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PRESS RELEASE : Minister responds to Telegraph on military in schools [July 2012]

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 17 July 2012.

Sir

The Coalition Government has already recognised the benefits that the Armed Forces ethos can have in education (Why the military must invade our schools, Telegraph, Comment, July 10).

The values of our Servicemen and women – their belief in self discipline, in teamwork, above all in trying to get the best out of those with whom they work – are exactly those we need to instil in the next generation of young people.

Our work with the charity SkillForce means an extra 100 ex-service personnel are already making a valuable contribution as mentors for young people in challenging schools and communities across England.

We will help service leavers, with the potential to become great teachers, to make the transition to the classroom through the Troops to Teachers programme.

Many independent schools have long benefitted from cadet forces. That is why we have committed to 100 more units by 2015 across the state school sector. More young people from some of the most disadvantaged communities will now benefit from the cadet experience, developing them into well-rounded, accomplished adults.

Yours sincerely

Nick Gibb MP
Schools Minister

October 9, 2022
PRESS RELEASE : Record numbers of men teaching in primary schools – but more still needed [July 2012]

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 16 July 2012.

Latest data from the Teaching Agency (TA) shows more men are becoming primary school teachers. The number of male trainee primary teachers has increased by more than 50% in the last 4 years and has grown at 5 times the rate of women.

More top male graduates are being encouraged to follow suit and take advantage of the great opportunities a primary teaching career provides. The same pay scales apply to all teachers, regardless of whether they teach primary or secondary, and career progression opportunities are excellent. Teachers are twice as likely to be in management positions, than graduates in comparable professions after 3.5 years. The average starting salary for teachers now stands at £23,010 and the current average after 4 years is 30 per cent higher. Training bursaries of £5000 are available for those with a 2:1 degree applying to primary teaching, and £9000 for those with a First.

The TA is launching 2 new services to assist men to train to teach primary:

Firstly, a new Primary Experience programme will be available to male graduates who register their interest in primary teacher training with the TA and meet eligibility requirements. It gives men 10 days’ work experience in a school. 1,000 places will be available in schools across the country.

The TA is also able to put male graduates in touch with a range of inspirational male primary teachers, to get an insight into teachers’ motivations, career choices, challenges and the rewards of day-to-day life in a classroom.

Lin Hinnigan, Interim Chief Executive of the Teaching Agency said:

Primary teaching is increasingly a career for the most able graduates. It offers the opportunity to earn a good salary and progress quickly.

Our aim in joining forces with talented male teachers from primary schools across England is to show the reality of life in a classroom and why there’s never been a better time to join the profession.

Darren McCann, who was promoted to deputy head of St Ambrose Barlow primary school after teaching for seven years, said:

I’d always done well at school and initially thought I’d want to be a doctor or a lawyer. This all changed after I visited a school for work experience. A career in teaching shot to the top of my list. It was my ambition that directed me to primary teaching specifically – there are great opportunities for progression – and I’ve reaped the benefits of that decision.

October 9, 2022
PRESS RELEASE : Tim Loughton on promoting PE in schools [July 2012]

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 16 July 2012.

Thank you for that kind introduction Eileen.

As everyone here will be able to tell, I am a keen sportsman…. You may be surprised to hear that I have even been mistaken for a Swiss ski instructor (although this could be more to do with the colour of my ski jacket than my skiing prowess…).

So, it is an enormous pleasure to be here and I am grateful to the Association for giving me the opportunity to set out the Government’s commitment to PE in schools.

But before I begin, I want to take a step back and thank Eileen and her team (and particularly Sue Wilkinson) for their positive, thoughtful engagement with the government over the development of the draft PE programme of study.

I would also like to congratulate all the teachers here today for their hard work and application over the last few years. As far as I am concerned, PE is the great leveller of all the subjects on the National Curriculum.

It is uniquely inclusive and democratic, bringing pupils of every conceivable background together. It challenges young people in a way no other subject can, testing both physical and mental capabilities. It also holds a singularly important and elevated place in the school week by virtue of the skills it develops and the values it teaches.

On a day-to-day basis, you inspire children to reach new heights (literally in the case of the high jump) and to explore their capabilities with confidence.

