Category: Education

The speech made by Nick Gibb, the then Education Minister, on 11 July 2012.

The speech made by Nick Gibb, the then Education Minister, on 10 July 2012.

Thank you Stephen. It is a great pleasure to be here and have the opportunity to discuss our plans for raising standards of mathematics in schools.

But before I begin, I would like to say a few words of thanks.

Thanks to a great deal of hard work by many in this room and beyond, more young people are taking maths and further maths at A Level than at any other point over the last decade. Last year, 75,547 students took the subject at A Level compared to just 44,156 in 2002, a 58 per cent increase.

On top of this, far more state schools are now entering students for further maths at A Level – a pre-requisite for entry onto maths’ degrees at many of our top universities. In 2004, less than 40 per cent of schools had students taking further maths, last year (with the support of the MEI and Further Maths Support Programme) the proportion had grown to 63 per cent.

These are positive steps in the right direction so thank you to everyone here, and also to Stephen and his team for the plans they are presenting to today’s conference on increasing participation in maths.

As Stephen knows, the government is committed to ensuring all young people in this country have a thorough grounding in maths by the age of 19.

We believe that mathematics is an essential part of every child’s educational armoury.

As fundamental to our day-to-day lives as the ability to read, maths allows us to navigate the world by calculating uncertainties and predicting outcomes; spotting patterns and irregularities; by making sense of the calculations of others.

It is also to mathematics that we look first to provide opportunities in study and employment. It is the skeleton-key subject: opening doors to other disciplines and jobs, from archaeology to architecture, engineering to economics, genetics to geology. I owe my own career in accountancy to an appreciation and interest in mathematics.

But we don’t see the study of maths in the narrow terms in which it is sometimes presented: a subject that we take to simply gain employment or pass an exam.

There is – as we all know – great beauty, fascination and depth to maths. The reoccurrence of patterns in nature. The symmetry of great music and art. The inter-related numbers that together govern the shape, size and texture of the universe.

Every single young person in this country should have the opportunity to appreciate and comprehend these aesthetics. To understand how one child’s obsession with mathematics and the sequences he saw in flower petals, could one day lead to the creation of a machine that would help save Western Europe from fascism. To understand how another man’s contempt for abstract mathematics and love of algebra could inspire him to write Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, one of the world’s most imaginative children’s books.

This is the true importance, breadth and scope of mathematics – yet over the years far too few children have been inspired to make sense of these connections, to fathom the links between maths and the great artistic and scientific movements.

Last week, the Sutton Trust revealed that this country is now 26th out of 34 leading nations for the number of young people achieving top grades in maths. Just 1.7 per cent of English 15-year-olds achieved the highest mark, compared with 7.8 per cent in Switzerland, the best performing European country, and 26.6 per cent in Shanghai. And in state comprehensive schools that figure is close to zero.

Our 15-year-olds’ maths skills are more than two whole academic years behind 15-year-olds in Shanghai. In the last decade, we have dropped down the international league tables: from 4th to 16th place in science; and from 8th to 28th in maths.

Earlier this month, academics at King’s College showed us that the number of young people with a poor grasp of basic calculation has more than doubled over the last 30 years. 15 per cent of pupils today failed to achieve the most basic standards – showing they can successfully solve problems involving doubling, trebling and halving – compared with just seven per cent in the mid-70s.

This lack of confidence with numbers is now having a profound impact on our society and our economy. In particular, we know many employers are deeply concerned at the poor level of maths amongst many school leavers.

According to the CBI, employer dissatisfaction over young people’s maths skills deepened by nine percentage points between 2008 and 2011. 32 per cent of employers polled by CBI would like, above all else, to see improvements in school leavers’ ability to do basic mental arithmetic, including multiplication, percentages and measures.

Most worrying of all perhaps, according to last year’s Skills for Life Survey, up to 17 million adults in this country have only the most basic skills in mathematics: that is to say they have the levels expected of 11-year-olds.

These kind of failures ask all of us to take a long, hard look at the system in which they occur, and keep occurring.

Why do only 58 per cent of children on free school meals achieve the expected levels in English and maths, compared to 78 per cent of all other pupils?

Why do so many pupils who secure top marks in maths at primary school fail to secure the highest grades at GCSE: last year, more than 37,000 young people fell into this category?

These are the questions the government is confronting as a matter of priority. We want to make it clear that mathematics is for all. We want to challenge the very brightest students to achieve to their full potential. We want to inspire more children to follow in the footsteps of the great mathematicians like Liebniz, Turing, Newton and Riemann.

To achieve this, we are working to an overarching objective of providing every child in the country with access to the very highest standard of education: irrespective of background. And that’s why all our reforms over the last two years have been, and will continue to be guided by three principal objectives.

• First, to close the attainment gap between those from poorer and wealthier backgrounds.
• Second, to ensure our education system can compete with the best in the world.
• And third, to trust the professionalism of teachers and raise the quality of teaching.

Ambition, autonomy and opportunity. These are the hallmarks of every high performing education system in the world – from Singapore to Finland, Shanghai to Alberta: all areas where teachers are respected and the highest educational attainment is expected of children.

