Know your Agreement: Education Support Staff & School Services Officers - salaries & classifications

(Appendices 5 & 6)

Following the significant restructures of the Education Support Staff scale in the previous two Agreements, which opened up higher pay-points and better career progression in the mid-range, the focus this time around was on lifting the entry rate for ES staff.

There have also been salary increases and new allowances paid across the rest of the Education Support Staff scale, and School Services Officers have not been forgotten, with big increases back paid to December 2021.

The big headline change is the reclassification of all Education Support Staff previously on Level 1 to Level 2, lifting the top pay point in their incremental scale from $55,374 (Category B, 2021) to $69,362 now and $72,460 in July 2025.

From now on, Level 1 is reserved for trainees or apprentices. An employee who commences employment without prior relevant work experience will commence employment at Level 2-1 or higher, while an employee with relevant experience and or education/ training will commence at Level 2-4 or above. 

This was a hugely important shift, as we know that too many Education Support Staff at the lower end of the scale had been stuck on salaries that didn’t reflect their role, tasks, and responsibilities, or the increasing professional demands of their work. Too often, the qualifications, capacity, skills, experience, and knowledge of ES staff were underestimated or simply disregarded. This change improves their bottom line, not before time, but it also provides a meaningful career structure in which they achieve higher pay points with each year of experience.

For the rest of the ES scale, there are average total salary increases of around 9%. Once incremental progression is taken into account, many ES will find their base salary increasing by over 20% over the life of this Agreement, in addition to the four new 1% Position Allowances paid for those at Level 2-8 and above.  

In recognition of this growing area of work, the Agreement also includes a new Education Support classification stream, Health and Wellbeing Services, which applies to first aid officers, nurses, speech pathologists, and psychologists employed within schools. This will ensure that these employees are correctly and consistently classified and paid according to their qualifications, experience and roles.

Finally, the School Services Officers scale had a significant restructure in December 2021, with an average 12% increase before the twice-annual 1% salary increases. The average increase to SSO salaries over the life of the Agreement is 21.3% - again, that’s before automatic increments up the scale are taken into account.

Click here for salary tables for all staff covered by the CEMEA