You give them the skills to work creatively and efficiently both in teams and as individuals. You teach them to be good winners and gracious losers. You provide them with the skills and techniques they will need to enjoy and take part in sport for many years after leaving school.

I have been privileged enough to see the fruits of this labour at first hand many times over the past two years, including the wonderful School Games in Manchester last July, and two weeks ago at the London 2012 World Sport Day in Brighton, involving some 24,000 young people from 60 different schools in the town.

I know none of these events would have been possible without the hard work and endeavour of PE teachers so let me congratulate you and can I ask you to please pass on my warmest thanks to your teams and colleagues around the country.

I am going to talk briefly today about the progress we are making on the PE programme of study, and say a few words about the invaluable work the Association has done in publishing the new guidance on safe practice in PE and sport.

But I wanted to begin by looking at the wider work we are doing as a Government to provide teachers with greater autonomy and flexibility over lesson planning.

As many here will know, this Government’s approach to education is based on the fact that teachers are best positioned to design lessons that meet the needs of their pupils, not politicians.

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.’

We are currently reforming the curriculum to make it more stable and less cluttered; focused more tightly on the essential core of knowledge that every pupil should be taught.

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

Just as importantly, we want teachers to ‘go back to their roots’ – to paraphrase from today’s conference title – and enjoy far greater professional flexibility over how and what they teach within far less prescriptive boundaries.

So, although we are clear we want PE, swimming and competitive sport to be a compulsory part of the curriculum at each of the four key stages, the new Programme of Study, when it comes out, will be shorter, simpler and far less prescriptive to allow for the maximum level of innovation in schools.

In return, we need you to seize the opportunity to be creative, to inspire young people to engage with PE and help them understand the enormous benefits it offers. In particular, we all need to think long and hard about how we engage those children who insist they ‘don’t do exercise’ or whose only experience of competitive sport is on a games console.

How do we inspire these young people to pull on a pair of trainers for the first time? How do we appeal to those who are not interested in traditional sports like tennis, cricket, hockey, netball or rugby? What are the methods we should be deploying to boost young people’s confidence in competitive sport? How do we get them on a football pitch so the English team can string a pass together at the next world cup…?

These are the sorts of thorny questions we all need to be answering and I am hugely grateful to Eileen and her team for the solutions they have been working up following the call to evidence last June, and the subsequent consultation period.

As many of you will know, the Government has made it absolutely clear that the PE programme of study will be geared towards engaging more young people in physical activity. We will not allow pupils to become draft dodgers.

But our ultimate ambition is to ensure you have much greater freedom to use your professional expertise to tailor PE lessons to individual pupils and classes, rather than ask you to work towards arbitrary targets set by politicians and policy wonks.

It is clear to me, and I think to most right thinking people, that what makes for an appropriate and popular PE class for a primary school in Devon, may not easily fit the mould in an inner city school in London.

Thanks to the Association, we are making good progress and I am pleased to say we are on target to publish the draft PE programme of study by September next year, and to introduce it for teaching into schools by September 2014, along with those for English, maths and science.

As you would expect, we will continue to consult with the sector over the coming months on the detail and I want to strongly encourage everyone here to make their voices heard.

There will be a statutory consultation on all National Curriculum subjects later this year – when the time comes, please collect your thoughts with colleagues and make sure you feed back so that we are in as strong a position as we possibly can be on the development of the PE programme.

The other, related, area where we are extremely keen for the Association and its members to really take charge is in the early scoping work it has been doing on self-assessment.

As you will all know, Ofsted is working towards a more focused scrutiny of schools’ performance, with inspectors concentrating on key basics such as the quality of teaching – instead of overwhelming staff with superfluous demands for information and time.

The agency is also looking specifically at how well leaders and managers ensure that the curriculum is broad and balanced, and it will continue to produce three-yearly subject reports to help ensure the health of subjects like PE in our schools.

This sharper, more intelligent accountability provides an opportunity for organisations like the Association to step up and provide their own options for self-assessment.

Eileen and her team have been amongst the most fleet footed (as you might expect from PE teachers) of any organisation to put forward proposals for awarding and issuing quality marks for teaching along the lines of kite marks.

We will be paying very close interest as you develop those plans over the coming months but in the meantime, I want to congratulate you on seizing the initiative so enthusiastically. There is every reason to suggest that external benchmarking of this kind would prove enormously useful for parents, and provide important recognition to hard working, innovative schools and their staff.

