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  • John Hayes – 2011 Speech on Making the Big Society Real

    John Hayes – 2011 Speech on Making the Big Society Real

    The statement made by John Hayes, the then Education Minister, at the Thistle Marble Arch Hotel in London on 9 March 2011.

    Hello everyone. It’s a great pleasure for me to be here today.

    I must begin by expressing thanks on behalf of us all to NIACE, Martin Yarnit Associates, the Workers’ Educational Association and Unionlearn for making today’s event possible and for their hard work and success in developing such a successful programme in just eighteen months.

    I also want to recognise and thank the project leader, Liz Cousins, for her unwavering enthusiasm and determination in getting the project up and running and in supporting Community Learning Champions throughout.

    The figures speak for themselves.

    To date, nearly 2,000 Community Learning Champions have been registered.

    Of these, 85 per cent are champions supported by development-funded schemes.

    In addition, there are 285 registered Community Learning Champions from current schemes that have not been in receipt of a development fund grant, but have nevertheless signed up to the support programme.

    Over the lifetime of the project, Community Learning Champions in development-funded projects have reached 100,000 learners and potential learners in their communities. Of those, well over 60 per cent were reached via a learning activity.

    I’d like to pause for a moment over these facts. Statistics may be the gold that administrators mine from the grey, bureaucratic earth, but they don’t come close to reflecting the reality of what has been achieved. .

    60,000 people whose lives have been touched by learning, made richer, more interesting and more fulfilled.

    And let’s not forget the knock-on effects that so often flow from a person choosing learning – on children, family and friends.

    We know that raising skills levels through formal training brings social as well as economic benefits – in the shape of better public health, lower crime-rates and more participation in the community activities that fuel the common good and power the national interest.

    But informal learning also plays an important role within the wider learning continuum because it develops self-esteem and confidence and has a proven track record in transforming attitudes and abilities to prepare people for further learning or to play a fuller role in their communities.

    Moreover, adult and community learning can make a real difference to people’s work prospects, particularly for those who’ve had very few chances in life or who come from the most deprived and excluded sections of society.

    It takes place in accessible community venues and takes account of individuals’ needs and learning styles. It engages people through their interests. Without this kind of learning, many people would never get started in learning or realise their full potential.

    2007 research from the Centre for the Wider Benefits of Learning found that informal learning provides a way back into formal, skills-based learning and more rewarding work for people with low skills and negative personal experiences of formal education.

    These are all reasons why I personally and this Government collectively are huge supporters of informal adult and community learning.

    We are passionate about its contribution to civil society, personal development and support for families.

    And that is why we protected the £210 million Adult Safeguarded Learning budget for informal adult and community learning in the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review.

    The role of the Community Learning Champion in all this is vital. Learning Champions are not new, but having a national support programme is. Many Community Learning Champions have been working in isolation; now Government investment has given national coherence to local schemes, and raised their profile in communities across the country.

    Community Learning Champions are involved in activities as diverse as encouraging clients to improve the environment by growing hanging baskets and planting flower troughs, showing friends that they are never too old to learn, setting up their own informal learning groups or reaching out to older people in ethnic minority communities who are isolated and lonely due to language barriers.

    It is encouraging to see the diversity of people taking part in these schemes 10 per cent are Afro Caribbean, 3 per cent Bangladeshi , 5 per cent Indian and 5 per cent Pakistani.

    In addition, 13 per cent of Community Learning Champions declared that they had a disability.

    We are now embarking on a major reform programme, working closely with partners, to make sure that informal adult and community learning supports the Big Society, engages the most disadvantaged people in our communities and offers progression routes into further learning. We do not underestimate the impact that Community Learning Champions can have in their communities. Who else knows their community better than those who live within it?

    Now that the funding for development projects is coming to an end, it will be important for both existing and new partners to consider how to build on their legacy and extend the availability of this important community resource. I know that there are important lessons here to be learned from many of the projects, and that the issue of finding local sponsors and other sources of financial support is a real one.

    Over the coming months we will work closely with partners to consider how public funding can be refocused and reprioritised to guide and support the people who need the most help and have had the fewest opportunities.

    This is in tune with our ambition to give citizens and communities the power and information to come together and build a bigger and stronger society, actively involving all the families, networks and neighbourhoods that form the fabric of our everyday lives.

    The Big Society is a place where people, neighbourhoods and communities have more power and responsibility and use it to create better services. Community Learning Champions are becoming established as part of that Big Society.

    We have seen how this approach works.

    We look to you in this audience today and many more out there like you to help us take this forward.

    Thank you.

     

  • PRESS RELEASE : Alison Wolf writes for ‘The Times’ about her review of vocational education (March 2011)

    PRESS RELEASE : Alison Wolf writes for ‘The Times’ about her review of vocational education (March 2011)

    The press release issued by the Department for Education on 8 March 2011.

    Alison Wolf is professor of public sector management at King’s College London. She completed a review of vocational education for the Department for Education in March 2011.

    She wrote the following article for ‘The Times’ on 8 March 2011.

    Should we care how two-thirds of English young people are educated? It sounds like a stupid question. But look at what we offer teenage students, and it seems obvious that, in fact, our elite hasn’t been bothered.

