Outwood Grange Academies Trust (OGAT) Teacher Pay Explained

Most trust pay profiles are dull, because most trusts mirror the national scale and there is nothing much to say. Outwood Grange is dull on pay and genuinely not dull on conditions, and that is an unusual and useful combination to be able to document. If you are weighing up an OGAT post, the salary line on the advert is almost certainly the same figure you would see anywhere else in England for the same role. The things that would actually make your working life at an Outwood academy different from a maintained school down the road are the length of the school day, the directed time arithmetic underneath it, and the trust's behaviour system — and all three of those are matters of public record, contested public record, which is why this page spends most of its length on them.

As with every page in this section, we have tried to be explicit about the difference between what is well evidenced, what is one side's argument, and what we simply could not establish. There is more in that third category here than we would like, and we say so where it applies rather than papering over it.

What Outwood Grange actually is

Outwood Grange Academies Trust is one of the larger multi-academy trusts in the North of England, built outwards from Outwood Grange Academy in Wakefield. It runs primary and secondary academies across Yorkshire, the North East, the East Midlands and beyond, and the 2025 dispute described above involved 28 secondary academies, which gives a reasonable sense of the secondary estate alone. The trust describes itself as a "family of schools" and its careers material is branded around joining that family.

Its reputation in the sector rests on school improvement: OGAT has repeatedly taken on schools judged to be underperforming and has been credited with turning outcomes around quickly, using a highly standardised model — centralised curriculum and lesson resources, common systems across academies, and a strongly structured behaviour approach. That standardisation is the single most important fact about working there, and it cuts both ways. It reduces the amount of planning and resourcing an individual teacher carries. It also reduces the amount of professional discretion an individual teacher has. Different people react to that trade very differently, and it is worth knowing which kind of person you are before you apply.

The pay position: national scale

Let us deal with the actual pay question quickly, because it does not take long. Everything we can find indicates OGAT pays on the standard national ranges. A maths teacher vacancy at a Wakefield academy advertised via Tes quoted £31,916 to £51,048, which is the familiar Main Pay Range to Upper Pay Range span for the pay year that advert was written against. OGAT does not appear among the small group of trusts Tes identified in June 2024 as paying above national scales, and we found no trust statement, union document or advert suggesting an uplift or a trust allowance of any kind.

For orientation against this site's illustrative 2026/27 national figures, that means an OGAT teacher should expect something in the region of £34,069 at M1 and £46,940 at the top of the main range, subject to the usual caveats about which pay year applies and whether a regional band other than National is in play. OGAT's estate is concentrated well outside the London weighting areas, so for most posts the National band is the relevant one. Our pay scales guide sets out the full structure.

The practical implication is that if you are comparing an OGAT job with a maintained school job in the same region, the pay comparison is close to a wash. That is not a criticism — mirroring national pay is what the overwhelming majority of trusts do, and it is arguably the right thing to do. It simply means the decision has to be made on other grounds, which is what the rest of this page is about. You can model the take-home position for any of these figures with our take-home pay calculator.

"Principles of" STPCD — read the hedge

OGAT's careers page states that the trust follows "the principles of the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document". We want to draw attention to that phrasing rather than skate past it, because the difference between following the principles of a document and applying the document is not a pedantic one.

A maintained school applies the STPCD because it must. Every provision in it — the pay ranges, the appraisal requirements, the 1,265-hour directed time limit, the 195-day working year, the provisions on rarely cover and PPA — binds the employer as a matter of law. An academy trust has, until the reforms in the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 bite, had no such obligation. A trust that says it follows the principles of the STPCD is telling you it has chosen to align with the framework, and is reserving to itself the judgement about what alignment means in any particular case.

In OGAT's case, the alignment on pay looks genuine and complete: the advertised ranges are the national ranges. The place where the hedge has done real work is on conditions, and specifically on directed time — which is exactly where the 2025 dispute landed. Whether you find that reassuring or not, it is the single most useful thing to understand about the trust's contractual position before you read anything below.

Automatic pay progression

One genuinely positive and concrete thing OGAT states publicly: "Pay progression happens automatically on the anniversary of the target period appropriate to your role." Read plainly, that means movement up the main scale is time-served rather than gated behind an appraisal judgement each year.