Similarly, I would like to thank the Association for the leadership it has shown in amending and re-publishing the guidance on safe practice in PE and sport. I understand that it has proved so popular you have had to arrange another print run. I know schools value it tremendously, as do officials in my own Department who use it as a bible for safe practice.

For our part, I want to assure you the Government will do everything in its power to provide a similarly high level of support to schools, particularly in the wider work we are doing to strip back disempowering bureaucracy in the education system, and to support more effective behaviour management.

Over the last two years, we have set about tackling needless regulation and red tape with great vim and vigour: in total, the Department has removed 75 per cent of centrally-issued guidance – 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 6.

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.

At the same time, we want to support you in every way we can to improve behaviour in schools. We are clear that no teacher should have to put up with aggressive, confrontational or abusive behaviour from the children in their classes, whether in the classroom or on the playing field.

Over the last two years, we have introduced a series of measures to support heads and teachers in managing poorly behaved pupils; and we expect heads, in turn, to support you at every corner.

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

We’ve also given teachers extra protection from malicious accusations, ensuring they always have a legal right to anonymity until the point they are charged with an offence.

Finally of course, 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.

These are substantial changes, designed to let you get on with the job in hand and to restore much needed professional respect and autonomy. In short, we want to give you back what has been taken away. We want to make the job of teaching easier, more rewarding, more flexible.

I hope you’ll agree this is the right direction. Importantly, we want to make and create these reforms in partnership with organisations like the Association wherever we can, not foist them on you.

So to end, let me offer a final thanks to Eileen, her team and to all the teachers here for their engagement with the Government in these last two years and for their inspiring work.

In 22 days, 10 hours, and roughly 29 minutes, two very important events are taking place. First, and most important, is the summer opening of Parliament. A red letter day in all our calendars I’m sure.

Second, of course, the Olympics kicks off with what promises to be a spectacular opening ceremony involving sheep, goats, BMX riders and Sir Paul McCartney – although in what exact order I don’t know.

Amidst all the pomp and pageantry, music and din, special effects and light shows, I hope PE teachers and schools are recognised and appreciated for the quiet way they have set about creating this Olympic legacy.

Under your auspices, we have seen more children and young people taking PE at GCSE and A Level than ever before. We have seen across the board improvements in standards, achievement, provision and leadership. And we have seen the quality of PE teaching, leadership and management judged good or outstanding in an incredible two thirds of all schools.

This is truly a victory of Olympian proportions and I hope everyone here takes enormous pride in their achievements. You are the true Olympic torch bearers for team GB.

Thank you.

October 9, 2022
PRESS RELEASE : Courses for jobseekers are not leading them into employment [July 2012]

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 12 July 2012.

As well as the report, some of the issues being discussed today include the trials facing young people wanting to go into further education and the inherent challenges in further education in promoting social mobility and securing economic growth.

The ‘Skills for employment’ report found that when matching unemployed adults to specific courses, progression to employment was not a high enough priority. Too many programmes focused on achievement of qualifications and courses did not extend to training that lead to job specific skills. When looking at the overall proportion of a total of 10,270 jobseekers spanning 31 different further education providers Ofsted found only 19 per cent were successful in getting a job. Many providers were not offering jobseekers challenging enough courses that were likely to increase their chances of sustained employment.

Matthew Coffey, the National Director of Learning and Skills said:

Currently over 8% of the population are unemployed and latest figures show over 1.41 million of those have been unemployed for more than six months. Ofsted’s Skills for employment report aims to assess the efficiency of the further education and skills sector in matching unemployed adults to courses to develop their skills and enable them to find suitable employment. We found too many courses simply lead on to more courses and do not address the urgency of getting unemployed adults into work.

These issues along with others are being discussed at the first annual Learning and Skills Lecture. Further Education is becoming more and more important in promoting economic prosperity and enabling social mobility by supporting young people and unemployed adults to make the transition into work, improving literacy and numeracy and by providing top quality Apprenticeships.