This is why we have been taking urgent action to raise standards right across the state education system by cutting bureaucracy, supporting the very best teaching and giving heads much greater say over how they run their schools.

These are vital reforms and they will be of fundamental importance in raising standards of maths amongst pupils at our primary schools – particularly those from poorer backgrounds who have been let down the most over the years.

At key stage two last year, just 67 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals achieved the expected level in mathematics compared to 83 per cent of all other pupils. The percentage of pupils with special educational needs who achieved the expected levels rose slightly, but still stands at only 38 per cent.

The highest performing education systems set clear, structured approaches to the teaching of maths, with unambiguous expectations and intelligent accountability.

We are determined to establish the same high standards to ensure that all children, especially those from poorer backgrounds, have access to the essential knowledge they need to compete with their peers around the world.

In June, we published our draft programme of study for mathematics: outlining our intention to establish the very highest expectations of primary schools and pupils.

We are also improving the structure and clarity of the maths curriculum in primary schools: setting out clear aims and giving teachers greater autonomy over how they teach.

On top of this, we are removing level descriptors to provide greater transparency and simplicity – so that teachers can focus on what to teach, rather than labelling pupils with a level every week, or term.

As many here will already know, the draft programme aims to ensure pupils are fluent in the fundamentals. Asking children to select and use appropriate written algorithms and to become fluent in mental arithmetic, underpinned by sound mathematical concepts: whilst also aiming to develop their competency in reasoning and problem solving.

More specifically, it responds to the concerns of teachers and employers by setting higher expectations of children to perform more challenging calculations with fractions, decimals, percentages and larger numbers.

There will, inevitably, be healthy differences of opinion in the mathematics’ community over what should, and shouldn’t be covered by teachers at primary school.

As it stands, the draft programme is very demanding but no more demanding than the curriculum in some high-performing countries. There is a focus on issues such as multiplication tables, long multiplication, long division and fractions.

Last month, the Carnegie Mellon University in the US published research by Robert Siegler that correlated fifth grade pupils’ proficiency in long division, and understanding of fractions, with improved high school attainment in algebra and overall achievement in maths, even after controlling for pupil IQ, parents’ education and income.

As Professor Siegler said: “We suspected that early knowledge in these areas was absolutely crucial to later learning of more advanced mathematics, but did not have any evidence until now… The clear message is that we need to improve instruction in long division and fractions…”

I know ACME are kindly taking a lead role in drawing together the views of many here on the draft programme of study, and are already in dialogue with the Department about what more we can do to improve it over the summer.

We want to have the broadest possible conversation on both direction and detail, which is why there will be a statutory consultation on the draft programme of study later this year. When the time comes, I ask colleagues to collect their thoughts and feed back to ACME so that we can ensure everyone’s views are heard.

As I’m sure Stephen knows, we are committed to securing improvements throughout the sector at both primary and secondary level. And I am enormously grateful to ACME, in particular, for its thoughtful, positive engagement with government over the last two years in promoting maths for all.

Today’s paper on Increasing provision and participation in post 16 mathematics is another very welcome, very important step forward but there are still significant challenges ahead of us.

It is no secret that this country has an exceptionally low rate of participation in mathematics beyond the age of 16. Fewer than 20 per cent of pupils go on to study maths in any form. And the Nuffield Foundation’s Survey, in 2010, revealed that we have the lowest level of participation in any of the 24 developed countries included in its survey: far below Estonia, the Czech Republic, Korea and Finland, which all achieve rates of close to 100 per cent.

On top of this, around 50 per cent of young people in this country enter post 16 education having failed to achieve an A* to C grade in GCSE maths – a basic requirement for many employers.

Last week, we took an important step towards tackling these issues with the announcement of important changes to funding and post 16 education provision.

Most importantly, we have accepted Professor Wolf’s recommendation that the study of maths should be a requirement for all young people, up to the age of 19, who have not achieved an A* to C grade at GCSE.

These are vital changes, squarely aimed at inspiring more young people to pursue maths, and to pursue it to a higher level.

The other, directly related area where we are looking to secure improvement is through GCSE and A level reform.

As the Secretary of State said earlier this month, the current GCSE exam system, in particular, needs reform with a welter of evidence to show exam boards are competing against one another in a way that lowers standards over time.

We are determined to tackle these issues head on by creating a world class system of qualifications that gives every young person the opportunity to acquire rigorous, robust qualifications at the age of 16.

We are also taking action at A Level, where similarly strong evidence has been emerging of grade inflation across subjects.

Professor Robert Coe, the head of Durham University’s exam evaluation team, has reported: ‘candidates with the same level of ability being awarded A Levels about a tenth of a grade higher every year since 1988.’ This means today’s students are typically achieving nearly two and a half grades higher than their peers 24 years ago.

In an effort to distinguish between these candidates, more and more universities are resorting to using their own tests.

50 universities used admissions tests for their 2009 cohort of students – 75 in 2012. In total, a quarter of all universities now require admission tests for specific courses on top of A Level requirements, including Cambridge, Imperial and Oxford.

To help restore confidence in standards, Ofqual is running a consultation on A Level reform, which ends in September. In particular, it is looking to strengthen the involvement of universities in A Level development and subject content, so that the style of questions and skills required can be determined by academics: with involvement from exam boards and learned bodies like the Royal Society and ACME.