This is worth more than it might sound. Since 2013, performance-related pay progression has been the national default, and the experience of it has been uneven: in some schools it is a formality, in others a genuine annual hurdle with objectives that move. A trust committing publicly to automatic progression removes an annual source of anxiety and removes the risk of a lost increment, which on the main scale is typically worth between £1,973 and £3,411 a year depending on which point you are moving between — considerably more than the entire uplift offered by most above-scale trusts.

Two caveats. First, "the anniversary of the target period appropriate to your role" is doing some work in that sentence and is not self-explanatory — it is worth asking what the target period is for the specific post you are applying for, and when in the year your increment would fall. Second, this statement covers progression within a range; it says nothing about progression between ranges. Crossing the upper pay scale threshold is a separate application process with its own evidence requirements almost everywhere, and there is no reason to assume OGAT is different.

The real story: the extended school day

In early 2025, OGAT proposed extending the school day at its secondary academies by 30 minutes, moving the end of the day from 2.30pm to 3.00pm with effect from September 2025. Across 28 secondary academies, the change would take the taught week from 30 hours to 32.5 hours.

The trust's case, as it has set it out, rests on two pillars. The first is educational: a 32.5-hour week is the figure the Department for Education has encouraged schools towards, and an Outwood secondary day ending at 2.30pm was shorter than the national norm. The second is legal: OGAT has maintained that the change does not breach the 1,265-hour annual directed time limit. The trust also published its own statement in June 2025 expressing disappointment at the unions' response and setting out its reasoning.

The unions' case has two corresponding pillars. NASUWT raised concerns about how the directed time calculation had been done — not, on the reporting available, a flat assertion that the cap had been breached, but a challenge to the working. The NEU made a different and more pointed argument: that most schools nationally which run a 32.5-hour week get there "by extending break and lunch times, rather than by seeking to direct staff to work more hours for no extra pay". In other words, the DfE's 32.5-hour expectation is about the length of the school day as pupils experience it, and it can be met without adding directed teaching time at all. Striking teachers made this concrete by telling the trust to extend the lunch break instead of the lessons.

The 1,265-hour question

The STPCD directs that a full-time classroom teacher may be required to be available for work for 1,265 hours across 195 days a year. It is the single hardest workload protection in the framework, and it is the number the whole dispute turns on. It is worth walking through why the arithmetic is genuinely arguable rather than obviously settled in either direction, because you may end up having a version of this conversation at interview.

The illustration below is our own arithmetic on the publicly reported week lengths. It is not OGAT's calculation, it is not any union's calculation, and it uses simplifying assumptions. It is here to show the shape of the problem, not to produce a verdict.

That table is the entire dispute in three rows. If every minute a teacher is on site during the school day counts as directed time, a 32.5-hour week across 195 days comes to roughly 1,268 hours and has blown the cap before a single staff meeting, parents' evening or INSET day is scheduled. If genuine, unsupervised break and lunch time is properly excluded — as it should be, since a teacher entitled to a break is not being directed during it — the same week comes to roughly 1,121 hours and leaves something like 144 hours a year for everything else. That is a real budget, but it is not a generous one: 1,265 minus the taught day has to absorb every meeting, every parents' evening, every open evening, every directed CPD session and the five INSET days.

So the honest position is that the trust's claim can be true and the unions' concern can be reasonable at the same time. Compliance depends entirely on how break time is classified and how tightly the remaining budget is managed — and the NEU's point about extending break and lunch rather than lessons is, on this arithmetic, exactly the lever that decides which row you are in.

The 2025 strikes, and where it stands

The dispute escalated to sustained industrial action, which is rare and is itself a signal about how far apart the parties were.

Union recognition at Outwood

We looked for a published recognition agreement between OGAT and the teaching unions and could not find one. That is a genuine gap in the evidence rather than a finding — plenty of trusts have recognition arrangements that are simply not published anywhere public, and the fact that NEU and NASUWT ran a coordinated formal ballot and negotiated through ACAS indicates functioning industrial relations machinery of some kind. But we cannot point you to a document setting out what is collectively bargained and what is not, which is what you would want.

