Tag: Gillian Keegan

The speech made by Gillian Keegan, the Secretary of State for Education, on 27 January 2023.

Good morning – it’s fantastic to be here with you all today.

As education secretary I often get asked what “education” means. Is it a particular subject, a skill, or is it something else?

And you know – I think there’s one unifying factor.

An education lets you do things that you couldn’t beforehand.

Preparing for this speech gave me the opportunity to reflect on my own schooling which was always in faith schools.

It was a different denomination – Catholic. I remember starting school aged four at St Mary’s, in St Helens, which is just outside Liverpool.

It was a terrifying experience, I think it is always quite a terrifying experience when you start school. But not least because it was run by nuns and they were dressed in black robes and they absolutely terrified me.

Through their kindness, I eventually overcame my fears and began to flourish in school. I learned an early lesson not to judge by appearance.

Overcoming fear is a valuable life skill and one that I use everyday in the world of politics.

Indeed, I’m using it right now at the annual conference of a church. A clear demonstration that I’ve learned to do something that I didn’t used to do.

That is the power of education. Even if those nuns might say, I’m addressing the wrong denomination.

I am grateful to Saint Mary’s and all my schools.

All the teachers at the fantastic faith schools have got me to where I am today. They also instilled faith in me, which is still a core part of who I am today.

Faith is something I think that everyone here can understand – and I want you to know how much I value the role the Church of England plays in educating our children.

Its reputation for excellence in schools speaks for itself, and you are one of my Department’s most valued partners.

You provide over a fifth of state-funded schools, a quarter of primary schools, and are the largest provider of academy trusts.

Your schools are more likely to be good or outstanding than those without a religious character.

There are Anglican colleges in every continent of the world, bar Antarctica. There is a potential growth opportunity there.

You are transforming lives. You should be proud of the work you do, and on behalf of the children you teach, I am eternally grateful.

Put simply, without the Church of England – pupils across the country would be learning less and doing worse.

And a big part of that is that you have used the academy trust model. This is the structure that we think is going to make the biggest difference for our children, but we know it only works if focused on improving quality all the time, always striving for excellence.

And I can promise you I will work tirelessly to support quality teaching and spread best practice. I’m taking forward the Review of regulation and commissioning, so we can do this to help improve outcomes for all our children.

That’s also why I want more schools to be in high-quality trusts.

To support you we will protect your schools, so that when they become academies they retain the statutory freedoms and protections that apply to Church schools.

It means working in each area to shape the right plan at the right pace that builds the quality that pupils need.

In the past 10 years we have made huge strides to give every child the chance in life they deserve. And all of you are central to that success.

Today 88% of schools rated Ofsted good or outstanding, compared to 68% when we took office.

From 2010, in just eight years we brought the UK up the PISA rankings from 25th to 14th in reading and 28th to 18th in maths.

Your schools have played a massive part in this. But to really flourish, we must go further still.

I am determined to ensure more children meet our expected standards at reading, writing and maths and I agree with the Prime Minister on maths to 18.

We all use maths every day, from grocery shopping, to buying financial products, to mortgages, to understanding good debt from bad. And we must equip our children to deal with life’s complexities.

But to make this all add up, there have to be great teachers.

Many of you will have heard me praise my apprenticeship which provided me with a great start to my working life at 18.

But that journey began with a school teacher called Mr Ashcroft.

He would stay late to teach me and another girl technical drawing and engineering, and that allowed me to get 10 O-levels at a school where most struggled to achieve only 4 or 5.

All thanks to one teacher at one school, helping me to realise my one opportunity.

I want every child to be inspired by a teacher like Mr Ashcroft. That’s why we’ve put in place a world-class teacher development system.

This includes the delivery of 150,000 fully funded National Professional Qualifications by 2024 and I want all school leaders to think about how NPQs can benefit both their staff and pupils.

I know the Church of England is a valued provider of these.

We also know they are hugely popular. So we want to see even more of our teachers doing them.

But for teachers to have an impact, they need to be in school.

I understand the pressures many people are facing including our teachers and we struggle with the economic challenges due to the war in Ukraine. Inflation eats away at all our pay checks.

On the top of my in-tray when I got this job was a joint letter from the four major teaching unions – it asked for an extra £2 billion next year and the year after to support our schools with increased costs and to help fund this years pay awards.

We were one of the few departments to be given money in the Autumn Statement.

