in how many schools it currently runs.

This page is built from GLT's own website (checked live on 30 September 2026), NASUWT's published advice for members at the trust, the Department for Education's Get Information About Schools register and Financial Benchmarking and Insights Tool, live vacancy adverts on Teaching Vacancies and eteach, and reporting on the academy transfers that brought individual schools into the trust. Where a figure is dated, disputed or could not be verified, that is stated rather than smoothed over.

What Greenshaw Learning Trust actually is

Greenshaw Learning Trust traces back to a single school: Greenshaw High School, a comprehensive in Sutton that opened in 1968, converted to academy status on 1 June 2011, and was reconstituted as a multi-academy trust in October 2014 under the Greenshaw Learning Trust name. The trust is led by Chief Executive Will Smith OBE, and its central office — branded "Shared Services" — sits at ORU Sutton, Throwley Way, Sutton.

Geographically, GLT is unusually dispersed for a trust of its size. Its own website states that its schools are based in South London, Surrey, Berkshire, Gloucestershire, South Gloucestershire, Bristol and Plymouth — a spread of roughly 200 miles between its furthest points, with no schools at all in the wide stretch of England between the M4 corridor and Devon. That is not the pattern of a trust deliberately expanding outward from its base; it is the pattern of a trust that has taken on clusters of schools where the Department for Education, or another trust's own trustees, judged GLT a good match. The section below on why a Sutton trust runs schools in Plymouth sets out exactly how that happened.

On inspection outcomes, the trust's flagship school is a strong data point even where a full trust-wide picture is hard to establish: Greenshaw High School was rated Outstanding across Quality of Education, Behaviour and Attitudes, Leadership and Management, and Sixth Form in a November 2024 Ofsted inspection, with Personal Development rated Good. A frequently repeated figure of 85 per cent of GLT schools rated Good or Outstanding is attached to the stale 33-school count discussed below, so we have not repeated it here as a current trust-wide statistic — see the "what we could not verify" section for why.

How many schools does GLT actually run?

This is worth a dedicated section because the public sources genuinely disagree, and picking a number without explaining the disagreement would be dishonest. Four different figures turned up during research for this page, each real, each dated, and each explaining something about how quickly this trust is growing.

• 33 schools (18 primary, 15 secondary, around 21,600 pupils) is the figure repeated across several third-party school directories. It is now stale: cross-checked against the trust's own current list, it is missing at least six academies that have since joined, including Sir John Hunt Community Sports College, Whitleigh Community Primary School, Oakbank School, Fernhill School, Barnwood Park School and Hartland High School.
• 37 schools is what the Department for Education's Financial Benchmarking and Insights Tool lists, drawn from GLT's FY2024/25 academies accounts return. This is a genuine, official DfE figure — but it is a snapshot tied to a specific accounting year, and cross-checking its named list against the trust's current website shows it still includes Moat Primary Academy, which no longer appears there, while missing four schools that joined during or after 2025.
• 38 schools appeared on a separate DfE benchmarking page listing "schools currently in this trust" at the point this page was researched — a live-ish count that sits between the accounts-year snapshot and the trust's own current total.
• 39 schools is the count from a direct, first-hand check of GLT's own "Our Schools" page on 30 September 2026: Bandon Hill Primary, Barnwood Park, Blaise High, Brakenhale, Broadwater, Coombe Wood, Crown Wood Primary, Fernhill, Five Acres High, Gloucester Academy, Grange Primary Academy, Green Wrythe Primary, Greenshaw High, Hartland High, Henley Bank High, Hillside Primary, Holmleigh Park High, Hunts Grove Primary Academy, Montpelier Primary, Oakbank, Orchard Park High, Park Hill Junior, Park House, Sandy Lane Primary, Scott Medical and Healthcare College, St Peter's Primary, Sir John Hunt Community Sports College, Stoke Damerel Community College, Tweeddale Primary, Tyndale Primary, Victor Seymour Infants', Wallington County Grammar, Waterwells Primary Academy, Whitleigh Community Primary, Widden Primary, Wildmoor Heath, Wooden Hill Primary, Wood Field Primary, Woodlands Primary and Yate Academy.

This page uses 39, because it is the only figure drawn directly from the trust's own current, primary-source page rather than from a third-party aggregator or a dated accounts snapshot. It is also the figure most consistent with the trust's recent joining announcements: John Madejski Academy in Reading transferred from the White Horse Federation in January 2025 (and was renamed Hartland High School that September — see the section below), Wooden Hill Primary and Nursery School joined on 1 April 2025, and Sir John Hunt Community Sports College and Whitleigh Community Primary School both joined around June 2025. None of that activity had reached the stale 33-school aggregators, and only some of it had reached the DfE's 37/38-school benchmarking snapshots by the time this page was researched.

