Tag: Jonathan Hill

The speech made by Lord Hill, the then Education Minister, on 18 October 2012.

Thank you David, and thank you for giving me the chance to come today to say a few words about the studio schools movement that is gathering pace across the land.

When I spoke at your conference two years ago, there were just two studio schools. Today there are 16. By next September we should hit 30.The application round for September 2014 is open and I know that I will be seeing more strong proposals coming forward by the beginning of next year.

We are seeing new studio schools opening from London to Liverpool, from Durham to Devon. And they are doing so at a cracking pace. Last year we weren’t able to approve successful proposals until December. Yet 9 months later, thanks to the incredibly hard work of sponsors, 11 new studio schools opened successfully.

That shows to me not just what people can achieve when they put their minds to things, but how great the demand for studio schools is – from employers, from parents, and from pupils.

One of the best parts of my job is seeing schools that at the beginning of the year were just names on a piece of paper, open, bustling, and full of children. That is an amazing achievement, so to those of you in this room who were part of that I would like to say thank you. And to those of you who are embarking on the same process for next September – or who intend to bid for September 2014 – I want to say that on past form it is eminently do-able. And you won’t be alone.

There is the excellent Studio Schools Trust led by the brilliant David Nicholl who will be on hand to advise and support. A growing number of Studio Schools who can share their experience, particularly on the importance of early and consistent marketing. And my team of officials who I know will give you all the help they can.

Why am I an enthusiast for studio schools? Because they provide a different route for children who learn better by doing and who are by nature more practical or entrepreneurial. Because alongside those practical and vocational skills they offer a rigorous academic education. And because they are a brilliant way of bringing the worlds of education and work closer together to the benefit of both.

We have all heard employers saying that they can’t find British school leavers with the skills they need. And it’s not just concerns about literacy and numeracy, but equally basic things like turning up on time, looking presentable, knowing how to work in a team and how to take instructions from a manager.

A recent Federation of Small Businesses survey said that something approaching 8 in 10 firms are concerned that young people leaving school aren’t ready for work. And a survey carried out by the CBI earlier this year found that 42% of businesses were not satisfied with literacy of school and college leavers, and over a third were not satisfied with levels of numeracy.

What is exciting about studio schools is that employers aren’t just pointing out a problem. They are rolling up their sleeves and doing something about it.

What better way of bridging the gap between school and work is there than local businesses helping to shape the curriculum, providing mentoring and offering proper work experience – often paid for after the age of 16. Is it any wonder that when I visit studio schools I see keen, smartly turned out youngsters motivated by the chance to work with and learn from local employers.

And wherever I go I meet parents who speak about the difference they have seen in their children.

There are more than 150 employers currently working with studio schools and that figure is increasing the whole time as schools build new relationships with employers large and small to offer the widest range of opportunities to their pupils.

These range from major national employers like Capita, the Press Association, Ikea and Specsavers a to smaller local businesses including architects, graphic design companies, local Michelin Star restaurants and public sector employers.

There are studio schools with specialisms as diverse as gaming and digital futures, construction, catering and hospitality, health and social care, science and engineering, and creative arts. Including the studio school here in Southampton which is going to specialise in marine and cruise industries. These all reflect the local jobs market and the needs and strengths of local areas.

There is growing enthusiasm, not just from employers, but from different kinds of sponsors wanting to open a studio school. The first wave saw lots of outstanding FE colleges stepping forward. Outstanding academies such as the Parkside Federation in Hillingdon and Ockenden Academy in Thurrock and academy chains such as AET and the Aldridge Foundation, are also becoming studio school sponsors in growing numbers.

And for the first time this year, we approved two projects driven by community groups: Kajans in Birmingham and the Vine Trust in Walsall.

While there is no standard blueprint for a studio school they share a common feature. They are all driven by inspirational groups who are determined to give young people the chance to achieve their potential.

And it’s important to be clear that studio schools aren’t some kind of soft option. There isn’t anything soft about the practical skills being offered and all studio schools will offer a solid academic grounding in maths and English and science, as well as a range of other GCSEs and vocational qualifications. Many studio schools like LEAF in Bournemouth, Da Vinci in Hertfordshire and Devon Studio School, will give pupils the opportunity to study for the EBacc. In the sixth form, the offer may include A levels, BTECs, or apprenticeships. This opens up to students a range of opportunities after they leave the school, including going on to university, further vocational training, Higher Apprenticeships, employment or starting their own business.