And yes, we did get £2 billion more both years. The unions asked, we delivered.

That uplift means we will be funding schools, in real terms, at the highest level ever in history.

It may not have been smart to use so much political capital in my first couple of weeks. But I hope it goes to show my personal commitment.

I know from my speaking to thousands of teachers, many in your schools, that there is more to do.

My promise to you is I will always listen.

Saying my door is always open is a cliché but it is true. I am a very open person.

My ask of all of you now is that you now work with me to keep as many children in school as possible during the disruptive strike action.

I began by saying how my education had helped me in my career. I’d like to finish by sharing three key things I’ve learnt through that career.

First, you don’t get far without acting on what you know works; second, you won’t achieve much without a visionary leader and finally, you’ll barely get out of the starting blocks without working together and collaborating with others.

And I am looking forward to collaborating with you all to make sure our education system flourishes for all our children.

The statement made by Gillian Keegan, the Secretary of State for Education, in the House of Commons on 6 December 2022.

Today, I am confirming £500 million of additional capital funding for schools, sixth form colleges and Further Education colleges to help improve energy efficiency this financial year.

This comprises £447 million for schools and sixth form colleges and £53 million for FE colleges to spend on capital improvements to buildings and facilities, prioritising works to improve energy efficiency. The Department has published guidance for schools and colleges on sensible steps for reducing energy use and small-scale works to improve energy efficiency, which can be implemented quickly to make a difference through the colder months and beyond.

Schools and colleges will be allocated at least £10,000 of additional capital funding, with further funding allocated in proportion to size. Primary schools have been allocated an average of approximately £16,000 and secondary schools an average of £42,000. An average group of FE colleges will be allocated £290,000. Schools and colleges can decide how best to invest the capital funding on energy efficiency measures. Where they judge this is not appropriate based on local circumstances, they have discretion to spend this on other capital projects.

The funding will be made available to FE colleges and designated institutions, as well as schools already eligible for Devolved Formula Capital (DFC) allocations in financial year 2022-23. This includes eligible maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, academies and free schools, pupil referral units, non-maintained special schools, sixth form colleges and specialist post-16 institutions with eligible students.

This funding comes on top of £1.8 billion of capital funding already committed this financial year for improving the condition of school buildings. In addition, the School Rebuilding Programme will rebuild or refurbish buildings at 500 schools and sixth form colleges over the next decade. The allocations are also on top of the £1.5 billion investment in upgrading the FE college estate through the FE Capital Transformation Programme, the more than £400 m of capital funding provided so far for T Levels providers, and the £150 million allocation of capital funding for colleges announced on 29 November.

The Government understand that like families and businesses across the country, schools and FE colleges are facing challenges with rising prices due to inflation. Significant increases to school revenue funding will help schools to manage these higher costs, with core schools’ funding—including funding for both mainstream schools and high needs—increasing by £4 billion in financial year 2022-23 compared to the previous year. The autumn statement 2022 confirmed that this Government will protect the per pupil funding levels committed to at spending review 2021 in real terms, providing an additional net increase in the core schools budget of £2.0 billion in both 2023-24 and 2024-25. This brings the core schools budget to a total of £58.8 billion in 2024-25. This additional funding will be used to support both mainstream schools and local authorities’ high needs budgets.

Overall funding for the FE sector is increasing with an extra £1.6 billion in 16-19 education in 2024-25 compared with 2021-22. This funding has come with stretching deliverables to transform our technical education offer—including T-levels, and extra provision to support education recovery to enable learners to catch up from the pandemic.

Schools, FE colleges and education providers are also benefiting from the Energy Bill Relief Scheme. This will reduce how much schools and other providers need to spend on their energy, and give greater certainty over budgets over the winter months.

The statement made by Gillian Keegan, the Secretary of State for Education, in the House of Commons on 26 October 2022.

Today, the independent child safeguarding practice review panel published phase 1 findings from its national review into safeguarding children with disabilities and complex health needs in residential settings. I want to thank the panel for their work to date and for their continued commitment as they move into phase 2, which will make recommendations to improve practice and policy in spring 2023. I also want to extend my thanks to Doncaster Safeguarding Partnership and South Yorkshire police for their co-operation and contribution to the review.