Finally, I would like to say a few words about the importance of teaching in mathematics.

As one might expect, international research shows, time and again, that teacher quality is the single most important factor in pupil progress.

Studies in the United States have shown that a pupil taught for three consecutive years by a top 10 per cent performing teacher, can make as much as two years more progress than a pupil taught for the same period by a teacher in the bottom 10 per cent of performance.

Ofsted reported in May this year that the quality of maths teaching in this country is frequently outstanding, with staff placing a strong emphasis on pupils using and applying their arithmetic skills to solve a wide range of problems.

Many schools specifically recognise and promote the importance of subject knowledge, with an emphasis placed on developing the subject expertise of teachers.

But Ofsted has highlighted significant variability in performance, with examples of poor maths teaching mixed in with the very best.

We are determined to ensure all teachers have the freedom and flexibility they need to perform to the very highest professional levels.

But we also need to make sure we attract more able people into the profession: particularly in subjects like mathematics, which has the greatest shortage of teachers for any subject. One fifth of all vacancies in teaching are maths vacancies.

For this reason, we have made secondary mathematics a priority for recruitment into initial teacher training. Candidates with a first class degree in maths are now eligible for the very highest level of bursary: £20,000 to support them through their training.

At primary level, the Teaching Agency has also set aside more places for trainees on its Subject Specialist Primary ITT programmes: providing additional training for those teachers whose sole, or main job will be to teach maths in primary school.

These are important changes, designed to bring about a step change in our approach to maths education in this country.

The collapse of the global economy has highlighted the deep importance of using and understanding probability and statistics.

Technology is creating more demand for mathematicians in the workforce than ever before. The proliferation of information around us is demanding greater sophistication in our ability to understand numbers in everything we do: from taking out a loan to making sense of the news, marketing and advertising.

So, let me thank ACME once again for their tireless, inspirational work in promoting maths to so many thousands of young people in this country.

I look forward to working with Stephen and his team in the months, and years ahead, in promoting this most aesthetic of all the subjects.

Thank you.

The speech made by Nick Gibb, the then Education Minister, at the Voice Conference in Manchester on 26 May 2012.

Thank you for those kind words Philip.

Today’s teachers operate under great scrutiny, in conditions that require significant reserves of professional and intellectual skill.

On a day-to-day basis, they are expected to stretch gifted students and engage troubled teenagers; to inspire children discovering new subjects and to ensure that every pupil gets a firm grasp of the basics.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Voice members, both teachers and support staff, for all their hard work and professionalism.

And thank you to Voice itself for engaging with Government and putting forward the views of its members so effectively.

In particular, I’d like to mention Voice’s approach to reform of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, and the industrial action earlier this year and last year. Voice negotiated just as strongly as the other teaching unions – but Voice members also did everything in their power to ensure that children did not miss out on their education.

Government objectives

This Government’s programme of education reform is driven by three overarching objectives:

• to close the attainment gap between children from richer and poorer backgrounds;
• to ensure that our education system is on a par with the best in the world; and
• to raise the professional status of teachers; trusting professionals and increasing autonomy.

At the heart of this programme is a move away from a top-down, prescriptive model of education – with lever arch files full of guidance and painstakingly specific schemes of work – to a system that enhances and increases the independence of teachers.

That’s why our White Paper setting out the Government’s education reform agenda was called The Importance of Teaching.

And that’s why our whole approach is built on an inherent trust in the professionalism of teachers – removing the barriers preventing teachers from doing what they came into the profession to do.

Importance of teaching

International research shows that teacher quality is the single most important factor in pupil progress. As a 2007 report from McKinsey stated, “the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers”.

Another McKinsey report, published last year, analysed Ofsted inspection reports and concluded:

For every 100 schools that have good leadership and management, 93 will have good standards of student achievement. For every 100 schools that do not have good leadership and management, only one will have good standards of achievement.

Studies in the United States have shown that a pupil taught for three consecutive years by a top 10 per cent performing teacher can make as much as two years more progress than a pupil taught for the same period by a teacher in the bottom 10 per cent of performance.

For poorer children, the transformative effect of a good education can be even more marked.

In June last year, PISA reported on how the education systems in different OECD countries helped children to overcome their social and economic background.

In Shanghai three-quarters of students from poor backgrounds achieved more in their education than expected. In Singapore, nearly half did.

In the UK, only a quarter of poor children managed to exceed expectations. Overall, this country ranked 39th out of 65 in terms of children’s ability to overcome their social and economic background..

Autonomy

I have long believed – perhaps because my mother was a very dedicated teacher herself – that education is the only route out of poverty. To this day, we know that there is no more effective means of helping people to get on in life.

Over the years politicians of all hues, determined to create a more level playing field, have brought in various well-meaning, heavy-handed interventions.

Yet the gap between children from the richest and poorest backgrounds has remained persistent, stubborn and entrenched.

Last year, 58 per cent of pupils achieved five or more GCSEs at A* to C including English and maths – but for children on free school meals, that figure was a disappointing 34 per cent.

Our most pressing priority in government is to support the profession in reducing the gap between richer and poorer pupils.