So studio schools offer a fresh and new culture. They are all ability. They have high aspirations. And they are part of a broader move to increase choice, alongside the expansion of university technical colleges, academies and free schools, academies. A system driven by local people, local children and local employers.

As such, they speak to many of the key principles that underpin the government’s overall education reforms.

We are supporting greater freedoms by placing more trust in professionals and stripping back top-down interference where we can. Politicians always say they believe in trusting professionals – and then nearly always do the exact opposite.

We have an underlying goal of trying to tilt the system back in favour of trusting professionals. You can see it in our drive to cut back on regulations. We have removed 75% of centrally-issued guidance to schools over the last two years – more than 20,000 pages. We are determined to resist adding subjects to the national curriculum and indeed – to slimming it back to a core – freeing up more time for teachers and schools. And we have opened up academy freedoms – the legal basis of all new studio schools – to all schools who want them.

We want a system that is driven more by parental and pupil choice and less by central planning. One which allows good schools to expand and challenges weaker schools to improve.

I love the fact that left to their own devices, groups are coming up with all sorts of ideas and approaches that the state could not have imagined. Successful models are bubbling up from below rather than being imposed from the top.

In the case of studio schools, we are also seeing much of this increased choice happening in our poorest communities. Of the studio schools that opened their doors for the first time in 2012, 50% are serving the most deprived 10% of communities.

We are also working to develop more rigorous qualifications – academic and vocational – that are valued by universities and employers. In particular, we need to strengthen standards of literacy and numeracy.

We’re reforming the examination system to ensure we do not have multiple examination boards competing in a race to the bottom; and we’re reforming post-16 funding in a way that will increase funding for good quality vocational education and work experience.

Looking ahead
This is the context in which studio schools are flourishing. And it’s in this spirit of autonomy, choice and high standards that I am so keen to see the movement expand further.

I think the future for studio schools is bright.

We don’t have a target for the number of studio schools we are looking to open but I am looking forward to another crop of imaginative proposals, spread around the country, which offer an excellent education, good value for money and keep capital costs low.

We will announce successful proposals for September 2014 before the summer – this will give groups nearly twice as long to get to opening as they had last year.

I am also glad to say that there is support for studio schools across party lines. I have been glad to build on work started under the last government and I am equally glad that Stephen Twigg is coming here later today to lend his support to Studio Schools. Ultimately, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Studio schools will live or die by their results.

So all of us involved with them have a heavy responsibility. But in the bright faces of the students I see in the new studio schools, in the passionate teachers, the dedicated sponsors and the motivated employers I have every confidence that studio schools are a winning formula and offer something new and exciting for students, for parents, and for employers.

Thank you.

The speech made by Jonathan Hill, the then Education Minister, at the Hotel Russell on Russell Square in London on 27 January 2011.

Thank you so much.

I am delighted to be here. It makes a very nice change not to be in the House of Lords, where we’ve been holed up for the last fortnight, sleeping bags at the ready, while voting – or not voting – on the electoral reform bill.

Your timing is immaculate, as this morning we published the new Education Bill. I will say a bit more about that, and about academies in particular, in a moment.

But first of all, I just want to say a very big thank you for all that you do.

No one becomes a head or a teacher for fame, money or anything other than a deep conviction that education enriches children’s lives and helps them reach their full potential. I know how hard you all work – day in, day out – to increase opportunity and raise aspiration.

My mother was a teacher, so I was brought up to understand the importance of learning; how education transforms lives; and how books have the power to set people free. And I’m glad to say that at nearly 84, she is still going on doing a day a week to her local primary school to help children with their reading.

I also don’t need convincing about the fantastic job that Catholic schools in particular do.

The CES ‘Value Added’ report, published earlier this month, spells it out.

Your GCSE and Key Stage 2 results are consistently above the national average. Seventy-three per cent of your secondaries and 74 per cent of your primaries are rated outstanding or good by Ofsted, compared with 60 and 66 per cent nationally. And your leadership quality, teacher training and CVA scores far outstrip your peers.

So it was right that his holiness Pope Benedict celebrated your achievements on his visit last year, as part of the Year of Catholic Education – and it was a great treat to be at the Big Assembly at St Mary’s in Twickenham as the sun fought with the clouds, to hear his thoughtful speech about faith, society and schools.

I know your theme today is ‘stewards of the common good’. And I am sure that we have a shared purpose in seeking to promote the common good, working to overcome the situation whereby too many children have their life chances determined by where they are born.