    In England, as in every other developed country in the world, ‘staying on’ at school is now so normal that it hardly counts as a decision. Well over 90% of 16-year-olds continue education or formal training after their GCSEs, well in advance of it being made compulsory a few years from now.

    Of these, only the minority are doing pure A levels, the route taken by pretty well every journalist, politician or senior civil servant. The large majority are not.

    I have just completed a review, for government, of our majority – more commonly known as ‘vocational’ – education. I have recommended major changes because we are wasting billions of pounds a year educating young people for unemployment not employment. This is economically demented, and also flies in the face of English citizens’, and taxpayers’, legitimate aspirations and desires.

    Vocational education courses are, of course, highly varied. They include Rolls-Royce or Airbus apprenticeships, where competition for a place is fiercer than for Oxbridge. BTEC National Diplomas lead to university for growing numbers of 18-year-olds; long-established craft qualifications feed into good careers.

    But many vocational qualifications have no obvious market value at all. We have known this for years, from repeated high-quality research studies. They lead nowhere, other than to more, equally pointless qualifications. Schools and colleges are been rewarded for ‘making the numbers’; paid when people pass and penalised if they do not. So they have had a strong incentive to enter students for qualifications because they are easy, rather than because they are good for students. Many have duly done so.

    However, ‘payment by results’ is only part of the problem. Vocational education has been distorted by a particularly strange case of English exceptionalism, which has put us completely at odds with the rest of the developed world.

    Does this matter? Yes. As we have just discovered again, economies are not stable and predictable. Changing one’s occupation is the rule, not the exception, and the labour market rewards general skills. Everywhere else, specialisation has been duly postponed and a general core education is taken by all students until around 16. When vocational specialisation does begin, other countries combine it with a lot of general education as well.

    And then there’s England. Here, vocational qualifications for young people have been developed, by government, in the most narrow of ways, based on the very specific skills of today’s economy. The theory is that this gives ‘business’ what it wants.

    Yet it is not what employers want at all. These new government-sponsored qualifications are the ones which, time and time again, show zero or negative returns in the labour market. In other words, in practice, employers treat them as worthless.

    More and more English 14- and 15-year-olds are now taking large numbers of vocational options. But no pupil that age, in the modern world, should be on a narrow track. That doesn’t mean giving up practical and vocational subjects altogether; one can easily deliver broad clusters of academic subjects, such as the coalition government’s new English Bacc, in 70% or 80% of the week. But early specialisation is economically stupid as well as deeply unfair to those involved.

    Our current system is one of which we should be ashamed. Take maths and English, the most fundamental skills of all: the entrance tickets to A levels, top apprenticeships, university, the labour market. They are important because they matter in pretty well everything and are rewarded right through life.

    In England, over half our 16-year-olds still fail to get good English and maths GCSEs. What I hadn’t realised until I carried out this review is that, 2 years later, over half still don’t have them; and that our education system has been placing huge barriers in their way. If you are paid by results – as sixth-forms have been – and steered by governments towards easy literacy and numeracy tests – as sixth-forms have been – GCSEs do not look very attractive. And so they have duly disappeared from the sixth-form curriculum.

    It is simply not true that we are a nation with low aspirations. The mothers of 97% of new-borns, from all social classes, hope their children will go to university one day; parents of every social class are desperate to find good schools for their children. Our major parties are all, quite rightly, signed up to opportunity for all. But English government has been delivering education which systematically denies opportunities to huge numbers of young citizens. This is dreadful for them. It is bad and shameful for us all.

  • John Morris (Lord Morris of Aberavon) – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    John Morris (Lord Morris of Aberavon) – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    The tribute made by John Morris, Lord Morris of Aberavon, in the House of Lords on 9 September 2022.

    My Lords, I had the privilege on a number of occasions to have a private audience with Her Majesty, as Welsh Secretary for six years. The most memorable was, while travelling on her plane from Caernarfon, to be summoned by her private secretary to come and sit by Her Majesty on the journey to London. She sought to scrutinise my policies with very careful prodding. As a professional cross-examiner, I was totally unused to being in the witness box.

    My job during the Silver Jubilee was supervising the organising of her tour of Wales, based on “Britannia” for three wonderful days, meeting her one sunny morning in a railway siding in north Wales and finishing with the Royal Marines playing on the quay in Cardiff. She greeted the immense crowds from Llandudno to Cardiff with immense pleasure and great interest. I surmise that the high point of the tour was a few quiet hours admiring the beauty of Bodnant Garden. She had the magical quality of combining formality and informality as appropriate. My wife and I valued the great care and meticulous consideration given for my wife’s hearing when she entertained us at the end of each day.

    The sense of fun in the Duke and Her Majesty herself was manifest at the opening of Theatr Clwyd in north Wales, when the great actor, Emlyn Williams, delivered his monologue describing the bus trip full of Welsh bards in search of the Druid’s Tap for refreshment. When the Duke turned to me and asked, “Was there such a place as the Druid’s Tap?”, we all rolled with laughter.

    Wearing another hat many years later, as Her Majesty’s Attorney-General I had the privilege at the first sitting of the Welsh Assembly to present her two copies of the Wales Bill for initialling. The first was in English; there was no problem. I then presented a second, in Welsh. Trusting her bilingual Minister, without batting an eyelid she signed the second one too.