And I am acutely aware that overweening government intervention can be counter-productive.

Over and over again, international evidence shows that professional autonomy is an essential feature of every high performing state education system.

To quote from the OECD: “In countries where schools have greater autonomy over what is taught and how students are assessed, students tend to perform better.”

This does not, of course, mean that the Government should beat a full retreat: quite rightly, the public expects Government to take action where it identifies weakness.

And we do need to set a clear direction in areas like phonics, where the evidence of its effectiveness is so overwhelming.

Teachers already making a difference

But in schools all over the country, teachers are already using our reforms to make a real difference.

Over the last year we have seen an increase in the number of students taking maths and physics A levels, rising from 97,600 to 104,700.

The number of students studying foreign languages has risen dramatically: 51 per cent of state secondary schools now have a majority of their pupils taking a language in Year 10, up from 36 per cent in 2010.

And pupil absenteeism has fallen, with persistent absence dropping from 6.8 per cent last year to 6.1 per cent in 2012.

In my view this is one of the most significant statistics of the year.

Of those who miss between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of school, only 35 per cent manage to achieve five or more GCSEs at grade C or above including English and maths.

And more than one in ten children who qualify for free school meals are persistently absent from school, compared to less than one in 20 of those who do not.

These statistics show the great results which teachers are already achieving in schools. Today, I want to run through four key areas where we are working hard to give teachers even greater flexibility and freedom.

Curriculum

As many here will know, we are currently reforming the curriculum (with Voice’s help). We want to make it more stable and less cluttered; focused more tightly on the essential core of knowledge that every pupil should be taught.

The new curriculum will set out the fixed reference points that are absolutely essential to a child’s education: allowing children to navigate their way from discipline to discipline, and to think critically and independently.

As far as teachers are concerned, the great benefit of the new curriculum will be its permanence.

Many teachers have told me how frustrating and stressful it is to work in an environment of constant change – and I know that this sense of powerlessness and uncertainty has a major impact on workforce wellbeing.

Indeed, one of my greatest concerns about the QCDA’s 2007 reforms was that they actively promoted a state of perpetual revolution, encouraging constant change by contextualising concepts against current events – which then become obsolete almost immediately.

This will not be true for the new curriculum.

Core knowledge, by its very definition, does not need to be repeatedly revised to reflect changing fashions, or new current affairs.

Instead, the new curriculum will focus on the fundamentals that will give children today (and tomorrow) the best possible start to their future.

And I will count it as a success when teachers are able actually to laminate their lesson plans and recycle them from September to September.

Of course, a leaner curriculum will also allow teachers far greater professional flexibility over how and what to teach.

It will not specify how teachers should contextualise these concepts and subjects for their students. No longer will we create a whole host of hostages to fortune, doomed to become out-of-date before the ink is even dry on the page.

Rather, we will leave it to teachers to decide how to bring these subjects and topics to life.

Unleashing entrepreneurial spirit – Free and teaching schools

Autonomy also gives teachers the opportunity to lead educational reform.

In every area of the country, hundreds of outstanding schools have already been selected as Teaching Schools: leading peer- to-peer school improvement, delivering exemplary CPD, designating and brokering specialist leaders of education, carrying out valuable research and giving new and experienced teachers an opportunity to develop their professional skills throughout their careers.

We’re also giving schools a stronger influence over the content of initial teacher training as well as the recruitment and selection of trainees, and continuing to ensure that ITT provision focuses on the quality of placements and selection.

And, of course, perhaps the most potent symbol of teachers’ entrepreneurial spirit can be found in the very visible expansion of the academy and free school programmes.

As we move into summer, over half (51%) of all secondary schools are now open or in the process of opening as academies, teaching over one and a quarter million children.

There now are 1776 academies, of which over 1400 have opened since May 2010.

The Free School programme is up and running in tandem and I am particularly keen to see teachers with entrepreneurial spirit and flair exploring its potential.

Some of the most exciting free schools, like Bradford Science Academy, Canary Wharf College and Woodpecker Hall Primary Academy, are led by teachers – and these schools are going from strength to strength. Woodpecker has already applied to open another Free School in 2013, while the Confederation of British Teachers (which opened a free school in 2011) will open two more schools this September.

It has always surprised me, having come from an accountancy background myself, that teachers haven’t been given the opportunity to establish practices in the same way as doctors, lawyers or accountants.

We have now put a mechanism in place by which teachers can lead reform and I am delighted to see so many already taking advantage of it.

Reducing bureaucracy

As teachers step forward, using their knowledge and expertise to drive improvements, Government must step back.

This brings me on to the third area I wanted to mention today: the reduction of red tape and paperwork.

Two years ago, teachers in all types of schools told us that one of the biggest drains on their time was the burden of government bureaucracy, consuming far too much energy and time and sapping morale.

That’s why the Department has removed 75 per cent of centrally-issued guidance over the last two years – some 20,000 pages.

Behaviour and bullying guidance has been slimmed from 600 pages to 50; admissions guidance down from 160 pages to 50; health and safety guidance from 150 pages to just six.

On top of this, we have scrapped the requirements on schools to set annual absence and performance targets; to consult on changes to the school day; and to publish school profiles.