We know the figures, but they bear repetition:

Children not on FSM are twice as likely to get five good GCSEs as those who are on FSM.
Last year 40 out of 80,000 children on FSM went onto Oxford or Cambridge.
Children who attend private schools are three times more likely to achieve three A-grade A Levels than those who attend state-funded schools.
Gaps in attainment start young and get worse as children grow older. These figures are a reproach to us all.

And just as the Christian churches took the lead in setting up the first schools to teach the poor long before the State stepped in, I hope that we can work with you on the next stage of education reform in England.

The need for change
Let me say a few words about our overall approach.

In a way, I hope the title of our white paper – The Importance of Teaching – says it all.

I know that there has been a lot of emphasis on the structural reforms we have introduced – the academies and Free Schools. But structures without people are nothing. We all know that the key to good schools are great heads and great teaching. So the purpose of the structural change is to give heads and teachers greater freedom and more control over their own destiny, so that they can get on with doing what they do best – teaching and running their schools.

Our white paper makes clear there is much to admire and build on in the current system: hundreds of outstanding schools, tens of thousands of great teachers, the best generation of heads and leaders ever.

But too many children are still being let down. There are still too many weak schools in deprived areas. Teaching is only rated as satisfactory in half of our schools. And other countries have not been standing still.

Over the last decade in the PISA world rankings for 15-year-olds, we have fallen from fourth to sixteenth in science, seventh to 25th in literacy, and eighth to 28th in maths.

So there is a big job to do.

That is why we have announced plans to strengthen teacher recruitment and training – expanding Teach First, increasing cash incentives for shortage subjects, making initial training more classroom-based, and creating a new national network of teaching schools and university teaching schools.

And we need to do more to support teachers in the classroom.

So in our Education Bill published today, we plan to introduce tougher discipline powers – so teachers can search for any items banned by the school rules, making it easier for heads to expel violent pupils; protecting teachers from malicious allegations; and removing 24 hours notice on detentions so schools, if they want to, can impose immediate punishments.

We also have plans for a slimmed-down but strong National Curriculum, more robust assessment and inspection, a fairer funding system, the new Pupil Premium, and to move away from central targets and red tape.

More autonomy for heads
But I know there has been a lot of focus on academies – and that’s what I want to turn to now.

I am enthusiastic about academies for two main reasons.

First, because of their track record to date. Not all are perfect and not all have done equally well. But taking their results as a whole, their GCSE scores are improving at almost double the national average. And in terms of ethos, they have shown how to turn around the deep-seated culture of defeatism and low expectations in so many of our poorest areas.

Second, because evidence from around the world shows that there is a very strong correlation between top-performing education systems and autonomy at school-level – where heads and principals are free to determine how pupils are taught and how budgets are spent.

So while we want to carry on with the last government’s approach to use academies to raise standards in underperforming schools, we are also opening up the programme to all primary, secondary and special schools who want to convert.

What has been particularly exciting in recent months has been the number of approaches that we have been having from schools wanting to become academies in chains or clusters. I recognise that at the time of the Academies Act last summer the key message coming across was about autonomy. What has become clear to me when talking to schools is that perhaps even more powerful than autonomy is the combination of autonomy and partnership. That seems to me to combine the advantages of professional freedom, with the real move that there has been in recent years towards schools working together and learning from each other.

We don’t want academies to be seen as islands entire unto themselves – nor do the academy principles that I talk to. That is one of the reasons why we said in the Academies Act that we expected outstanding schools which wanted to convert to partner another local school which would benefit from their support.

As you may know, in November we announced a further opening up of the programme by saying that any school could apply for academy status, regardless of its Ofsted rating, if it applied as part of a group with a school that was rated as outstanding or good with outstanding features. There has been a very encouraging response to that, as schools have come up with their own ideas for working together – groups of secondaries, or primaries, or primaries clustered around a secondary, perhaps with a special school. This development seems to me to go with the grain of the culture of schools, and the fact that it is bubbling from the bottom up makes me think that it is all the more powerful.

So far as faith schools are concerned, we’ve also been clear that conversion to academy status would be on an ‘as is’ basis.

From the outset, I have been keen that faith schools should be free to become academies but equally clear I hope, that we have no wish to undermine the special status, values, freedoms, assets or anything else that is a part of a being a Catholic school or part of a family of Catholic schools.