In August 2011, the government launched a set of new initiatives inviting further education providers to prioritise labour market focused training. The initiatives aimed to support more unemployed people to develop the skills they needed to progress into employment. The report found that some providers were initially slow to respond to the government’s initiatives and were unsure about how they would be held to account over the ways they used their allocated funding. The report also found that although labour market focused training increased employability in the long term, it did not address the urgency for jobseekers to move off benefits into work.

Positively, the most successful providers visited by Ofsted had good links with Jobcentre Plus (JCP) and local employers to increase referrals when matching unemployed adults to specific courses. Successful providers also had expert staff trained in working with unemployed people. These staff demonstrated good skills in referring people to specific courses and made excellent initial assessments and development plans geared towards the barriers unemployed people had preventing them from finding employment.

October 9, 2022
PRESS RELEASE : Weak primary schools in Lancashire to become academies [July 2012]
The press release issued by the Department for Education on 12 July 2012.

The government’s Schools Commissioner, Dr Liz Sidwell, will visit a high-performing primary academy in Lancashire on Thursday 12 July – where she will say that weaker schools across the county should aspire to its success.

At a visit to the ‘Outstanding’ Hambleton Primary Academy in Poulton-Le-Fylde, Dr Sidwell will also warn that poor standards of primary education in Lancashire will no longer be tolerated.

She will explain how, by teaming up with education organisations and great schools with track record of success, the government will ensure that poorer-performing schools in Lancashire will improve quickly by becoming academies.

This follows Education Secretary Michael Gove’s pledge last month to increase the pace at which primary underperformance is tackled.

As it stands, test results for 11-year-olds and Ofsted judgements of 36 primaries in the Lancashire remain stubbornly low – resulting in thousands of pupils receiving an unacceptable standard of education, year on year.

Of these 36 primary schools, 32 are below the Government’s ‘floor standard’ for results in key stage 2 tests. This means Lancashire has:
- the highest number of underperforming primary schools in the North West
- around a third of pupils leaving primary school below the standard expected in the 3Rs – reading, writing and maths.
Lancashire’s 32 underperforming schools are in the following constituencies:

Hyndburn – 5

West Lancashire – 4

Burnley – 4

Chorley – 2

Lancaster and Fleetwood – 2

Pendle – 5

Preston – 4

Morecambe and Lunesdale – 3

Rossendale and Darwen – 3

South Ribble – 2

Fylde – 1

Wyre and Preston North – 1

Across the country, underperforming schools have been transformed by becoming academies.

Research published by the department shows that between 2010 and 2011, results for pupils in sponsored academies improved at a faster rate than in other state-funded schools and at a faster rate than in a group of similar schools. The same is the case when looking over a period of five years.

Academies are not controlled by town hall councillors and officials. Instead, they are run by other strong local schools and education groups – like the United Learning Trust. This means that our best school leaders take over the management of our weakest schools, removing them from local authority control under which they have failed to thrive for years.

Schools Commissioner Dr Liz Sidwell said:

All local people want the very best for local schools. But sometimes change is necessary to really bring about the type of improvement needed to give every child the best chance in life. When schools have been struggling for years, we simply cannot stand by and allow things to continue as they are.

That is why we want to turn around number of primary schools in Lancashire. By becoming academies, these primary schools will thrive under the leadership of some of our best school leaders – rather than staying under the control of the local authority, which clearly isn’t working.

As a headteacher who took over failing schools and helped them become academies, I strongly believe this is the best way to raise education standards for children right across Lancashire.

Research published by the department shows that between 2010 and 2011, results for pupils in sponsored academies improved at a faster rate than in other state-funded schools and at a faster rate than in a group of similar schools.

In sponsored academies that had been open for at least five years, results between 2006 and 2011 increased at a faster rate than in other state-funded schools and at a faster rate than in a group of similar schools.

Dr Sidwell is also working with a number of other local authorities to turn around weak schools by helping them to become sponsored academies. Across the country, there are more than one thousand primaries where more than forty per cent of children fail to reach acceptable standards in literacy and numeracy. Around 200 primary schools will have re-opened as sponsored academies by the end of the year.

The best schools and academies are also encouraged to come forward as academy sponsors.
October 9, 2022
Nick Gibb – 2012 Speech at the German Embassy

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

Thank you for that kind introduction Mr Ambassador. Ich freue mich heute hir zu sein.