And we have removed a host of non-statutory requirements like the self evaluation form, replaced the bureaucratic financial management standard, stopped 10 data collections and clarified that neither the Department, nor Ofsted, require written lesson plans to be in place for every lesson.

From September, we will be introducing further measures to remove or reduce some of the bureaucracy around teacher standards, admissions and school governance.

I hope that these important modifications will go a long way to reducing those bureaucratic pressures on teachers that were highlighted as a major concern in the NFER report.

Behaviour

If we are to retain and attract the calibre of teaching talent that we need, then there is one issue in particular that I am keen to address.

Some 52 per cent of teachers state that they have considered leaving the profession because of poor behaviour. 59 per cent believe that the standard of pupil behaviour has got worse during their careers.

The OECD has estimated that 30 per cent of effective teaching time in schools is lost because of poor pupil behaviour.

What is clear, I’m afraid, is that increasing numbers of children have not been set proper boundaries at home. They turn up at school aggressive, disruptive and unwilling to work; they disturb lessons for their peers, and make their teachers’ lives more difficult.

I cannot over-emphasise the importance of the work that Philip and Voice are doing to equip teachers to handle this behaviour.

And I am grateful for the opportunity to restate, in the strongest possible terms, my support for the profession in dealing with unruly pupils. No teacher, nursery worker or member of support staff should have to put up with aggressive, confrontational or abusive behaviour from the children in their care.

Over the last two years, we have introduced a series of measures to support heads and teachers in managing poor behaviour; and I expect headteachers, in turn, to support their staff.

Since the start of last month, schools have had increased search powers for items which they believe will lead to poor behaviour or disruption. We have clarified head teachers’ authority to discipline pupils for misbehaviour beyond the school gates, including bullying outside school. And we have given teachers the ability to issue no notice detentions after school.

The new, simplified Ofsted inspection framework focuses on just four key areas of inspection – one of which is behaviour and safety.

And in light of research showing that nearly half of serious allegations against school teachers are unsubstantiated, malicious or unfounded, we’ve given teachers faced with an accusation, a legal right to anonymity, until the point when or if they are charged with an offence.

Finally, we have revised guidance to local authorities and schools to speed up the investigation process when a teacher or a member of staff is the subject of an allegation by a pupil.

Conclusion

I hope members of Voice will welcome our reforms to give teachers greater autonomy, flexibility and freedom.

I also hope that members will take this as a sign of the exceptionally high regard in which government holds the teaching profession.

My final words go to Philip, who has been such a great representative for Voice over these last six years, and for the profession as a whole; for the children he taught, and for the teachers he led, whilst deputy head at Old Clee Junior School.

Philip, I know that you will be very sorely missed. It has been a great personal pleasure to work with you and I wish you all the best in your retirement.

You campaigned hard and articulately over the years about the dangers to the teaching profession of the over-zealous attentions of government.

And I hope you’ll agree that the move towards much greater professional autonomy for teachers is a worthy tribute to your work and campaigning during your distinguished tenure at Voice.

Thank you.

The speech made by Nick Gibb, the then Education Minister, on 25 April 2012.

Thank you. It’s great to see so many committed young people here today, and I want to thank the Diana Award for their kind invitation for me to come and speak today.

I am pleased to be here today. We live in a world of continuous technological and cultural change. We all have experience of the changes in IT and we all are aware of the way society is developing. Keeping up with those changes poses a real challenge to all of us.

But keeping up with cultural trends – what’s cool and what’s not, and how we ‘should’ behave – is, I think, particularly difficult for young people. That’s because, at school and in our friendship groups, we explore and form our identities. And young people face tremendous pressure, not just from their peers, but from the media, which projects constant messages about what we should look like, what music we should listen to, even how we should and shouldn’t speak.

An interesting truth about our society is that everyone’s being told that they should be an individual. Yet if we’re different in the wrong way, the social consequences can be serious. As anti-bullying ambassadors will know only too well, it’s the perception that someone’s different – and the intention to cause physical or psychological harm to someone because of it – that is at the root of bullying.

That difference could be related to a minority group, for example because of disability or sexuality. Or it could be something else entirely which just happens to fall outside the bounds of what’s cool or acceptable – someone wears glasses, they do well in maths, they wear a certain brand of trainers. Some people are bullied because of their success. Tom Daley, who became an Olympic diver at the age of 15, was bullied because of his sporting achievements and had to change schools as a result. He was perceived to be different, and he was bullied for it.

Technology and the media have a huge role to play in setting the boundaries of what is ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’, and what is not, largely based on celebrity commentary – who’s hot and who’s not. And the expansion of reality TV programmes like ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ and ‘The Undateables’ has encouraged us to look at groups of people and marvel at how different they are, and how different their lives must be compared to our own. They accentuate difference, but they don’t accept it.

That perceived difference is at the root of bullying is an obvious point. What is less obvious, perhaps, is that people do certain things to avoid being bullied, for instance smoking or extreme dieting. Those kinds of behaviour can be just as damaging to young people’s lives as bullying itself. So when we start to really think about the issue of bullying, we realise that it’s not just people who bully, or people who are bullied, who are affected, but all young people. And every single young person has a role to play in stopping it.