    My sympathies go to King Charles and his family. I have visited his home in Wales on many occasions and he has won the respect and friendship of the nation of Wales through his close interest in our affairs.

  • Stuart Polak (Lord Polak) – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    Stuart Polak (Lord Polak) – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    The tribute made by Stuart Polak, Lord Polak, in the House of Lords on 9 September 2022.

    My Lords, I pay tribute to all the speakers before me, particularly the noble Lord, Lord True, who is not in his place. On an occasion like today, I think I speak on behalf of the whole House when I say we miss the late Lord Sacks, who would have known exactly what to say.

    On hearing of someone’s passing, the Jewish tradition is to say “Baruch dayan ha’emet”, which means “Blessed is the true judge”. In my earliest memories of going to synagogue on a Saturday morning, there was only one prayer that was said in English, and that prayer will be said tomorrow in synagogues up and down the country. I will read it as it was done last week: “He who giveth salvation unto kings and dominion unto princes, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, may he bless our sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth and all the Royal Family. May the supreme King of kings, in his mercy, preserve the Queen in life, guard her and deliver her from all trouble and sorrow.” In synagogues up and down the country tomorrow we will say it as usual for His Majesty King Charles.

    I have been listening to so many personal stories of how Her Majesty touched the lives of so many, even just for a fleeting moment, and that will forever be etched on the memory of those people. In 1971 my mother and my late grandmother were at Royal Ascot. My grandmother at the time thought she was part of the Royal Family and we did not tell her that she was not. On the way back from the paddock to the enclosure, my grandma Leah touched the back of the Queen Mother and said, “Ma’am, you look beautiful.” As the heavies suddenly came round to where my mum—who was deeply embarrassed—was, the Queen Mother said, “Hang on”, and turned to my grandmother and said, “And, if I may say so, you look beautiful too.” At this point both embarrassed daughters, Her Majesty the Queen and my mother, turned round at the same moment and said, “Oh mummy.” This moment, this 10-second encounter, stayed with my late grandmother her whole life, and has stayed with my mother to this day.

    The tributes to Her Majesty have all been magnificent, but I listened particularly carefully to Sir John Major, the former Prime Minister, whose tribute included the line, “There was almost no part of the world she had not visited.” Sir John was right. I will concentrate for a moment on the word “almost”. On 22 June 2016, the night before the EU referendum, I was at a small dinner with a few people raising a little bit of money for Gordonstoun at the home of the Princess Royal. As I was leaving, I said to the headmaster that I would happily come up to the school and speak to the students about politics. Princess Anne turned round and said, “I think they’d be more interested in your previous work.” We had a conversation and discussed how the Royal Family were prohibited by the Foreign Office from visiting Israel. We agreed that it was and is sad that the Queen, as someone who was deeply religious and God-fearing, never walked down the Via Dolorosa into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, visited the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem or experienced the peace and tranquillity on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

    At a Jewish funeral, Psalm 16 is often recited in Hebrew. In translation, it ends:

    “You will make known to me the path of life;

    In your presence is fullness of joy,

    at your right hand bliss for ever more.”

    Yehi zichra baruch—may Her Majesty’s memory be for a blessing.

  • PRESS RELEASE : Wolf Review proposes major reform of vocational education [March 2011]

    PRESS RELEASE : Wolf Review proposes major reform of vocational education [March 2011]

    The press release issued by the Department for Education on 3 March 2011.

    • 300,000- 400,000 16- to 19-year-olds doing courses of little value
    • Those who fail to get a ‘C’ in English and maths GCSE must continue to study those subjects

    The independent Wolf Review into vocational education, commissioned by Education Secretary Michael Gove, is published today.

    Professor Alison Wolf analyses how millions of children have been failed over the past twenty years and sets out a blueprint for a very different system in which almost all young people have the chance of further education or a good job.

    • Many 14- to 16-year-olds are on courses which the league table systems encourage but which lead children into dead-ends. Many young people have not been told the truth about the consequences of their choice of qualification.
    • A quarter to a third (300,000 – 400,000) of 16- to 19-year-olds are on courses which do not lead to higher education or good jobs.
    • High-quality apprenticeships are too rare and an increasing proportion are being offered to older people not teenagers.
    • There are many good quality courses and institutions but they exist “in spite of” the current funding and regulatory system. Attempts to fix the system over the past decade have failed. For example, the Diploma was intended to solve the long-term problem but did not (there has been less than one per cent take-up).
    • 45 per cent of the cohort did not get a ‘C’ in GCSE English and maths at 16 and very few (four per cent) of those who fail then go on to achieve this from 16 to 19.
    • There has been a growing crisis in the youth labour market for years.

    Professor Wolf recommends a radical change of direction.

    There are four main principles for reform:

    • The system must stop ‘tracking’ 14 to 16 year olds into ‘dead-end’ courses.
    • The system must be made honest so young people are not pushed into damaging decisions.
    • The system must be dramatically simplified to remove perverse incentives.
    • We should learn best practice from countries doing things better than us, such as Denmark, France and Germany.