I feel enormously privileged to be asked to help present today’s awards, and I’m grateful for this opportunity to talk briefly today about the work the Government is doing to promote language learning in schools.

Young people who have a second language are at a huge advantage in life. It opens doors to new friendships, gives them greater facility to learn different tongues and enables them to think both laterally and creatively.

Many of the world’s most important discoveries have been made by the great linguists. The deciphering of the Rosetta Stone, Linear B and old Persian cuneiform by Jean-Francois Champollion, Michael Ventris and Georg Friedrich Grotefend.

On top of this, we know that the German language, in particular, gives us a unique perspective into our own history and society. Some 50 per cent of the most commonly used English words are Anglo-Saxon in origin – brought over by the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes from northern Europe and Germany in the 5th and 6th centuries.

It is absolutely imperative that young people can understand and appreciate these influences. So, let me thank the UK-German Connection, as well as the schools and teachers here today, for the inspiring work they are doing to promote German language skills, and to organise valuable exchange placements for UK students.

The Government is absolutely determined to ensure more pupils have access to these opportunities. And I am particularly keen to encourage more students to take advantage of the close economic ties between the two countries by considering German as a subject choice at GCSE, A Level and University.

As I’m sure everyone here will know, London is a base for many of the largest German institutional investors and businesses, house-hold names like Deutsche Bank, Allianz and Commerz Bank. These companies – their competitors and their partners – are crying out for school and university leavers who can speak German confidently and have experience of working in an international setting.

Only this year, the CBI conducted a poll of businesses showing nearly three quarters of employers in the UK value linguistic skills in their employees, with 50 per cent rating German as the most useful for building relations with clients, suppliers and customers – ahead of every other language including French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and Mandarin.

Thanks to organisations like the UK-German Connection, our teachers and schools, we are making some progress towards meeting this demand, but it would be wrong to pretend we do not have challenges before us.

Last week’s European Survey on Language Competencies placed England at the bottom of the table for foreign language skills in reading, writing and listening.

The study also found that:

• pupils in England start learning a language later than average;
• are taught it for fewer hours a week than average;
• spend less time on homework than average;
• do not see the benefit of a language as much as most other pupils in Europe;
• and were significantly behind their peers, with only one per cent of foreign language students here able to follow complex speech. This compared with a Europe average of 30 per cent.

We have also seen a sharp drop in the number of UK students taking modern foreign languages over the last seven years. In 2004, 118,014 students took German at GCSE, by 2011 the figure was just 58,382. A 49 per cent fall.

The Government is 100 per cent committed to restoring languages to their rightful place in the school curriculum: ensuring more children are able to access the kind of high quality learning and experience we are celebrating today.

As many here will know, we announced this year that we want to make foreign languages compulsory for children from the age of seven in all primary schools. This proposal is now out for consultation and I urge everyone here to make sure their voices are heard.

Importantly, we have also included foreign languages in the new English Baccalaureate to arrest the decline in the number of children taking languages like French, German and Spanish at GCSE.

Already we are seeing a positive impact: the National Centre for Social Research estimated that 52 per cent of pupils were expected to enter GCSEs in a language subject in 2013. This compared with 40 per cent of pupils who took a language GCSE in 2011.

CfBT’s Language Trends Survey last year revealed similar movement, showing 51 per cent of state secondary schools now have a majority of their pupils taking a language in Year 10, against 36 per cent in 2010. This proportion increased particularly among schools with higher levels of free school meal children.

To cope with this extra demand, we need to attract more teachers into the profession. Greater pupil numbers are likely to stretch staffing resources in many of the E-Bacc subjects unless we take action.

This is why the government is also prioritising initial teacher training places on primary courses from 2012 that offer a specialism in modern languages, sciences and maths. From 2013, we also want to adjust financial incentives to favour teacher trainees with a good A Level in language subjects like German.

Our overarching goal is clear – we want to provide 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 principle 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.

Thanks to the hard work of pupils and schools, we are beginning to see real progress but the scale of the challenge in languages should not be underestimated or oversimplified.

English children do not tend to be immersed in languages to the same extent as young people in many other countries – where English speaking music, TV, films and media are a part of tapestry of everyday life.

Nonetheless, many of this country’s best state schools have shown that there is no reason why young people in the UK cannot embrace and learn languages effectively.