As Diana Award anti-bullying ambassadors, I know that you play a vital role in tackling bullying in your schools and communities, and I know that we’re going to see some examples of the excellent work that you do. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the time you give up and the energy you put into such an important cause.

You will all know as well as anyone that bullying is not an easy thing to address, and particularly now that technology has opened up so many more forums for it. It’s a stark reality in my job that everyone is constantly plugged into what’s happening. I can guarantee that, when I go back to the House of Commons this afternoon, without having told fellow MPs where I’ve been today, someone will ask me how today’s event went, or ‘do I really think such and such about bullying?’ News travels fast.

It’s the same in the playground. What someone said on a social networking site from the privacy of their own home can be all round the school the next day, via texts, emails, and instant messaging. But funnily enough, although unpleasant remarks about people can be transmitted to a much bigger audience, the fact that it can happen anonymously through technology rather than face to face means it can be better hidden from the teachers and parents who can sort it out.

The possibility for people to participate in bullying indirectly, and to witness bullying, is far greater than ever before. Everyone can be a bystander. Bullies do what they do to gain social power and status over others. But whether or not the school bully achieves that status is up to the rest of the pupils in the school. Without bystanders to laugh at their jokes and encourage their poor behaviour, a bully is not a leader of their peers – they’re just a bully.

Bullying is not just an issue for the bully and the bullied. It is something for every single one of us to think about, and to ask ourselves: ‘do I treat others with respect?’; ‘in my daily life, does my behaviour cause other people hurt and upset?’; ‘this edited photo of my classmate might look funny at first glance, but how would I feel if it was a photo of me, and how are they going to feel at school tomorrow?’
If you laugh at a horrible joke about someone, you may not be directly bullying them, but you’re endorsing the bully’s behaviour. If you forward a nasty text message about somebody, you’re saying to the bully ‘this behaviour is socially acceptable, because it’s funny.’ Actually, it’s not funny. It hurts people and it shouldn’t be acceptable. And it could happen to any one of us.

For us to be able to be clear about what’s acceptable, pupils themselves have to reject poor behaviour. Every single pupil in every single school needs to have the quiet courage to resist media and peer pressure to conform, to question our own views of normality and difference, and to reject unkind, hurtful behaviour.

I remember being told at primary school that if something happens on a school bus we should do something about it. But it doesn’t always mean intervening. It means not forwarding horrible text messages. It means not talking about people behind their backs. And it means not playing with children who are horrible to others until they change their behaviour. Each one of us quietly standing up for what we know is right.

I want every single school to have an ethos of good behaviour, where pupils are kind and respectful to one another not because they fear punishment but because they know that that’s the right way to behave. This is what the very best schools do already.

Despite a wealth of cultural and social change, one of the great constants we have in our society is a set of rules about how to treat one another. Some people call it manners. Some call it etiquette. Others call it respect, compassion, or even humanity itself. I think it is all of those things. They are fundamental values that allow us to live together and protect us from hurting one another. They are fundamental to society, and they are fundamental to education. Indeed they are the very essence of it, which is why I believe good manners should be a social value that is taught and expected in our schools.

I believe that every single person has a part to play in preventing and tackling bullying. It is a quiet role. An individual stance: not laughing at nasty jokes, not playing with children who want to bully others, not forwarding on malicious text messages or posting horrible things on peoples’ Facebook wall.

This is the true power of individuality, of quietly respecting difference, and of standing up for what you know is right. Not gawking at others’ difference or laughing at it, but quietly respecting it and standing up for it. That is the sort of society we want to create for the future, and every single young person in our schools today can have a hand in shaping it. As young people you are the leaders of society’s future change. As anti-bullying ambassadors, you are the guardians of those crucial, universal values. Thank you.

The speech made by Nick Gibb, the then Education Minister, in London on 16 April 2012.

Thank you Barry. I’m delighted to be here today and grateful to the Association for inviting me back to its annual conference this year.

On the way over, I was pondering what Dr Pettit, the inspirational, and to me as a young 12-year-old, very scary headteacher at Maidstone Grammar in the early 1970s, would have said if he’d known any the pupils in my class had been interested enough in education to become a schools’ minister.

I suspect he would have greeted the news with a certain wide-eyed amazement…

Fortunately however, we did all get a little older and wiser. And I’ve certainly never forgotten the enormous debt of gratitude I owe to the school, for which I have only the very fondest memories.

So, I wanted to start by thanking the Grammar School Heads Association for inviting me along to speak at the conference for a second year running – and for all its support over the last year. I’m looking forward to my next meeting with Roy, Barry and Simon in a few weeks’ time and I’m sure, as always, that your advice will be good advice. I’ll let you know if it isn’t ….

Second, let me thank the 164 grammar school heads and their staff for the wonderful work they are doing, and have done. Their results over the past year have been incredibly strong. But more importantly, the quality and standard of education is world class.

Last year alone, around 1,050 grammar school pupils were studying at Oxford or Cambridge after taking A levels in 2008;

98% of pupils in grammar schools achieved 5 or more GCSEs at Grades A* to C, including English and Maths, compared to 55% of pupils nationally.