Total pupil numbers are harder still to state with confidence. The 21,603 figure attached to the stale 33-school count is clearly now understated. A GLT news item from 2023 — published when the trust was mid-way through taking on the Gloucestershire schools discussed below — put the trust at "over 23,500 students" and around 3,700 staff, but that too predates several of the 2025 joiners named above. No current, trust-published aggregate pupil total for the 39-school network was found during this research, and we have deliberately not extrapolated one, because doing so would mean presenting a guess as a fact. If you need a current figure, GLT's own annual report — expected to be filed with Companies House for the year to 31 August 2026 — is the source to check.

The headline: STPCD and the Burgundy Book, not a bespoke scale

The clearest statement of GLT's pay position does not come from the trust's own careers page — it comes from NASUWT. The union's published advice for members employed at this trust states, in full: "GLT currently employs teachers according to the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document and Burgundy Book in all their academies."

That single sentence does two things at once. First, it confirms GLT applies the national School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) — the Main Pay Range, Upper Pay Range, TLRs and leadership spine — rather than a GLT-specific structure. Second, it names the Burgundy Book, the separate national agreement (formally the "Conditions of Service for School Teachers in England and Wales") that governs non-pay conditions such as sick pay entitlement, maternity and parental leave, and redundancy terms. Many academy trusts quietly drop Burgundy Book terms once they convert, replacing them with less generous trust-specific policies; GLT stating that it retains them is a genuinely useful, checkable fact rather than a vague benefits-page claim.

Live vacancy adverts corroborate the STPCD point directly. Class teacher posts at Bandon Hill Primary School and Gloucester Academy are both advertised on "M1 – M6, Upper Pay Scale Range, points UPS1 – UPS 3", and a Director of Mathematics post has been advertised on "Lead Practitioner Scale Points 5 – 9" — all standard STPCD terminology, not a distinct GLT band name.

The practical implication for anyone comparing a GLT offer against a maintained school on the same STPCD point, in the same region, is that the salary should be identical. Where GLT's structure gets more interesting is in the machinery that sits alongside that scale — specifically, the JCNC.

The JCNC: a real negotiating body

The same NASUWT advice page describes a standing structure most trust profiles on this site cannot point to at all: "The NASUWT, along with the other workforce unions, has negotiated a trade union recognition agreement with GLT for consultation and collective bargaining purposes," providing "the necessary structures for the NASUWT to meet with GLT at a national level and on a regular basis in the GLT Joint Consultative and Negotiation Committee (JCNC)." The union's own description of the JCNC's remit is direct: "The JCNC is where the trade unions meet with GLT to negotiate on pay, conditions of service issues, and policies and procedures for teachers and other GLT staff."

This matters for a reason that has nothing to do with the pay scale itself. STPCD already fixes what a teacher at a given point earns; no negotiating committee changes that. What a body like the JCNC actually governs is everything the national pay document does not cover: how a merger or transfer is handled for the staff involved, how a new trust-wide policy is consulted on before it lands on a school's desk, and how disputes over conditions of service get raised above individual school level. A trust integrating schools as often as GLT does — see the next section — genuinely needs exactly this kind of standing mechanism, because staff at newly-transferred schools are, by definition, adjusting to a new employer's policies and procedures on a regular basis.

Why a Sutton trust runs schools in Plymouth

GLT's geography only makes sense once you understand how each cluster actually joined, because none of it was planned as regional expansion in the way a supermarket chain plans new stores. Three separate, documented episodes account for almost all of the distance between Sutton and Devon.

The pattern across all three episodes is consistent: GLT has grown almost entirely by taking on schools that already existed inside another trust or federation that was dissolving, restructuring, or voluntarily seeking a larger partner — not by opening new schools near its own base. That is a common and entirely legitimate route to growth in the academy sector, and it is the Department for Education's own preferred mechanism for handling a trust or federation that can no longer sustain itself. But it does produce exactly the kind of scattered, multi-hub geography GLT now has, which the trust manages through three separate operational hubs — centred on Sutton, Gloucester and Plymouth — rather than a single regional structure. Job adverts for trust-wide roles make this explicit: a Senior School Improvement Lead post advertised across the network in 2026 described "regional hubs in Sutton, Gloucester, or Plymouth" as its possible base locations.

What live job adverts actually pay

The most reliable evidence of current GLT pay is a live vacancy, because it has to state a real structure for a real post. A sample of adverts checked for this page shows the pattern described throughout: recognisable STPCD terminology, not a distinct GLT band.