The report outlines the shocking abuse and safeguarding failures in three dual-registered children’s homes/residential special schools for disabled children in Doncaster, owned by the private provider the Hesley Group. I am horrified about what has happened and I want to assure the House that this is something that I, and the Department, take with the utmost seriousness.

The children living in such homes are some of the most vulnerable in our society and it is imperative that we protect them from harm. We expect all children’s homes and residential schools to provide the right support, care and protection for children who live there.

Following whistleblowing referrals in February 2021, Ofsted undertook emergency inspections. The provision’s registration was suspended and the 60 children and young adults who resided in the settings were moved to alternative settings by May. I understand that the families and the children themselves found the urgency of moving a very unsettling and disturbing process, and my heart goes out to the children, young people and their families who went through this. Doncaster Safeguarding Partnership took the lead on investigating these incidents and on working with all other relevant local authorities to ensure that the children and families affected have received support and care and been able to participate in this investigation. I am grateful to them for their action.

Given the seriousness of the concerns and the vulnerability of the children, it has been important to learn lessons as soon as possible on how to improve practice and policy to protect children better in future. That is why the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), agreed the panel should undertake a national child safeguarding practice review at the same time as the ongoing live criminal investigation. This is the first time that the panel has carried out a review while a live police investigation is ongoing, and I am unable to provide any further comments on specifics of the case as we need to respect that process.

The safety and wellbeing of all children and young people in the settings has been at the heart of all the decisions we have made. In January, my officials sought and received assurances from 55 local authorities (LAs) about the wellbeing of all of the children that had been placed in the provision operated by Hesley in scope of the investigation. In February my officials wrote out to remind all LAs of the importance of checks for all children placed out of area and the importance of ensuring that disclosure barring service and pre-employment checks are always undertaken prior to anyone’s employment in residential establishments.

We also asked LAs to review their commissioning processes for children and young people with complex needs and ensure that they acted on any concerns. The panel has asked all LAs in England to review urgently the quality and safety of individual placements of children in specialist residential provision, and they will report to the Department by the end of the year.

Phase one of the review has set out the complex interactions between special educational needs and disability (SEND) and children’s social care services, and the challenges regarding placement quality, commissioning and oversight. Phase 2 of the review will commence shortly and will ask some important questions about how children with SEND are safeguarded and cared for in residential settings. Most importantly, it will seek to identify ways in which practice, policy and the system might need to change to protect children better in the future.

The independent review of children’s social care and the SEND and alternative provision Green Paper provide an opportunity to reset children’s social care and SEND services and provide better outcomes for the most vulnerable children. Recent reports by the Competition and Markets Authority, the national child safeguarding panel and the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse will also be reflected in our response. Our plans for children’s social care and SEND reform are being drawn up in parallel so that reforms resulting from these reviews lead to a coherent system that works for all vulnerable children. We are rapidly working up an ambitious and comprehensive implementation strategy in response to the reviews.

However, I am committed to taking urgent action to change and improve the system as soon as possible. The Department will bring forward work to:

Strengthen the standards and regulations governing the care of children who are looked after to ensure consistently high-quality provision and inspection, with a high level of ambition for all children;

Strengthen the national minimum standards for residential special schools; and

Work with Ofsted to strengthen its inspection and regulatory powers to hold private providers of children’s homes to account.

We will work closely with other Government Departments and partner organisations, particularly local authorities, to review the role of the local authority designated officer (LADO) and consult on developing a LADO handbook that includes improving handling whistleblowing concerns and complaints in circumstances such as these.

In addition, I will convene a roundtable discussion with providers of residential special schools and children’s homes, to ensure they are holding themselves and their staff to the highest quality standards and are confident that the vulnerable children in their care are safe and having their needs met. While the majority of children’s homes are rated good or outstanding, I want to work with providers to tackle issues which have been highlighted in phase 1 of the panel report and act on the recommendations which will follow on completion of phase 2 of the panel’s work.

I also expect Ofsted, as the inspector and regulator of residential children’s homes, to take urgent action wherever safeguarding concerns are identified. I have written to His Majesty’s chief inspector of education, children’s services and skills to ask what lessons Ofsted has learned and the changes they have made as a result.

The comments made by Gillian Keegan on her appointment as Education Secretary on 26 October 2022.

I’m deeply honoured to have been appointed as Secretary of State for Education by the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Education transforms lives – I know that talent is spread equally around the country and I will work tirelessly to ensure opportunity is also.