So I understand why the CES was initially cautious about academies. I think that ‘beware governments bearing gifts’ is a good principle. Catholic schools have been here a lot longer than all of us and will be around a lot longer than this Government – I think I am allowed to say that without being accused of disloyalty. So you are right to think about the long term and to look before you leap.

To date, 204 new academies have opened since September – that’s at least one every working day – doubling the number open when the Coalition came to power and meaning more than one-in-ten secondaries overall are now academies.

And we expect many more to follow. Earlier this morning I was at a conference for special schools who want to become academies, where there was a great deal of enthusiasm.

And I know that many of you are also interested in the freedoms that academy status provides – over 150 Catholic schools have formally expressed an interest in converting.

The Department and the CES have been working closely together, and I believe we have made good progress in providing the reassurance the CES has sought.

We’ve helped to fund the CES to develop a tailored funding agreement to make clear that Catholicism will be at the heart of a faith academy’s object and conduct. It puts in black and white that diocesan boards will be able to appoint and maintain the majority of the governors – and that no principal can be appointed without fully consulting them.

So I hope the safeguards the CES understandably asked for are in place and that this will allow Catholic schools which want to become academies to become part of the patchwork quilt of provision that I would like to see and encourage.

Another part of this patchwork quilt, of course, are the new Free Schools. Set up under the Academies legislation, the first ones are due to open this September – new schools set up in under a year. There has been a fantastic response from inspirational teachers, charities and faith groups keen to open new schools, often in areas of the greatest need, to extend opportunity and raise aspiration.

Responsibility, accountability and partnership
But although I am a great enthusiast for academies, they are only part of the story. The Government is keen to set higher expectations and aspirations for the entire school system.

We know from international league tables and the pioneering research of Tony Blair’s former education advisor, Sir Michael Barber, that the more data you have on schools the easier it is to spot strengths and weaknesses.

That is one of the reasons that we have introduced the English Baccalaureate. We will of course listen to any strong cases about what should and shouldn’t be included but I think the basic principle is right – that while students should have the broadest possible curriculum, including a statutory requirement to offer RE, their parents should be able to know how they perform in the core academic subjects at 16.

We are also setting new floor standards for secondary schools. This will include both an attainment measure and a progression measure:

For secondary schools, a school will be below the floor if fewer than 35 per cent of pupils achieve 5 A*-C grade GCSEs including English and mathematics, and fewer pupils make good progress between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 than the national average.
For primary schools, a school will be below the floor if fewer than 60 per cent of pupils achieve level four in both English and mathematics, and fewer pupils than average make the expected levels of progress between Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.
We expect there to be firm, decisive action when results are persistently below this level, where management is weak, where there is a little capacity to improve, or when there is serious Ofsted concern.

And we have recreated the post of schools commissioner to help us drive the process of school improvement forward. The highly respected chief executive of Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation, Dr Elizabeth Sidwell, will take up the post in the spring.

These are just some of the areas where we have been pushing ahead. The Secretary of State, Michael Gove, has set a cracking pace and I know he is impatient for improvement. He is impatient for improvement because he sees the waste of talent, the loss of opportunity, the lottery of birth and the strides forward that other countries are making.

There is an economic imperative for those of a more Gradgrindian bent. But much more than that, there is a moral imperative. All of us here in different ways have had our lives changed for the better by education. Catholic schools have a long and proud tradition of transforming lives. I am very keen to work with you, to build even closer ties, and to see how we can develop that theme of autonomy and partnership together.

The speech made by Jonathan Hill, the then Education Minister, on 16 November 2010.

I am delighted to be here this morning and particularly pleased to have the chance to thank you all – and the National Society generally – for the wonderful contribution you make to education in this country.

Now I am sure that ministers of all parties come along and start their speeches like that, but for what it is worth, I say it as someone who likes choice and variety; is drawn to a patchwork quilt of provision rather than some neat and tidy – and soulless – uniformity, and; is instinctively mistrustful of the state.

All of which makes me a natural fan of Church of England schools, even before citing any evidence that Church of England schools get excellent results and are extremely popular with parents.

And yet – somewhat to my surprise – I find myself having to stick up for faith schools. It is something I am very happy to do, but it is perhaps indicative of how secularist parts of society have become.

It is also all the more extraordinary when one reflects on what the National Society has done for children in this country since its foundation in 1811.

It is astonishing to think that, in the forty years to 1851, the Church of England established 17,000 schools in parishes up and down the land. Free Schools, eat your heart out.

