BBC Education Correspondent Mike Baker reports on the teachers' pay package

Classroom teachers in England and Wales are awarded an extra 3.5%. This will mean that newly-qualified teachers will get a rise of £525. After seven years' experience a typical teachers' salary will be £23,193, a rise of £784.

The pay settlement did not win the approval of the general secretary of the largest teachers' union.

David Blunkett says headteachers can earn up to £70,000, but it will be linked to performance

"Teachers have still not caught up with where they were three or four years ago and graduates can still earn more in other professions," said Doug McAvoy of the National Union of Teachers.

But the improvements in pay for headteachers have been welcomed as "long overdue recognition of their major responsibilities" by David Hart, the General Secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers.

The classroom teachers' pay rise will be introduced in full from April 1. The table shows the effect on some typical salaries:

teacher	old rate	1 Apr
newly qualified	£15,012	£15,537
after five years	£19,875	£20,571
seven years up	£22,410	£23,193
headteacher	Â	Â
typical primary	£30,651	£31,724
typical secondary	£44,763	£46,330

Headteachers' increases are to be introduced in two stages. The first 3.5% will be paid on April 1, with the extra to be paid on September 1.

The largest increases will go to primary headteachers in the smallest schools, with a maximum 6% to be paid in addition to the general 3.5% pay rise.

The pay boost for primary headteachers is designed to address a deepening problem in recruiting headteachers, particularly in London, where almost two-thirds of vacancies for headships have to be re-advertised because of a shortage of candidates.

In introducing the extra pay incentives for headteachers, which creates the potential for £70,000 a year salaries, the Education Secretary, David Blunkett, says that from now on "progression up the salary scale will be more closely linked to performance than in the past".

The pay settlement comes as the government is preparing a radical restructuring of classroom teachers' pay, in which some teachers will receive larger pay hikes from next year in performance-related bonuses.

Classroom teachers are promised the chance of performance pay in addition to the basic 3.5% rise

"The Green Paper changes will make the teaching profession better paid and more attractive - with the opportunity of initial increases of up to 10% based on performance and assessment," said Mr Blunkett.

Under the government's pay reform proposals, Mr Blunkett said that classroom teachers could earn up to £35,000 a year.

The largest teachers' union, the National Union of Teachers, had demanded an across-the-board pay rise of 10%, plus an extra bonus for new teachers to encourage students into the profession.

The Local Government Association, representing the teachers' employers, has lobbied the government in recent weeks to keep the pay deal below 3% as it says local authorities will not be able to afford a rise above this level.

But the government argues that a 5.7% increase in local government funding this year will cover the teachers' pay rise.

To ensure that pay rises are not at the expense of cutting infant school class sizes, the government has reiterated that councils have been given a separate £161m for that purpose.

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