What we can point to is a different agreement: in June 2025, UNISON's Yorkshire region announced that OGAT had signed a Learning Agreement with the union. It is worth being precise about what that is. A learning agreement is a partnership on training and development — union learning reps, access to courses, development pathways for support staff. It is a positive sign about the trust's relationship with UNISON, and it is not a pay bargaining agreement and not a recognition agreement for teachers. Reading it as evidence about teacher pay negotiation would be a mistake, which is why we are flagging the distinction rather than just listing it.

• Documented: NEU and NASUWT both organised, balloted and took action at OGAT academies in 2025, and the trust engaged in ACAS talks. Whatever the formal position, the unions are organisationally present.
• Documented: a UNISON Learning Agreement signed in June 2025 — a training and development partnership, primarily relevant to support staff.
• Not found: any published NEU or NASUWT recognition agreement setting out collective bargaining arrangements at trust level.
• Worth asking: whether there is a union rep at the specific academy you are applying to, and whether there is a joint consultative committee at trust level. Ask the rep, not the head.

Behaviour and the consequences system

A page about pay would not normally cover behaviour policy. This one does, for a simple reason: OGAT's behaviour model is the most distinctive feature of the working environment, it is very heavily documented, and it will affect your day far more than any pay point will. It is also genuinely contested, so we are going to set out both cases and leave the judgement to you.

The trust operates a "consequences" system involving withdrawal from lessons to a separate room. It faced a judicial review over its use of isolation booths, brought after a policy that permitted up to six hours of isolation in a single day with no teaching delivered, enforced silence at meals, and three five-minute toilet breaks. Schools Week has published analysis of the trust's isolation data. Tes coverage of the system quoted sources describing a backlog of pupils waiting for isolation places and alleging what one source called "massive staff turnover". Ofsted has reportedly told the trust to cut its exclusions. Separately, Tes has reported on the trust's approach of flattening school leadership structures.

The trust's own position, as reported, is robust. It defends the consequences system as the mechanism that allows teachers to teach without disruption, and points to its record of improving outcomes at schools that were previously failing. On staff experience specifically, the trust has cited a figure of 98 per cent of staff reporting pride in working there, and has characterised its turnover as exceptionally low — directly contradicting the anonymous sourcing in the Tes coverage.

Our honest read is that the two accounts are not fully reconcilable from public sources, and we are not going to pretend to resolve them. The trust's staff-satisfaction figures are its own and unaudited. The Tes sourcing is anonymous and self-selecting. Both of those are weak forms of evidence. The judicial review, the Ofsted comment on exclusions and the content of the isolation policy are matters of record and are not in dispute. What we would say with confidence is that this is a strongly defined institutional model that people tend to have strong views about, and that spending a day in the specific academy you are applying to will tell you more than any of this reporting.

The rest of the package

OGAT publishes a reasonably substantial benefits list, and some of it carries real value that the flat national pay scale does not capture. These are the trust's own stated benefits.

• A minimum of two hours of CPD every week. Substantially more than most schools timetable, and a genuine commitment of directed time to development rather than admin. Note the flip side: protected CPD is directed time, and directed time is exactly the budget the 2025 dispute was about.
• Centralised lesson resources. Shared, trust-produced curriculum materials across academies. For many teachers this is the single largest workload reduction available anywhere — planning from scratch is the biggest unbounded task in the job. It is also the trust's own strongest counter-argument to the extended-day complaint: more contact time costs less if the preparation behind it is already done.
• The trust's own Workload Charter. A published commitment on workload. Worth asking to see in full, and worth asking how it is monitored — a charter without a review mechanism is a statement of intent.
• Enhanced maternity, adoption and parental leave with no qualifying period. The "no qualifying period" part is the valuable bit and it is unusual. Most enhanced schemes require a year or more of service, which can be a real constraint on when you are able to move jobs.
• An employee assistance programme covering confidential support and counselling.
• A menopause policy. Still far from universal in the sector, and a meaningful signal about how the trust approaches staff wellbeing beyond the obvious.
• Free parking, and car leasing discounts. Free parking is worth more than it sounds outside city centres; a salary-sacrifice car scheme needs checking carefully against your own circumstances before it is worth taking.