And an incredible 95.6% of grammar school pupils who were eligible for free school meals, achieved 5 or more GCSEs at Grades A* to C, compared to just 30.9% nationally.

That gap between the overall figure of 98.4% and the free school meal figure of 95.6%, which is just 2.8%, contrasts very sharply with the national figure.

Last year, 55% achieved 5 or more GCSEs at grades A* to C including English and maths. But the free school meal figure was just 31% – and that gap of 24 percentage points has remained stubbornly constant over recent years.

It is a disparity in outcome that we want closed – or at the very least brought closer to the 2.4% gap that grammar schools have achieved – for the very simple reason that reducing the attainment gap between pupils from rich and poor backgrounds is an absolutely key moral objective of the coalition government in general, and of Michael Gove in particular.

The million dollar question of course, is how you achieve that moral objective? And if you look to the example of grammar schools, you see the answer comes from a combination of high standards and ambition. Essentially, it boils down to the old grammar school ethos of placing ‘no limit on achievement’.

For example, we know that grammar schools don’t measure performance by the percentage of their pupils gaining 5 C grades. They’ve developed their own indicators that focus on the percentage of students gaining 5 As and even 8 As. As a result of which, it’s not uncommon for headteachers to see every single one of their pupils achieving the 5 A* benchmark.

Quite clearly, there’s a very serious lesson to be taken from this and applied more widely. And that’s why the ‘no limit on achievement’ ethos, is one that’s now absolutely critical to the government’s own blueprint for education reform.

Like grammar schools we want to be unashamedly ambitious on behalf of pupils locally; we want to spread opportunity more equally nationally; and we want to match (or better) the very best schools internationally.

Now, in one sense of course, there is nothing radical about any of this. For many years, the UK marked itself out as one of the world’s top education performers by fostering exactly those kinds of high standards. Lofty expectations were placed on every child. Standards of behaviour were properly enforced. There was no embarrassment attached to high performance.

Even today, we have many exceptional schools and teachers in this country who work extremely hard towards achieving these goals – some of the very best in the world in fact – but we also know that many comprehensive schools are struggling to work in what is (at times) an almost unworkable system of bureaucracy and central control.

As a result, we’ve fallen back in the PISA international education rankings: from 4th to 16th in science; 7th to 25th in literacy; and from 8th to 28th in maths – meaning our 15-year-olds are 2 years behind their Chinese peers in maths; and a full year behind teenagers in Korea and Finland in reading.

When the US Education Secretary Arne Duncan saw a similar story unfolding in America’s own PISA rankings, he made the point that the States was ‘being out-educated’. And here in the UK – exactly the same holds true. We’re being out-educated and out-thought by more ambitious education systems.

In and of itself of course, this is a hugely worrying trend. But it is made almost a 100 times worse by the fact that our education system has also become one of the most stratified, and unfair in the developed world.

Only last week, the OECD told us that pupils from poor backgrounds in the UK were less likely to escape disadvantage than students from countries like Mexico and Tunisia – coming 28th out of 35 leading nations.

This was, I thought, a truly worrying report from the OECD. No-one wants to see the UK transformed from a land of opportunity to one of social stagnation. But the fact is, too many children, especially from the poorest backgrounds, are now getting a very raw deal indeed.

We’re not introducing enough of them to the best that’s been thought and written; we’re not equipping them to compete against their peers around the world; we can’t even say we’re preparing them to enter the UK workforce. Only last month, the CBI’s annual education and skills’ survey showed almost half of top employers are having to invest in remedial training for school and college leavers.

Even in the best of times, this kind of backtracking would be unsustainable.

But the fact is, pupils today are being taught and studying at a time of unprecedented competition. We’ve just been through the worst financial crisis since 1929. Our economy is weighed down by a huge debt burden. Technology is moving faster than most of us can keep pace with, and there has been an unprecedented shift in political and economic power towards Asia.

This leaves us with the obvious question: how do you match the success of places like Asia and make sure you’re not treading water for another 10 years?

Leading experts like Sir Michael Barber and organizations like the OECD and McKinsey, have shown us time and again that the top performing nations have several key attributes in common:

First, they value and respect their teachers and employ the very best people in their classrooms;

Second, they step back and let schools get on with it, free from bureaucratic control;

Third, they encourage collaboration between schools;

And fourth, they hold schools to account in an intelligent way.

These themes formed the basis of our White Paper last November: The Importance of Teaching – and today, I’d like to say a little about each of them – and pick out specifically where I hope grammar schools can lead improvement across the maintained sector.

First – we want to get the best graduates into teaching by funding the doubling of Teach First over the course of this Parliament, and by expanding the Future Leaders and Teaching Leaders programmes, which provide superb professional development for the future leaders of some of our toughest schools.

In addition, we’ll shortly be publishing our strategy for initial teacher training. This will set out our commitment to restoring the status of the profession by toughening up the recruitment process, and ensuring that all new entrants have a real depth of knowledge in their subject.

Not only this, but we will also explore how excellent schools, including grammar schools, can be more involved in both initial training and the provision of professional development.