Support staff posts sit on a different, clearly labelled scale rather than STPCD — see the next section — and several were advertised with precise NJC figures: a Site Manager post at Crown Wood Primary School on NJC points 21–25 (FTE £33,872–£37,092), a Site Assistant post on NJC points 6–10 (£26,718–£28,423), and a Multisite HR Administrator post on NJC 5–9 (actual salary £22,600–£24,076 pro-rated).

For orientation, this site's illustrative 2026/27 national figures put M1 at £34,069 and M6 at £46,940, with the Upper Pay Range running from £49,134 at U1 to £52,835 at U3, and the Leadership Group range running from £53,586 to £148,829. Several of the GLT adverts above were drafted against an earlier pay year and describe a range rather than stating a cash figure at all — which is exactly why you should always check the scale in force for the year your post actually starts, rather than relying on any figure printed here or on an advert that may be several months old.

Support staff are on NJC scales, not GLT ones

Teachers at GLT sit on the national STPCD scale, but support staff — site teams, teaching assistants, administrators — are paid with reference to the National Joint Council (NJC) for Local Government Services pay spine, the same points-based scale used across most council-run schools. This is the ordinary position for the sector rather than anything distinctive to GLT, but it is worth being precise about because "GLT pay scale" and "NJC pay scale" are genuinely different things, and a support-staff post is where most of a school's non-teaching workforce sits.

• Site Manager, Crown Wood Primary School — NJC points 21–25, FTE £33,872–£37,092 (advertised as a part-time, 24-hours-a-week post).
• Site Assistant, Crown Wood Primary School — NJC points 6–10, £26,718–£28,423 full-time equivalent.
• Multisite HR Administrator, Hartland High School — NJC 5–9, actual salary £22,600–£24,076 pro-rated.
• Deputy Site Manager, Stoke Damerel Community College — NJC Grade D/E, points 12–20, £28,598–£32,597.

Because the NJC pay spine is nationally negotiated, the annual uplift that applies to council employees generally flows through to schools that follow it, including academies. That is a point of reassurance for support staff weighing up a GLT post against a maintained-school equivalent: the reference scale itself is not a GLT invention, even though the specific point offered for a given post is a local decision.

Pension and the rest of the package

GLT's own recruitment material lists employer pension contributions as a standard benefit, consistently described across recruitment packs as contributions to the Teachers' Pension Scheme for teaching staff or the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) for support staff — the ordinary academy-sector split, and consistent with a trust that has stated it applies national terms rather than departing from them. We found no evidence — no news reporting, no union alert, no trust announcement — of any proposed alternative pension arrangement at GLT. Confirm it in writing at offer stage regardless, as you should with any employer.

Beyond pay and pension, benefits listed consistently across GLT school recruitment packs include:

• Cycle to Work scheme and a green car benefit scheme, reducing the upfront cost of commuting equipment or an electric vehicle.
• A gym membership scheme and My Health discounts, alongside free eye care vouchers.
• An Employee Assistance Programme, offering confidential support and counselling access.
• A childcare voucher scheme and Blue Light Card retail and travel discounts.
• Teacher Art Pass eligibility, appearing on at least one GLT school's advert as a specific, named perk rather than a vague "staff discounts" line.

None of this is unusual for a large trust, but it is a genuine, itemised list rather than a single vague claim about being "a great place to work," and each item is specific enough to ask about directly at interview.

The Hartland High School renaming

One school's recent history is worth its own section, because it is the clearest single example of what it actually feels like, on the ground, to be absorbed into GLT — and because it happened recently enough to be well documented in local reporting.

The Reading secondary school now called Hartland High School has changed name three times in its history: it opened as Ashmead School, was rebuilt and reopened as Thamesbridge College in 2006, and was renamed John Madejski Academy after Tony Blair formally opened it in December 2007, following a £3 million donation from Sir John Madejski, the former Reading Football Club owner, who at the time called funding the school "his proudest achievement." The academy transferred from the White Horse Federation to Greenshaw Learning Trust in January 2025, and GLT renamed it Hartland High School from September 2025, describing the change as marking "a significant and symbolic step forward in the journey of ongoing school improvement."

The renaming was not uncontroversial locally. A petition against it gathered 486 signatures, and Sir John Madejski himself publicly criticised the decision, saying the money involved "could have been spent better" investing in more teachers rather than changing the school's name.

What we could not verify

Being explicit about the gaps in the public record matters as much here as the facts that are well evidenced, particularly for a trust changing shape as quickly as this one.