    The proposals include:

    • Ensuring anyone who fails to achieve at least a ‘C’ in GCSE English or maths must continue to study those subjects post-16. This would apply to about half the annual cohort.
    • Removing the perverse incentives, created by the funding system and performance tables, to enter students for low-quality qualifications. High quality vocational qualifications can and should be identified by the Government. Only those qualifications – both vocational and academic – that meet stringent quality criteria should form part of the performance management regime for schools. However, schools should also be free to offer whatever other qualifications they wish from regulated awarding bodies.
    • Making performance measures reinforce the commitment to a common core of study at Key Stage 4, with vocational specialisation normally confined to 20 per cent of a pupil’s timetable; and should remove incentives for schools to pile up large numbers of qualifications for ‘accountability’ reasons.
    • Making funding on a per-student basis post-16 as well as pre-16.
    • Regulation moving away from qualification accreditation towards oversight of awarding bodies.
    • Removal of the obligation for qualifications for 16 to 19 year olds to be part of the Qualifications and Credit Framework.
    • Increasing Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for maths teachers.
    • Allowing 14 to 16 year olds to be enrolled in colleges so they can benefit from high-quality vocational training available there.
    • Employers being directly involved in quality assurance and assessment activities at local level, which is the most important guarantor of high quality vocational provision.
    • Recognising that high quality apprenticeships offer great opportunities but there are problems with the system. The Department for Education and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills must work together to fix the funding and other problems.
    • Subsidising employers if they offer 16 to 18 year old apprentices high-quality, off-the-job training, and an education with broad transferable elements.

    Professor Wolf, launching her report today at Westminster Kingsway College in London, alongside Mr Gove, said:

    The system is complex, expensive and counterproductive. We have had twenty years of micromanagement and mounting bureaucratic costs. The funding and accountability systems create perverse incentives to steer students into inferior courses. We have many vocational qualifications that are great and institutions which are providing an excellent education and are heavily oversubscribed. But we also have hundreds of thousands of young people taking qualifications that have little or no value.

    We must change course to give everyone a fair chance of a good education and a good job. Getting at least a ‘C’ in English and maths GCSE is absolutely vital for a young person’s future education and employment so those subjects should be compulsory for 16 to 19 year olds who have not achieved this. A lesson from abroad is that 14 to 16 year-olds should spend 80 per cent of their time on a shared academic core of subjects.

    Mr Gove said Prof Wolf’s report was “brilliant and ground-breaking”. He immediately accepted four recommendations:

    • To allow qualified further education lecturers to teach in school classrooms on the same basis as qualified school teachers.
    • To clarify the rules on allowing industry professionals to teach in schools.
    • To allow any vocational qualification offered by a regulated awarding body to be taken by 14-to19-year-olds.
    • To allow established high-quality vocational qualifications that have not been accredited to be offered in schools and colleges in September 2011.

    Michael Gove said he would now consider how best to implement Professor Wolf’s remaining recommendations.

    He said:

    The system that we have inherited is very damaging. It is unfair for children and it is harming the economy. Millions of children have been misled into pursuing courses which offer little hope.

    We will reform league tables, the funding system, and regulation to give children honest information and access to the right courses.

    Implementing these reforms will be hard and take a few years but we cannot afford another decade of educational failure.

    Andy Wilson, Principal of Westminster Kingsway College, in London, said:

    Westminster Kingsway College welcomes the publication of Alison Wolf’s eagerly awaited report. We are pleased that in taking an early decision to review vocational education, the coalition Government has recognised its importance to both short term economic recovery and the future of the country’s young people. The careful and considered analysis Professor Wolf has provided further enhances the importance of the vocational curriculum and recognises the position of further education colleges at the heart of its delivery.

    Westminster Kingsway has a 100 year history of providing high quality vocational education for young people across London and is proud to host today’s launch event. Of course, our provision has evolved to reflect changing labour market needs and Government policy but has also provided the continuity that both young people and employers rely on. We will continue to respond to the priorities identified in Professor Wolf’s report and to provide routes for increasing numbers of young people to succeed as they progress directly to sustainable careers or HE.

    Andy Palmer, head of skills at BT, said:

    We require strong literacy and numeracy but all too often it is these key skills – particularly the ability to deploy them in the workplace – that cause our young recruits so many problems and requires investment from us.

    We continually hear about the need for parity of esteem between academic and vocational qualifications but this masks the fact that they are different products with different outputs. Our senior management roles are populated by former apprentices and graduates alike.

    Ali Hadawi CBE, Principal of Central Bedfordshire College, said:

    The changes wrought over recent years have seen a systematic de-skilling of the quality of provision with the emphasis on achievement of a qualification being primary and the dumbing-down of the content, quality and rigour.

    Sally Lowe, 14-19 partnership manager at Education Leeds on behalf of the 11-19 (25) Learning & Support Partnership, said:

    There needs to be a single funding mechanism for 14-19. The awarding bodies used to have far more of a ‘hands on’ approach to ensuring the quality of delivery of vocational qualifications in centres. This has been eroded over the past 10 years and means that delivery centres are less accountable.

    Awarding organisations needs to review existing Quality Assurance and implement more rigour to centre approval.