St Paul’s Church of England Nursery and Primary School in Brighton is the first bilingual primary school (Spanish-English) in the country and it is now achieving outstanding results in Year 6.

The Bishop Challoner School in Birmingham is achieving excellent results for its pupils thanks to an enormously impressive language department that trains its own language teachers.

I know many of the schools here today are setting exactly the same example, and I would like to congratulate all of today’s nominees for the inspirational, tireless leadership they provide in the teaching of languages.

Charlemagne likened having a second language to having a ‘second soul’.

This government is committed to ensuring every single pupil in the country has the opportunity to experience this for themselves: to gain a deep understanding of other cultures, and access the enormous benefits of speaking a language other than English.

Thank you.

October 9, 2022
Nick Gibb – 2012 Speech to the ACME Conference
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.
October 9, 2022
PRESS RELEASE : £10 million literacy catch-up programme for disadvantaged pupils [July 2012]
The press release issued by the Department for Education on 10 July 2012.

Children from poorer backgrounds who are behind in reading and writing at the end of primary school will have the chance to get extra catch-up lessons.

This comes as part of the government’s drive to narrow the attainment gap between pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers.

Results from last year’s key stage 2 tests show that around 100,000 pupils in England failed to reach the expected standard in English. This means that:
- around one in six pupils (16%) fail to master the basics of reading at the end of primary school
- around one in four pupils (25%) fail to master the basics of writing at the end of primary school
As part of a £10 million programme, projects will be set up across England to help disadvantaged pupils who fail to reach the expected level of English by the end of primary school (level 4 at key stage 2).

Some projects will be fast-tracked through the bidding process to start from this September, while other projects will start in 2013.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said:

Reading with confidence is the basis of a good education and to unlocking everything the school curriculum has to offer. Every child should start secondary school with a head start – not a false start.

I’m determined that the Government does everything it can, through the Pupil Premium, to bring children up to speed in literacy as they make the transition from primary to secondary school. This money will be a huge boost to schools in giving extra support the children who need it.

Children’s Minister Sarah Teather said:

Improving reading standards in schools is central to the Coalition Government’s education reforms.

Being able to read fluently by the end of primary school is essential. Without these skills children fall further behind in their education. This programme, funded by the Pupil Premium, will help struggling pupils catch up.

It will also help close the gulf in achievement, where the poorest children are less likely to leave school with five good GCSEs than their less disadvantaged classmates.

The programme will be run by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and forms part of the Coalition Government’s drive to improve standards for all. It will help disadvantaged children make the difficult transition from primary to secondary school effectively, as it is one of the key stumbling blocks to improving social mobility in this country.

The EEF will run a competitive bidding process to fund innovative projects that build on either robust evidence or a strong and practical theory. It is expected that schools themselves, along with charities, local authorities and universities, will bid for the programme.

Projects could start at the end of year 6, in the summer between year 6 and year 7, and in year 7 itself. The Foundation will also consider some projects which include mathematics.

Sir Peter Lampl, Chairman of the EEF, said:

We very much welcome the Minister’s announcement that the Government is providing £10 million for the EEF to fund and rigorously evaluate projects to find out what works in helping disadvantaged children make the difficult transition from primary to secondary school.

The challenge of navigating this transition successfully is one of the key barriers to improving social mobility in this country.

Each successful project will be evaluated by independent research teams drawn from the EEF panel of evaluators. This will help make sure that through robust evaluations the best projects can be made available to all schools to use.
October 9, 2022
PRESS RELEASE : Views sought on which 2-year-olds should get free early education [July 2012]
The press release issued by the Department for Education on 5 July 2012.

Up to 300,000 babies born this year are set to benefit from 15 hours of free early education each week when they are two years old, as the government announces plans to roll out free early education to more children across England.

Today Sarah Teather, Minister for Children and Families, launched a consultation calling for views on which two year olds should benefit. This is the second phase of the roll-out of free early education to around 40% of 2-year-old children to help prepare them for school and give them the best possible start in life.

In the consultation launched today the government said that 2 year olds from families who meet the criteria for free school meals will continue to be eligible. In addition, the Department for Education proposes that 2-year-old children should get free early education if they:
- are in low income families earning no more than £16,190 each year
- have special educational needs or a disability
- have been in care and been adopted
Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister, said:

A decent early education can make a huge difference to the start of a child’s progress, unlocking their potential to help them follow their ambitions.