• Well evidenced: that GLT applies STPCD and the Burgundy Book rather than a bespoke scale, from NASUWT's own published advice for members and corroborated by live vacancy adverts using standard STPCD terminology.
• Well evidenced: the existence of a trust-level JCNC negotiating body, from the same NASUWT source (though see the caveat about that page's current availability, above).
• Well evidenced: the trust's history, its transfer episodes into Plymouth, Gloucestershire and Reading, and the Hartland High School renaming, each corroborated by GLT's own news items, local reporting, or Wikipedia's sourced account of the school's history.
• Well evidenced: that support staff sit on NJC pay scales, directly visible in multiple live GLT vacancy adverts with named point numbers and cash figures.

• Not settled: the exact current school count. This page uses 39, from a direct check of the trust's own website on 30 September 2026, in preference to a stale third-party figure of 33 and DfE benchmarking figures of 37–38 tied to an earlier accounts year. See the dedicated section above for the full reasoning.
• Not found: a current, trust-wide pupil total. The 21,603 figure tied to the 33-school count is understated; a 2023 GLT news item cited "over 23,500 students," but that predates several 2025 joiners. No newer, trust-published aggregate was located, and none is stated here as fact.
• Not confirmed live: the NASUWT advice page quoted throughout this piece returned a "page not found" error when checked directly on 30 September 2026; the quotations come from the most recent archived snapshot, dated 25 March 2025.
• Not extracted: chief executive pay and total staff costs from GLT's full statutory accounts, which were not accessible in a machine-readable form during this research.
• Not found: any reported strike action, formal pay dispute, ballot or redundancy controversy specifically involving GLT, in the sources checked. Treat this as an absence of evidence rather than a confirmed clean record, and ask directly at interview or via a recognised union representative.

GLT versus the above-scale trusts

It is tempting to read "follows STPCD" as a straightforward loss against a trust that pays more. The comparison is more useful set out in full, because the trusts that do pay above scale generally attach something to that premium.

Neither position is objectively better. A teacher who wants the largest achievable gross salary and is willing to scrutinise the conditions attached to it has good reason to look at an above-scale trust first. A teacher who values the predictability of a national framework, and a documented route for union input into trust-wide decisions, is not settling for less by choosing a trust like GLT — they are making a different, entirely defensible trade-off. The academy trust pay overview sets out that wider choice, and our take-home pay calculator will convert any of the figures on this page into a monthly net amount.

What changes under the 2026 Act

Under the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, academies will be required to have regard to the STPCD and to meet a statutory minimum pay floor set by reference to it, with the School Teachers' Review Body's remit extended to cover academies for the first time. The timing is widely misreported: Section 59 and Schedule 3 commenced on 29 June 2026, which gives the Secretary of State the power to make a minimum remuneration order. Academies are only actually bound once that order is made, and the Department for Education has said this will be no earlier than September 2026; no order had been made at the time of writing. The September 2027 date often quoted alongside this Act belongs to a separate provision — QTS becoming a requirement in academies — not to the pay floor.

For a trust like GLT, the honest answer is that very little should change on pay itself. A trust already applying STPCD directly is, by construction, already compliant with a floor set by reference to those same ranges. Where the Act may matter more for GLT specifically is on the conditions side: if "have regard to" the whole of the STPCD is interpreted to reach beyond pay ranges, a trust that already retains Burgundy Book conditions and runs a standing negotiating committee is arguably better placed than one that does not, since it already has the structures the legislation seems to be nudging the wider sector toward.

How to verify GLT pay yourself

Everything above is a snapshot built from public sources, several of which disagree with each other on basic facts like school count. Before accepting any post, check the position for the specific academy and role.

• Check the trust's own "Our Schools" page directly rather than relying on a directory. As this page demonstrates, third-party aggregators and even DfE benchmarking snapshots can lag a fast-growing trust by several schools.
• Ask which specific point you are being offered — not the range. "M1 – UPS3" or "L27 – L31" on an advert covers tens of thousands of pounds and tells you nothing about your own salary.
• Ask how recently your specific academy joined GLT, and what has changed locally since — the Hartland High School case above shows that a transfer can bring a genuine change of identity and leadership alongside the change of employer.
• Confirm the pension in writing. The expected position is standard Teachers' Pension Scheme membership for teaching staff and LGPS for support staff; get it confirmed rather than assumed.
• Check a live vacancy for the specific academy and pay year. Adverts on Teaching Vacancies and eteach quote real figures for real posts, which is more current than any policy document, including this one.
• Ask whether there is an active JCNC or local union representative at your academy. A trust-level negotiating structure only helps if it connects to your own school; ask which union is active locally and whether it has raised anything relevant to your role recently.
• For a support-staff post, ask for the exact NJC point and its cash value — never rely on the point number alone, and ask what happened to that point at the last annual pay review.

Model what any of these figures means in take-home terms with our take-home pay calculator before treating any gross number, on this page or in an advert, as a reason to move.