Perhaps most exciting though, is the development of Teaching Schools. Where we have had more than 1,000 expressions of interest and 300 applications have already been received. And I know grammar schools themselves have been amongst the keenest to express their interest. In much the same way, I know many grammar schools are now already sponsoring academies or supporting local schools to improve standards. Transporting their own ambition and high standards out into their local communities, and helping to raise aspirations. While I know many more grammar schools have taken the step of actually converting to become academies. As of the 10th June this year, there were some 89 designated maintained grammar schools, plus 75 grammar schools, that had converted to academy status.

Many of these will be supporting other schools in the local areas. And I know still more are involved in helping other schools on a less formal basis. So, for example, operating an exchange of staff, working with students and supporting school leadership.

In fact, Barry has told me that 98% of grammar school headteachers are working on major partnership activities to support the work of other secondary schools and primary schools.

A brilliant achievement, and we’re very keen to encourage exactly this kind of collaboration both through the new converter academies, which have, between them, agreed to support over 700 other schools and through the doubling of the National and Local Leaders of Education programmes to support fellow heads.

But of course, we do understand that great teachers and collaboration between schools cannot raise standards on their own, if they are then bedeviled by the kind of bureaucracy that constricts achievement.

In opposition, we counted the number of pages of guidance sent to schools in one 12 month period as coming to an incredible 6,000 pages. Twice the complete works of Shakespeare – but not as interesting.

So, we’ve been systematically cutting down on the red tape headteachers and their staff have to deal with – to the point where departmental guidance will have been more than halved over the coming months.

For example, we’re slimming down the national curriculum; scrapping the self evaluation form; reducing the behaviour and bullying guidance from some 600 pages to 50; we’re focusing Ofsted inspections on teaching; closing down quangos; and – of course – we’re in the process of cutting down, and consulting on the massively complex admissions and appeal codes.

That consultation comes to an end on the 19th August, with the department then publishing its official response to the consultation in September.

Without pre-empting its findings, I can assure you there are currently no new policy proposals specifically focusing on the areas of academic selection or grammar schools themselves.

But, subject to the consultation, the Association’s schools would be able to take advantage of crucial freedoms such as:

in-year coordination – which removes the requirement on local authorities to co-ordinate in-year admissions

published admissions numbers – where we want to make it easier for popular schools to expand

consultation – which would mean admission authorities only have to consult on admission arrangements every seven years (rather than three) when they are not making any changes

and the pupil premium – which will allow academies and free schools to prioritise children from the poorest backgrounds

Of course, when you have far more schools enjoying these kinds of freedoms, and improvement is driven not by government but by schools, proper accountability inevitably becomes more important than ever.

That’s why we’re currently overhauling the Ofsted framework to focus on the four core responsibilities of schools – teaching; leadership; attainment; and behaviour and safety.

And it’s why we’re also very pleased to see the introduction of the English Baccalaureate, which we specifically designed in order to narrow the segregation in education between those from the poorest backgrounds and the rest – and to give parents a simple benchmark against which to hold schools accountable.

The Russell Group has been unequivocal about the core GCSE and A level subjects that equip students best for the most competitive courses – the list trips off the tongue: English; maths, the three sciences; geography; history, classical and modern languages.

Nationally, grammar schools perform remarkably well in this area, with some 67.4% of its students achieving the E-Bacc. A figure that even the independent sector can’t match: where only around 24% of its pupils achieved at least a C in the combination – rising to 51.3% when the Edexcel iGCSE results, which were not credited initially, are included.

Nonetheless, just 15.6% of students achieved at least a C in the E-Bacc combination in the maintained sector generally.

And this does beg the question as to how it can possibly be fair to those students who are automatically handicapped by the system’s inherent lack of aspiration on their behalf?

It should, I believe, be a major concern to everyone that nine out of ten state pupils eligible for free school meals are not even entered for the E-Bacc subjects – and just four% achieve it.

Equally, it cannot be fair that no pupil was entered for any single award science GCSE in 719 mainstream state schools; for French in 169; for geography in 137; and for history in 70.

Quite simply, the most academic subjects must not become the preserve of the few. They should be open to every single student, regardless of background.

And this, as the Secretary of State described in his National College speech last week, is ‘the moral cause’ that lies behind all our reforms – and our aspiration to raise the minimum benchmark for schools to 50% of pupils achieving five A* – C grades in GCSEs, with maths and English, by 2015.

Grammar schools, through their own example; through the sponsorship of academies; through partnerships with underperforming schools; through the network of teaching schools; the education endowment fund; and through the national and local leaders of education programmes; have a unique opportunity to make this happen.

So, let me finish with a final thank you to all those grammar school headteachers who have already taken advantage of these changes. We owe the sector a very real debt of gratitude and enormously value your contribution to those reforms.

I also hope that Simon, Roy and Barry and all heads here will continue to play a very active advisory role with the department over the coming months.

I know headteachers will not always agree with all our changes, but I think we agree on more than we disagree – and the voice of grammar schools remains one that is highly valued and respected not just by myself, but also – I know – by the Secretary of State and by Lord Hill.

In the final analysis, education reform is not about politics, it’s about progress. Or, as Ronald Reagan put it: ‘It’s not about left or right – it’s about up or down’. I hope you’ll agree that these reforms are squarely aimed at getting us on the right trajectory.

Thank you.