All children should have a fair chance to get on in life, which is why we’re extending free childcare to 40% of two-year-olds. Today’s consultation is about making sure we get that right.

Sarah Teather, Minister for Children and Families, said:

There is compelling evidence that early education, through play and stories, helps young children prepare for school in their crucial early years. We have an ambitious programme to roll out free early education and it is vital that this support, backed by funding rising to £760 million by 2014 to 2015, is targeted towards those who need it.

Babies born this year will receive the benefit of high-quality early education in 2 years’ time. It’s vital that we get this right for their sake. This government is doing all it can to ensure that children in the poorest families are able to achieve what they want to do.

The consultation is launched on the day the minister gave a speech at the Association of Directors of Children’s Services conference in Manchester where she said:

Our recent launch of the childcare commission and the millions we’re investing in early years are a mark of the government’s determination to give every child the best start in life, even against a tough economic backdrop.

This is the right thing to do. It helps create a fairer society and boosts social mobility. The benefits are tangible, real and valued by parents.

From September 2013, under the first phase of the entitlement, the least advantaged 20% of 2-year-olds will receive free early education. The government is trialling the delivery of this first phase in 10 areas in England later this year. The new entitlement for 2-year-olds builds on the universal free entitlement for 3- and 4-year-old children across England.
October 9, 2022
PRESS RELEASE : Improving school food [July 2012]
The press release issued by the Department for Education on 4 July 2012.

The government has today announced that it has asked the co-founders of LEON restaurant chain, Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, to examine school food across the country. They will create an action plan to accelerate improvement in school food and determine the role of food more broadly in school life.

Over the last decade there has been a big change of attitude towards school food and significant improvement in many schools. This is the result of work done by a large array of people, including the School Food Trust, associated charities such as School Food Matters, and Jamie Oliver’s Foundation – not to mention the individual cooks, teachers, parents, pupils, outside caterers and local authorities who have embraced the cause.

However in both maintained schools and academies there is a lot of work still to do. School Food Trust research shows that:
- take-up of school lunches is just 38% in secondary schools and 44% in primary schools;
- only 22.5% of schools provide at least one portion of fruit and veg per pupil every day;
- half of secondary schools offer pizzas and starchy food cooked in oil on most days;
- a third of young people are not choosing a healthy balanced meal at school.
The plan from Henry and John will examine which schools are doing things well and why. It will set out how all schools can reach a standard to be proud of. They will speak to experts, review research and visit schools as well as conduct primary research in order to build up a systematic picture of school food across England. An important part of their work will involve looking at what factors influence school food choices.

To ensure that our children are eating well in schools the plan will address two key questions:
- What more needs to be done to make tasty, nutritious food available to all school children?
- How do we excite children about the food so that they want to eat it?
Henry and John have experience in creating nutritious food that tastes good, in large volume, to a budget. And before LEON, they both led large scale change in commercial organisations. Henry and John will be looking at all ways that change can be brought about: leadership, communication, rewards, inspiration, training, structures and supply chain, regulation, responsibilities within schools, reporting, and the role of parents and people from the world of food.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said:

There has been an improvement in school food in recent years with many schools transforming school dinners, introducing food growing into the curriculum and teaching cookery. However, there is still more to do particularly in taking localised successes and ensuring they are replicated nationally.

Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent bring a wealth of practical experience in delivering good food on a budget. I am delighted they have agreed to develop a robust plan to improve school food and ensure children are given an education that cultivates in them an understanding of food and nutrition.

John Vincent said:

We have a mission at LEON to make it easy for everybody to eat good food. We do it commercially with LEON, and so we are energised by the chance to do so with school food. We join a powerful and growing team of people who have done so much. What we all now need is an action plan that gets to grips with exactly how the ideas and dreams can be implemented for all kids, and stick.

Henry Dimbleby said:

There is so much good work being done to improve school food by people in schools around the country. Our job is to find out which schools are doing well and why. This is a great opportunity to work with those people to set out in a systematic way what needs to be done to nurture and accelerate those improvements.
October 9, 2022