Mike Baker: "In France, the role and status of teachers is very different"

At her Kent high school, physical education teacher April Peters starts the day around 8am and does not leave until well after 5pm.

After eight years in teaching, she is at the top of the pay scale for classroom teachers, earning around £23,000 a year.

The government hopes its plans to boost the pay of the best teachers will make it easier to keep people like April in the profession - and attract more like her.

At present, she would have to move into school management to earn more. It's at this stage of their careers when many teachers start to feel overworked and undervalued.

April Peters: "There's a lot of pressure"

Like many teachers, April spends a lot of school time on non-teaching duties. She has extra work as a head of year, responsible for children's discipline and welfare.

She notices the contrast in pay and workload with friends in other jobs.

"It's 9 to 5 for them," she said. "They come home, they don't have to worry about it, they don't have to prepare, they can just turn in."

Just across the English Channel, in France, the role and status of teachers is very different.

In general, teachers are more highly thought of. It is perhaps no coincidence that there is no recruitment problem either.

At St Joseph's College near Lille, teachers like Bernard Vanbeselaere work shorter hours and have higher status than their counterparts in England.

Bernard has taught for more than 20 years. He earns around £18,000 a year, considerably less than April, but like all French teachers he is a top-category civil servant - employed by central government with absolute job security and high social status.

Bernard Vanbeselaere: 18-hour week

Bernard's duties do not go beyond teaching his subject. He has to teach for 18 hours a week - the rest of the time he can stay at home.

In general, French teachers do not run clubs or have other responsibilities for children.

"My primary job is to teach and deliver help when help is required, and that's it," said Bernard.

"If there are other problems, there are services who take care of these problems."

On Thursday, the Labour government will announce its plans to raise the salaries of the best performing teachers in England.

In France, they already have an element of performance related pay - teachers who pass an additional professional exam earn more and work shorter hours.

The British government can only hope that its plans for merit pay will make teaching as popular a profession as it is in France.

But the lesson from over the Channel is that status and job satisfaction are about something much more complex than just how much teachers earn.

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• BBC Two's Westminster Live programme on Thursday 3 December from 14:45 -15:25 GMT is discussing the question: "Should teachers be paid according to results?" You can e-mail questions to: west.live@bbc.co.uk or phone (in the UK) 0345 514 614.