On the pension question, which is the one benefit that really matters over a career: confirm at offer stage that the post is on the Teachers' Pension Scheme on standard terms. We have no reason at all to think OGAT does anything other than this — but a small number of trusts elsewhere in the sector have offered alternative arrangements with lower employer contributions, and it is always worth a direct question. Our guide to the 2015 scheme explains why the answer matters so much.

What's verified and what isn't

As on our other trust pages, here is the evidential status of everything above, stated plainly rather than blended together.

• Well evidenced: that OGAT pays on standard national scales, from its own "principles of the STPCD" statement and from live job adverts quoting recognisable MPS/UPS ranges.
• Well evidenced: that OGAT states pay progression happens automatically on the anniversary of the target period for your role — the trust says this on its own careers page.
• Well evidenced: the extended school day proposal itself — 2.30pm to 3.00pm, 28 secondary academies, 30 to 32.5 hours a week, from September 2025 — reported by both Schools Week and Tes in February 2025.
• Well evidenced: the industrial action — six strike days in June 2025 across 14 academies, ten further days announced for July, around 500 NEU members balloted, ACAS talks on 10 July 2025.
• Well evidenced: the trust's published benefits list, including the two hours of weekly CPD, the Workload Charter, enhanced family leave with no qualifying period and the menopause policy.
• Well evidenced: that the trust faced a judicial review over isolation booths, and the contents of the policy that prompted it.

• Not established: how the 2025 extended school day dispute ended. Public coverage stops at the ACAS talks of 10 July 2025. We found nothing confirming implementation, modification, withdrawal or settlement.
• Not established: what the current school day timings and directed time budget actually are at any given Outwood academy as of this writing. This follows directly from the point above.
• Not established: whether OGAT has a published recognition agreement with NEU or NASUWT. We could not find one. The UNISON Learning Agreement of June 2025 is a training partnership and is not the same thing.
• Contested, not resolved: staff turnover and staff satisfaction. The trust cites a 98 per cent staff pride figure and exceptionally low turnover; anonymous sources in Tes allege the opposite. Both are weak evidence and they point in opposite directions.
• Not established: whether and how the behaviour and isolation practices reported in earlier coverage have changed since, including in response to the judicial review and the reported Ofsted comment on exclusions.

What to ask before you apply

Because the pay question here has a boring answer, the interview questions that matter are almost all about time. None of these are awkward, and a well-run academy will answer every one without hesitation.

• What time does the school day start and finish for staff, and for pupils? The most direct route to the current position on the whole 2025 dispute. Ask about this academy, not the trust in general.
• How many hours a week is the taught day? Ask for the number. If the answer is 32.5, follow up with the next question.
• Is there a directed time calendar, and can I see the current one? This is the single most valuable question on the list. It converts every vague assurance about workload into an actual document with actual hours in it.
• How is break and lunch time treated in the directed time calculation? This is the exact hinge of the dispute. It is a reasonable, technical, non-hostile question and the quality of the answer is very informative.
• Are the two hours of weekly CPD inside directed time, and when do they sit? Protected development time is valuable. Protected development time bolted onto the end of an already extended day is a different proposition.
• Which pay point am I being offered, in writing? Not the advertised range — the point and the figure.
• What does automatic progression mean in practice for this role, and when does my increment fall? Pin down "the anniversary of the target period appropriate to your role".
• How much time will I spend supervising the consequences or isolation room? A direct, practical question about what the behaviour system means for your timetable rather than for the pupils.
• Is there a union rep at this academy, and can I speak to them? If the answer is yes and you are given the name, that is a good sign in itself.
• Confirm the Teachers' Pension Scheme on standard terms before you accept anything.

The overall shape of the decision, then, is this. OGAT is not a pay story. It is a story about a trust with a strong school improvement record, a highly standardised operating model that removes a lot of planning and behaviour burden from individual teachers, a public commitment to automatic pay progression, and an unresolved public dispute about whether the hours it asks for fit inside the legal cap. Some teachers will find that trade obviously worth making. Others will not. What nobody should do is make the decision without knowing the dispute happened.