Decades before the state stepped in, in 1870, it was the Church that taught the poor and needy to read and write – spreading knowledge and enlightenment where before there had been ignorance.

I know it is the same moral purpose which drives you today.

Like us, you worry about the gap in achievement between rich and poor, and are anxious to extend opportunity to those in poorest areas.

And I am sure that it was because of that great moral purpose – and in keeping with your historic mission – that the Church of England was among the first to recognise the importance, and potential, of the Academies programme and, of course, became one of the first sponsors.

Academies

Now, academies are a subject close to my heart. On my second day in the House of Lords, I had to introduce the Academies Bill and, for two rather crazy months, I did little else but think and, I’m sad to say, dream about the Bill.

Some people accused us of rushing it through, of reaching for the legislative lever too quickly – but my view was, and is, that it was vital to give schools the chance to have these freedoms on behalf of their children as soon as possible.

Children only get one crack at education and we have to give them the best possible chance to succeed. So, yes, the Secretary of State and I were impatient to get on with doing so.

But that brings me to an extremely important point about our overall approach. It is permissive, not coercive. Some schools might not want, ever, to go down the academy route. They might feel that their relationship with their local authority is so good that they don’t want to lose it. Or that greater freedom and control over their budgets, staffing and the curriculum aren’t going to help them give children the best possible chance to succeed.

If that is the case, we fully respect that. We are not seeking to impose a one-size-fits-all solution on every school. If you believe in freedom, I think you should allow people to exercise it – or not – as they think fit.

So we are also introducing greater freedom for all schools. That is why we’ve abolished the self-evaluation form, reduced the data collection burden and told Ofsted to slim down its inspection criteria. We will also be slimming down the National Curriculum, making governance simpler and financial management less onerous. All of these steps will give schools more freedom to concentrate on their core responsibilities – teaching and learning.

Our schools white paper, to be published later this month, will set out a comprehensive reform programme for this Parliament to raise the bar for every school, close the gap between rich and poor, and ensure our education system can match the best in the world.

When you look at the statistics you can see how urgent the need for reform is.

Still a long way to go

In the last ten years we have fallen behind other countries in the international league tables of school performance – falling from fourth in the world for science to fourteenth, seventh in the world for literacy to seventeenth and eighth in the world for maths to twenty-fourth.

And at the same time, studies such as those undertaken by UNICEF and the OECD underline that we have one of the most unequal educational systems in the world, coming near bottom out of 57 for educational equity with one of the biggest gulfs between independent and state schools of any developed nation.

The huge numbers of talented young people who still do not achieve as they should means we need to change.

And so too does the fact that other nations have been forging ahead much faster and further when it comes to improving their education systems.

Global race for knowledge

Across the globe, other nations – including those with the best-performing and fastest-reforming education systems – are granting more autonomy for individual schools.

In America, President Obama is encouraging the creation of more charter schools – the equivalent of our Free Schools and academies.

In Canada, specifically in Alberta, schools have been given more control over budgets and power to shape their own ethos and environment. Alberta now has the best-performing state schools of any English-speaking region.

In Sweden, the system has opened up to allow new schools to be set up by a range of providers. Results have improved, with the biggest gains of all where schools have the greatest freedoms and parents the widest choice.

And in Singapore, often cited as an exemplar of centralism, dramatic leaps in attainment have been secured by schools where principals are exercising a progressively greater degree of operational autonomy.

These governments have deliberately encouraged greater diversity in the schools system and, as the scope for innovation has grown, so too has their competitive advantage over other nations.

The good news in England is that there are already some great success stories here to draw on. In the five or so years after 1988, the last Conservative Government created 15 city technology colleges. They are all-ability comprehensives, overwhelmingly located in poorer areas, but they enjoy much greater independence than other schools.

They have also been a huge success. The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals in CTCs who achieve five or more good GCSEs A* to C is more than twice as high as for all maintained mainstream schools.

These results were replicated by the group of schools that were turned into academies under the last Government.

I am delighted that so many parents and school leaders have seen how academies can improve performance, with academies securing improvements at GCSE level twice as fast as other schools and the best academy chains doing much, much better than that.

Back in 2005, the white paper promised that all schools would, in time, be able to enjoy academy freedoms – but sadly these freedoms were curtailed. A ceiling of 400 academies was placed on the programme and primaries were refused entry.

The Academies Act removed both of these barriers to the rapid expansion of the programme by giving all schools, including special schools, the chance to take on academy status – starting with those rated outstanding by Ofsted.