    Phil Dover, Principal of Lees Brook Community Sports College, in Derby, said:

    Some schools have used the flexibility in the assessment process to enable students to gain qualifications and accreditation too easily. The procedure needs to be changed by making the external verification process more rigorous.

    Pete Birkett, chief executive of Barnfield Federation in Luton, said:

    I welcome this report. I’m pleased that Alison Wolf took the time to visit Barnfield to meet with me and our staff and students to understand the real issues. She is right that we need to have experts teaching vocational qualifications who really understand and enjoy their subjects.

    Wendy Wright OBE, Principal of Macclesfield College, said:

    I was delighted that my college was part of the Wolf Review. I welcome the focus Prof Wolf has brought to the importance of vocational education for this country. My students are fully equipped for the world of work or further study and I want all students to have the same opportunity.

    Lynn Sedgmore, of the 157 Group, said:

    The 157 Group really welcome such a focus on the importance and benefits of vocational education. We appreciate the rigour and comprehensive dialogue that has taken place and we look forward to working constructively to ensure the main recommendations are implemented.

  • Jonathan Hill – 2011 Speech to the National Governors’ Association

    Jonathan Hill – 2011 Speech to the National Governors’ Association

    The speech made by Jonathan Hill, the then Education Minister, at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London on 2 March 2011.

    Improving all our schools

    Thank you so much for having me back.

    A lot has happened since I last spoke at your conference in November.

    Since then, we’ve published our white paper, The Importance of Teaching, and introduced our Education Bill into Parliament. Both have something to say about the importance of governors. Both reflected a number of the arguments made to me by Emma and Clare on your behalf. And both set out our plans for improving all our schools.

    As I hope you know, I am very grateful for the work the NGA does on behalf of governors – and to governors for the work you do on behalf of schools.

    As the white paper made clear, we believe that governing bodies should be the key strategic body in schools, responsible for the overall direction that a school takes. In that respect, governors are also therefore the key body for school improvement.

    One of the most important parts of my job is to make sure that you have the time, the space and the tools you need to do yours.

    I know that good governing bodies can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, with members drawn from many different walks of life. So we want to give schools more flexibility to decide for themselves on the structure and composition of governing bodies that will best meet their school’s particular needs.

    I am especially keen that governing bodies are able to appoint members with the mix of skills they think they need, rather than because they have to be appointed from a particular category or group. So I am pleased that we’re making it possible for schools to adopt more flexible models, with the only requirement being that they appoint a minimum of two parent governors to sit alongside the headteacher on the governing body.

    Schools will of course still be able to appoint members of staff or local authority governors if that’s what they believe is right for them. Voluntary-aided schools can still also retain foundation governors to allow them to preserve their religious character.

    But it will be a decision for schools to exercise themselves – or not – not something that is imposed. And it is very much in line with points made to me by the NGA about moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach.

    I also agree with the NGA that trained clerks who can offer expert advice and guidance to governing bodies can be a real help and I would like to see more schools considering appointing them.

    And I agree too that governing bodies sometimes don’t have the information or training they need to challenge and support their headteacher, which is why I want to make it easier for governors to ask challenging questions by giving them access to more data about how their school is doing and to work with the National College to offer high-quality training for chairs of governors.

    These measures are all deliberately designed to help governors perform their vital school leadership role, because there is no more important part of your jobs than helping your schools to improve.

    Let me set out the broad context for school improvement by explaining the principles that underpin our approach.

    First, at the heart of our approach is a belief that greater autonomy should be extended to schools and greater trust to front-line professionals.

    The evidence of the past decade in our own country, as well as from the jurisdictions around the world with the best-performing education systems, shows that the fastest improvement takes place where schools have the most freedom.

    One way to give schools greater autonomy is through our Academies programme, and I’m delighted that so many schools have decided to take us up on our offer to become academies. Since the start of the school year in September, more than two new academies have opened every working day, bringing the overall total of academies to around 450. By the beginning of this year, more than one in 10 secondary schools was an academy – since then the pace has been accelerating.

    Of course, some schools don’t yet want to become academies. My job is to support those schools just as much as in those that do convert. So as well as the freedom for governing bodies I described earlier, we’re keen to reduce the bureaucratic burden faced by all schools by cutting away unnecessary duties, reducing prescription in the curriculum, clarifying and shrinking guidance, simplifying school inspection and scrapping as many unnecessary processes as we can.

    The best-performing education systems all combine greater autonomy for schools with intelligent accountability that makes schools accountable, allows fair comparisons to be made between schools by parents, and drives improvement.

    So our second principle is to strengthen the accountability framework. We want to publish much more information and data so that governors, headteachers and parents can all see how their schools are doing but also learn from those schools that are performing well.

    And it’s because it’s so important that the public can make fair comparisons between schools that we are also revamping performance tables to place more emphasis on the real value schools add, as well as the raw attainment results they secure.

    Pupils need good qualifications to succeed – but I know that it has been a bugbear of many governors for a while now that we don’t always recognise the successes by those schools that take children from the most challenging and difficult backgrounds and help them gain good qualifications.

    The third principle of our approach to school improvement is to strive for higher expectations for all pupils.

