This year's 3.5% pay increase for teachers is the first step along the road to significant salary improvements for the profession, according to the school standards minister.

Estelle Morris said the government's proposals for performance-related pay would give classroom teachers the opportunity to move beyond the current salary ceiling of around £23,000.

Her remarks come amid threats from teachers' unions that their members are ready to take industrial action following Monday's announcement of the pay rise.

Estelle Morris: "Teachers are central to the government's drive to raise standards in education"

They are angry that headteachers alone will be given additional increases of up to 6% this year, on top of the flat-rate 3.5% rise for all teachers.

Ms Morris said the pay increase would see a classroom teacher with seven years experience receive a salary increase of around £800 from 1 April, while the performance pay proposals will eventually give teachers the opportunity to earn up to £35,000-a-year.

"This will mean that teachers have the opportunity to gain the rewards they deserve for performing well in the classroom," she told an audience of teachers and headteachers at Solihull in the West Midlands.

"With a robust new system of appraisal and clear national standards, the new system will be fair and non-bureaucratic.

"We will reward good teachers so that they don't get stuck on relatively low levels of pay, improve the quality of training and remove teachers that are not up to the standards required."

Ms Morris was speaking at the second of the government's regional forums for teaching professionals on its performance-related pay proposals. The first forum was hosted by the prime minister and the education secretary.

The proposals for performance pay for teachers are contained in the government Green Paper on the future of teaching, published late last year.