Since the start of this school year, 144 academies have opened – more than one for every working day of the term. A further 70 are due to open in the coming months.

Just under half of these replaced failing schools, and we will continue to challenge schools that are struggling; either they improve fast or they will have their management replaced by an academy sponsor, or an outstanding school, with a proven track record.

That is why the Secretary of State wrote to local authorities earlier this month confirming that we want to work with them to consider whether there are schools in their areas where attainment and pupil progression are both low and where they lack the capacity to improve themselves. And we have also actively encouraged sponsors to work directly with local authorities to do so too.

All of the schools that have converted now have the freedom to shape their own curriculum; they are at liberty to insist on tougher discipline, pay staff more, extend school hours, and develop a personal approach to every pupil.

Crucially, all of the outstanding schools that have already converted have also said that they will use their new-found powers and freedom to support weaker schools. For instance, Seaton Academy in Cumbria is looking to employ more specialist staff to support students with additional needs. St Buryan Primary Academy in Cornwall is reducing class sizes by taking on an extra teacher. Urmston Grammar School in Manchester is looking forward to bringing back after-school services now that it has control over its own budget.

We also have schools coming to us talking about forming clusters – clusters of primaries, or primaries and secondaries, working together to raise standards and share costs. That is why I believe the result of the Academies Act will be autonomy within a culture of collaboration, where the bonds between schools are strengthened and there is a further step-change in system-led leadership.

It seems to me that this combination of autonomy and partnership is a very strong one, and one that is likely to appeal to the Church of England. I know that one of your concerns early on was that the Government was somehow turning its back on the moral purpose of the Academies programme and that the converting academies might become islands within the broader educational framework.

In fact, what is happening is rather different.

In the coming days, in the next stage of the expansion of the Academies programme, we will also explain how the next wave of schools – those that are good with outstanding features – will be able to apply for academy freedoms.

I particularly look forward to welcoming more Church of England schools into academy status. And I’d like to say how grateful I am for the Church’s support in encouraging more of their schools to follow suit.

At the moment, some 320 Church of England schools have registered an interest in becoming an academy, and 24 of these have so far submitted a formal application to convert.

As we’ve worked through the conversion process with the first wave of converters, a number of practical issues have come to light – for instance, around pension or land ownership. For church schools in particular, land ownership is often complicated and there have been questions about what role the diocese will have once schools have converted to academy status.

I completely understand these concerns and I think that the National Society has been absolutely right to want clarity. Politicians and governments come and go. The Church has been around a lot longer than any government and you are right to be sceptical about government promises. I am sceptical about government promises too. But I hope I have been clear from the outset that my intention is simply to maintain the status quo in terms of the relationship between the Church of England and the state. And I do sympathise with the National Society’s desire to get that understanding down in black and white and close any loopholes.

So I am very pleased that we now have an agreed set of model documentation for single academy trusts, and a model funding agreement.

We have also agreed a supplemental agreement, to be signed by the Secretary of State, which will set out the Department’s underpinning relationship with the Diocese.

I know that some of you have faced delays while the drafting has been going on, for which I apologise, but I believe we now have a solid foundation on which Church of England schools can move forward to academy status.

Although I have been keen to press ahead, it is important to get things right – and that I think is what we have now done.

The Church has always played an important part in providing choice and quality in this country’s education system.

You’ve always worked hard, often behind the scenes, collaborating with other education partners and sponsors to drive improvements.

I very much look forward to continuing and building on our relationship with the Church and taking our collaborative partnership to the next level – because we need your energy, commitment and experience to be at the fore of school improvement if we are to achieve that shared moral purpose.

Thank you very much.

The speech made by Jonathan Hill, the then Education Minister, in the House of Lords on 7 June 2010.

My Lords, I beg to move that the bill be now read a second time.

My Lords, the House will be aware that I am now the Minister in charge of this bill, rather than my noble friend, Lord Wallace of Saltaire in whose name this bill was introduced.

I am happy to assure the House that I too believe that the provisions of this bill are compatible with the Convention Rights and would have been content to sign the necessary statement had I been in a position to do so when the bill was introduced.

My Lords, this bill will:

• grant more freedoms to schools
• give more responsibility to teacher
• help ensure that standards rise for all children

Last week we had an excellent debate on the measures contained in the Gracious Speech.