    Other nations have an expectation that more and more young people leave school with better and better qualifications. Our current expectation that only English and maths be considered a minimum benchmark at 16 marks us out from them.

    It is because we want to raise our expectations to match the highest standards around the world that we are introducing a new measure – the English Baccalaureate – which will show how many students in each school secured five good passes in English, maths, science, languages and one of the humanities.

    More generally, minimum standards at GCSE have also risen in recent years, in line with the increased aspirations of parents and communities. All those headteachers, teachers and governors who have helped drive improvement deserve special credit.

    But given the quickening pace of school improvement around the world, we have also raised the floor standards and, importantly, made them fairer by adding a new progression measure.

    A secondary school will now be below the floor if fewer than 35 per cent of pupils achieve the standard of five A*-C GCSEs including English and maths – up from 30 per cent – and fewer pupils than the national average make the expected levels of progress between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 in English and maths.

    A primary school will be below the floor if fewer than 60 per cent of pupils achieve the standard of Level 4 in both English and maths at Key Stage 2 – up from 55 per cent – and fewer pupils than the national average make the expected levels of progress between Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 in English and maths.

    But I am clear that this is only a guideline, and any school where attainment and pupil progression are low and where schools lack the capacity to improve themselves will be eligible for the additional support they need.

    And that’s why proportional support is the fourth principle that guides our approach to school improvement. Many of those schools that need to improve the most serve the most disadvantaged communities of the country and face the greatest challenges.

    Our pupil premium will ensure those schools receive additional money – starting at £430 per pupil but rising in total from £625 million this year to £2.5 billion per year by 2015 – to support the education of the most disadvantaged pupils.

    On top of this, we have created a new education endowment fund worth £110 million, which provides a further incentive for schools and local authorities to work together to bring forward innovative projects that will raise attainment of disadvantaged children in underperforming schools.

    And because nothing matters more than giving more of the poorest children access to the best teaching, we are more than doubling the size of Teach First so more of the best young graduates are able to teach in more of our most challenging schools, including primaries.

    But this won’t be enough for all of the lowest-performing schools.

    You’ve already heard today from Dr Liz Sidwell, herself an inspirational head, who I’m delighted to say is now working with us as the Schools Commissioner. Liz’s job will be to use her experience and knowledge to work with local authorities to identify those schools most in need of support and then to help them develop plans for their improvement.

    I’m sure Liz will also be interested to hear your thoughts – through the NGA – on how the expertise of local authorities in school improvement can be retained and used most effectively.

    And I do want to stress that local authorities remain our essential partners in school improvement. Many local authorities will already have plans to improve schools below the floor standards in hand. And Michael Gove wrote to local authorities yesterday asking them to share those plans, which will also cover primaries for the first time, with us.

    Where it’s essential, additional financial support will be made available, but many will not require extra money and will involve extending the influence of high-quality academy sponsors and harnessing the talents of great headteachers to help those schools that are underperforming.

    School-to-school collaboration is the fifth and final principle. Whether it’s a strong school supporting a weaker school or good schools collaborating together, partnership working goes with the grain of the culture that already exists within many schools.

    One of the most exciting developments – if not the most exciting development – coming out of the academies programme is that powerful combination of autonomy and partnership that is seeing a growing number of schools wanting to become academies in chains or clusters.

    And it’s just as encouraging to see groups of primaries clustering around a secondary school or federations of good schools where opportunities for pupils and staff are being increased, standards are going up and costs are going down – including in rural areas.

    One of the great school improvement success stories in recent years have been national and local leaders in education.

    Because we are committed to more of that system-led leadership that we know works, we’ve doubled the number of NLEs and LLEs and we’re also establishing a new national network of 500 teaching schools by 2015. Based on our teaching hospitals, they will act as real centres of excellence and ensure teachers can access excellent continued professional development throughout their careers.

    In many ways, education is a continual quest for improvement. It is a quest to reach the ever higher standards that will allow more of our young people to be educated to ever higher levels.

    I know it is that quest that led to you to giving up your valuable time to volunteer as school governors. You are the unsung heroes of our education system.

    That’s why it’s always such a privilege to speak at an NGA conference.

    And why I will do what I can to champion the role of governors.

  • PRESS RELEASE : Ex-military to be inspiring role models for young people [February 2011]

    PRESS RELEASE : Ex-military to be inspiring role models for young people [February 2011]

    The press release issued by the Department for Education on 28 February 2011.

    Former members of the armed forces will become mentors to young people in schools across England following a £1.5 million grant to the charity SkillForce, Education Secretary Michael Gove announced today.

    Through three pilot programmes, ex-service personnel will be fast-tracked into schools, using the skills and experience gained on the frontline to help young people achieve. SkillForce will be funded to set up the three programmes from September 2011:

    • Military to Mentors: 100 ex-service personnel will be trained to work as mentors for young people in and out of schools across England. SkillForce will work alongside two other organisations, Endeavour and the Knowsley Skills Academy, on this programme
    • Zero Exclusion Pilot: SkillForce will provide intensive support to 100 young people at risk of exclusion from school. This will take place in five regions across England (areas to be confirmed), over a 12 month period
    • Expand SkillForce Core Programme: investing in the existing SkillForce programme that uses teams of instructors from military backgrounds to work with disadvantaged young people, helping them gain qualifications. Over a year, the charity will support 340 additional young people from parts of the country with high unemployment and deprivation. Part of this will include elements of the Zero Exclusion pilot

    These schemes are part of the government’s broader drive to encourage armed forces leavers to use their talents to help raise standards in schools. The move is inspired by a similar, highly successful programme in the United States.

    Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, said:

    There is a huge opportunity for those people who have served their country in uniform to serve their country in our schools. They have many of the virtues that parents across the country feel have disappeared from our schools and need to be restored: self-discipline, a sense of purpose and a belief in the importance of working as a team.

    That is why I want to offer people leaving our armed forces an opportunity to enter the classroom, and I am delighted to support SkillForce in doing so. Ex-Service personnel will act as inspiring role models for the next generation. They will help to instil in young people, often from some of the most disadvantaged backgrounds, discipline, self-respect and a sense of purpose.

    Peter Cross, Chief Executive of SkillForce, said:

    SkillForce is delighted to be asked to expand its work with disadvantaged young people. Our programmes effect positive and permanent change in their lives as evidenced by 60 per cent on free school meals going into further education compared with 9 per cent nationally. The use of former military mentors enables them to serve their communities following a first career of service to their country.

    Dr Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence said:

    The men and women who have served in Britain’s armed forces have a great deal to offer their local communities. The SkillForce programme is a great example of Big Society in action and will allow former service personnel to make a real difference to young peoples’ lives. At the core of our armed forces are the values central to a successful society such as loyalty, self discipline and motivation. I am certain that the nation’s children will thrive under the mentorship of these courageous individuals.

    Ross Emery, who served in the army for over ten years including Bosnia, Cyprus, Kuwait and Iraq, and now a mentor at SkillForce, said:

    I applied for SkillForce because I enjoyed working with young people from my previous career. This was the right option, I have loved every minute and still continue to do so. I walk away with a sense of achievement and reward from the turnaround of my students and what they have accomplished and achieved through their own hard work and with my guidance. I aim to continue this for many years to come.

    Alec, 17, who has been mentored through the SkillForce programme said:

    I was always getting into trouble at school, skipping classes, and talking back to teachers. SkillForce showed me another way. They showed me how to look at things differently, and whatever I want to do, I can do. They showed me that if I worked hard, if I disciplined myself I could get out of my situation and become something. I gained qualifications and learned the communication skills that got me successfully through my engineering apprenticeship interview. SkillForce really changed my life.

    The recent schools white paper, ‘The importance of teaching’, announced that armed forces leavers would be encouraged and sponsored to become teachers through a ‘Troops to Teachers’ programme. This is based on a similar programme in the United States. Overwhelming evidence has shown that across America, ex-troops are proving to be excellent teachers, and are making a particularly positive contribution in high-poverty schools.

    The full ‘Troops to Teachers’ package in England will include a variety of different forms of support for Service leavers wishing to enter the classroom. The coalition government will introduce financial subsidies and a new fast-tracked undergraduate route into teaching for those who have the relevant experience and skills but may lack degree level qualifications.

  • PRESS RELEASE : Ex-service personnel to become mentors to young people [February 2011]

    PRESS RELEASE : Ex-service personnel to become mentors to young people [February 2011]

    The press release issued by the Department for Education on 28 February 2011.

    Former members of the armed forces will become mentors to young people in schools across England following a £1.5 million grant to the charity SkillForce, Education Secretary Michael Gove announced today.

    Through three pilot programmes, ex-service personnel will be fast-tracked into schools, using the skills and experience gained on the frontline to help young people achieve. SkillForce will be funded to set up the three programmes from September 2011:

    • Military to Mentors: 100 ex-service personnel will be trained to work as mentors for young people in and out of schools across England. SkillForce will work alongside two other organisations – Endeavour and the Knowsley Skills Academy on this programme.
    • Zero Exclusion Pilot: SkillForce will provide intensive support to 100 young people at risk of exclusion from school. This will take place in five regions across England (areas to be confirmed), over a 12 month period.
    • Expand SkillForce Core Programme: investing in the existing SkillForce programme that uses teams of instructors from military backgrounds to work with disadvantaged young people, helping them gain qualifications. Over a year, the charity will support 340 additional young people from parts of the country with high unemployment and deprivation. Part of this will include elements of the Zero Exclusion pilot.

    Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, said:

    There is a huge opportunity for those people who have served their country in uniform to serve their country in our schools. They have many of the virtues that parents across the country feel have disappeared from our schools and need to be restored: self-discipline, a sense of purpose and a belief in the importance of working as a team.

    That is why I want to offer people leaving our Armed Forces an opportunity to enter the classroom, and I am delighted to support SkillForce in doing so. Ex-Service personnel will act as inspiring role models for the next generation. They will help to instil in young people, often from some of the most disadvantaged backgrounds, discipline, self-respect and a sense of purpose.

    Peter Cross, Chief Executive of SkillForce, said:

    SkillForce is delighted to be asked to expand its work with disadvantaged young people. Our programmes effect positive and permanent change in their lives as evidenced by 60 per cent on Free School Meals going into Further Education compared with nine per cent nationally. The use of former military mentors enables them to serve their communities following a first career of service to their country.