Re-reading the whole debate over the weekend, I found that there was broad agreement on the need to trust professionals more, to reduce the bureaucracy they face and to give them more opportunity to drive their own improvement and to deploy resources in the most effective way.

It is precisely those freedoms that the measures contained in the Academies Bill will help to deliver.

My Lords, I have had very thoughtful discussions with the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Lincoln and others about managing expectations for this bill.

So let me be clear from the outset that this bill does not in our view represent a revolution in our schools system.

Rather, it builds on what has gone before.

We can trace its roots to the reforms introduced by my noble friend, Lord Baker, through the Education Reform Act 1988, which led to the opening of the first City Technology Colleges in the late 1980s and early ‘90s.

But it was under a Labour government that the pace of reform really picked up and I recognise that contribution very clearly. The Learning and Skills Act 2000, saw the beginning of the Academies programme, and the Education White Paper of 2005 built on it.

I hope I won’t embarrass the noble Lord, Lord Adonis by saying what I said in his absence last week, how much I respect his achievement, and what high standards he set for those who came after him.

I am happy to pay tribute to him, and to my other predecessors who should feel pleased at the good they have done through the Academies programme and the thousands of children’s lives they have already changed for the better.

My Lords, I do not for one moment argue that Academies are always going to be the answer. The noble Baroness, Baroness Morris of Yardley reminded us in the debate on the Gracious Speech that many outstanding schools are notAcademies. And that not all Academies are outstanding. She is of course right.

But, overall, academies do represent one of the best and fastest routes to school improvement.

They have transformed some of the worst performing schools in the country into some of the best.

And in doing so, they have transformed the prospects of tens of thousands of young people. In 2008 and 2009, Academies saw GCSE results increase twice as fast as the national average.

My Lords, it is also clear that the extension of the Academies programme we now propose was what the then Labour Government itself intended to do. In a speech given the day before the publication of the 2005 White Paper, this is what the then Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon Tony Blair, had to say “We need to make it easier for every school to acquire the drive and essential freedom of Academies… We want every school to be able quickly and easily to become a self-governing independent state school… All schools will be able to have academy-style freedoms… No one will be able to veto parents starting new schools or new providers coming in, simply on the basis that there are local surplus places. The role of the LEA will change fundamentally.”

It has taken 5 years my Lords, but this bill is giving effect to what the previous government intended.

My Lords, it is worth reminding ourselves why we need reform.

Despite the best efforts of previous governments, it is still the case that 81,000 11-year-olds left primary school last year without achieving the required standard in reading.

Half of young people left secondary school without achieving five good GCSEs including English and maths.

And in the last year for which we have data, out of 80,000 young people eligible for free school meals, just 45 made it to Oxbridge.

My Lords, raising standards is not simply about structures – that was a point well made in last week’s debate. It is about the quality of teaching – which is why we will build on the previous government’s excellent Teach First programme.

And at a time of great pressure in public spending we have also prioritised investment in education by protecting frontline spending this financial year for Sure Start Children’s Centres, for 16-19 learning and, of course, for schools.

But we do believe that giving schools and teachers more freedoms will help them do the job they came into teaching to do.

This bill will give all schools – including, for the first time, primary schools and special schools– the opportunity to apply to apply to become an academy.

I want to stress the word ‘opportunity’. This is largely a permissive bill rather than a coercive one.

And it will help schools right across the spectrum, from the very worst to the very best.

Schools already rated as outstanding by Ofsted may have their applications fast-tracked, and open this year if they wish to.

In return, we will expect every outstanding school which acquires academy freedoms to partner with at least one other school to raise performance across the system.

Schools that are really struggling, my Lords, will see government intervention.

There has always been a focus in the academies programme on the weakest schools, and that will continue.

The Bill will allow the Secretary of State, in circumstances where a school is struggling, to remove a school from the control of the local authority and to reopen it as an academy.

This will mean that we can deliver faster and deeper improvements in deprived and disadvantaged areas.

And for the schools in between, my Lords – those that are doing well but could do better – academies will present a real opportunity to achieve excellent results through the core freedoms that all academies enjoy: making their own decisions about the curriculum, teachers’ pay, the length of the school day and how they spend the money currently spent on their behalf by local government.

But, again, it will be for head teachers, governing bodies and school trustees to decide whether or not to apply.

My Lords, I was struck by this sentence in the speech made by the noble Baroness, Baroness Morgan of Drefelin last week: “There is a good argument for successful schools being given more managerial autonomy and flexibility, provided that that is on the basis of fair admissions, fair funding and a recognition of their wider school improvement responsibilities.”