    Dr Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence said:

    The men and women who have served in Britain’s Armed Forces have a great deal to offer their local communities. The SkillForce programme is a great example of Big Society in action and will allow former Service personnel to make a real difference to young peoples’ lives. At the core of our Armed Forces are the values central to a successful society such as loyalty, self discipline and motivation. I am certain that the nation’s children will thrive under the mentorship of these courageous individuals.

  • PRESS RELEASE : Free books for children [February 2011]

    PRESS RELEASE : Free books for children [February 2011]

    The press release issued by the Department for Education on 25 February 2011.

    Education Secretary Michael Gove today confirmed that children in England will continue to receive free books at key stages of their childhood to instill a love of stories and reading.

    The free bookgifting scheme will be delivered by the successful Booktrust charity with Government investment valuing £13.5 million over two years – half the cost of the previous scheme.

    The new bookgifting programme will remain a universal offer, but will be enhanced by new elements offering targeted support for disadvantaged children and families. The programme will give all children up to the age of 11 access to books from an early age and will help contribute towards their literacy and learning skills.

    Education Secretary Michael Gove said:

    A lifetime love of books, stories and rhymes starts in the earliest days of a child’s life, and intensifies throughout their childhood and beyond. This scheme will help all children to develop a love for books and will crucially provide extra support to address the needs of children who live with disadvantage.

    I am extremely confident that Booktrust, with whom we’ve worked closely to secure an excellent funding package over the next two years, will use their wealth of experience and expertise to deliver a bookgifting scheme that makes a real difference to children and families, and is sustainable in the longer term.

    Chief Executive of Booktrust Viv Bird said:

    We are pleased that the Department for Education is to continue its strong partnership with Booktrust and publishers in funding the bookgifting programme. This announcement reflects our shared aspiration to inspire a love of reading, and to offer more choice and support to the most disadvantaged children and families.

    Working closely with our partners Booktrust will ensure the continued delivery of a universal offer in a cost effective way and also create new offers targeted to those most in need. This will mean that as well as receiving free books for children to read for pleasure, schools with a high proportion of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds will be invited to join the programme.

    We are tremendously grateful for the support we have received from publishers, authors, local authorities, libraries, health officials, schools and children’s centres and look forward to consulting closely with all of our partners about the shape and details of the programme.

    The schemes are:

    • Bookstart Baby (0 to12 months) – universal offer
    • Bookstart Corner (12 to 30 months) – targeted through Children’s Centres
    • Bookstart Treasure Bag (3 to 4 years) – universal offer
    • Booktime (4 to 5 years, Reception year) – universal and enhanced by a targeted Primary Programme for Reception age and Year 1 children
    • Booked Up (11 to 12 years, Year 7) – universal and enhanced by a targeted Secondary Programme for children in years 7 and 8

    There are also titles for children with additional special needs, as part of the Bookstart, Booktime and Booked Up arrangements.

    Working closely with Booktrust, the new offer builds on the previous scheme with additional targeted provision for the most disadvantaged children and families. This will include working with a number of schools serving the most disadvantaged children to provide additional support from Booktrust which will focus on three main areas:

    • maintaining the universal offer for all families with babies 0 to 12 months and at three years old encouraging all families to nurture their child’s love of books and reading – we know a good home-learning environment is shown to be important for children’s development and linked to unlocking social mobility
    • a strong new offer for families with toddlers aged 12 to 30 months (Bookstart Corner) accessed only through Sure Start children’s centres to help us do more to ensure that the families in greatest need benefit.
    • building on universal bookgifts for children in reception and Year 7, a new targeted offer will provide extra resources for particularly disadvantaged schools, to help raise standards of literacy among those pupils who are often at risk of under-attaining, supporting those who may be growing up without access to books to achieve their potential.
  • PRESS RELEASE : Lord Hill responds to the ‘Yorkshire Post’ on free schools [February 2011]

    PRESS RELEASE : Lord Hill responds to the ‘Yorkshire Post’ on free schools [February 2011]

    The press release issued by the Department for Education on 22 February 2011.

    Sir

    I am sorry that Fiona Millar constantly seeks to diminish the efforts of dedicated parents, teachers and charities who simply want to improve education for children in their area (Fiona Millar ‘Why free schools will cost our children and society dear’, Yorkshire Post 11 February 2011). Contrary to what she claims, free schools will not allow ‘covert selection’, cause a threat to community cohesion or receive preferential funding. They will follow the same legal admissions procedures as other schools, and will be monitored by Ofsted and the government.

    They will simply be state-funded schools established where there is local demand from parents for a good and new type of school for their children.

    The truth is that top-down solutions of the sort favoured by Fiona Millar have not worked, despite the best efforts of teachers and heads. By freeing up the system we are giving local groups of parents and teachers the opportunity to increase choice and raise standards. The fact that we have had such a strong response – over 250 proposals already shows that there is a great deal of enthusiasm for the idea of free schools. I am glad to be on the side of parents, charities and committed teachers who are trying to make things better and am sorry that the forces of conservatism represented by Fiona Millar want to snuff that diversity out.

    Lord Hill

    Schools Minister