I thought that was a very fair statement and summed up what we are trying to achieve with this bill very well.

This bill will not just help a small proportion of pupils in leafy suburbs – the original focus of the academies programme on underperformance and deprivation will remain a key feature.

This bill will not allow a small number of schools to float free above the rest of the state school system – it will help all schools improve standards by increasing the number of heads inspiring heads and teachers learning fromteachers through greater partnerships between schools.

This bill will not impinge upon a school’s unique ethos or religious character if it becomes an Academy – we want to give schools greater freedoms, and the preservation of a school’s unique ethos will be an important consideration in deciding whether or not to apply for academy status.

That is also why the legislation ensures that for foundation schools and voluntary schools with a foundation, consent must be gained from the trustees of the school’s foundation before the school can apply to become an academy.

This bill does not provide a back-door to selection – while the small number of schools that are currently selective will be able to keep their selective status, if they choose to become an Academy, non-selective schools will not be able suddenly to become selective. A fair and open admissions policy will mean that intakes at academies will be diverse, inclusive and drawn from the local community.

And we will aim to ensure that the position with maintained special schools is mirrored – we want a special school that converts to an academy still only to take children with statements.

The bill will not disadvantage any maintained school financially, nor will there be extra funding going to academies that maintained schools will not get.

Finally my Lords, this bill will not create a two-tier schools system. Indeed, we believe that it will help close the gap in our current system.

And most importantly of all, while it is not catered for in the bill currently before you for consideration, we will also target resources on the poorest through a new pupil premium. That will take money from outside the schools budget to make sure that those teaching the children most in need get extra resources, for example to deliver smaller class sizes, more one-to-one tuition, longer school days and more extra-curricular activities.

In concluding, my Lords, may I update you on the response we have received from schools so far.

In a little over a week, over one thousand one hundred schools have expressed an interest in applying for academy freedoms.

More than 620 outstanding schools – including over 250 outstanding primaries and over half of the outstandi ng secondaries – have expressed their interest, along with more than 50 special schools.

So there seems to be a real demand for the measures in this bill.

Our aim is to meet it and to ensure that:

• heads and teachers have the freedoms they want and need
• parents have the choice of a good local school
• a child’s background does not dictate whether they succeed

I know that this is a vision that is shared on all sides of this House.

My Lords, I am pleased to present this bill for your consideration.

And I beg move that the bill be now read for a second time.

The speech made by Jonathan Hill, the then Education Minister, in London on 18 November 2010.

Good morning everyone and thank you Geoff for that warm welcome.

The more observant among you will by now have realised that I’m not Michael Gove, who unfortunately has been called away at the last minute. He has asked me to apologise on his behalf and to say how sorry he is not to be here. I know that he is a big fan of studio schools, a great admirer of the pioneering work done by the Young Foundation, and a keen supporter of the Studio Schools Trust, which he recently described as ‘superb’.

But I am delighted to be here in his place because it gives me the chance – less eloquently than Michael no doubt – to put on the record my own support for the work of the Studio Schools Trust and my appreciation for what you do.

I have been lucky enough to go to Barnfield College in Luton, shortly after it opened one of the first two studio schools in September. And last Friday I was at Futures Community College in Southend-on-Sea – not a studio school but doing something similar around practical training.

I am the new kid on the block, but you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to get the point.

Switched-on, positive children working hard and learning practical skills.

Switched-on, positive employers telling me how brilliant it was for them.

Academic and vocational teaching being offered side by side; learning tailored to pupils’ individual needs; aspirations raised, so that going to university or getting a good job becomes a realistic prospect for children in families where aspiration and expectation has been very low.

So I want to thank them, as well as everyone at the Netherhall Learning Campus in Kirklees, the Studio Schools Trust and the Young Foundation for the enormous amount of work they’ve done to push the boundaries forward and make the argument for why we need to offer young people the chance of acquiring high-quality practical and technical skills, as well as high-quality academic qualifications.

The challenges

I came to this new job not having worked in education. For the last 12 years, I ran my own business. It has meant I have had – and still have – a steep learning curve, but coming to something fresh is not without advantages.

It means you have to approach things from first principles and you have to ask lots of questions.

Questions like: are enough of our children leaving primary school able to read and write properly?

Are we equipping young people with the skills, knowledge and aspirations employers and universities are demanding?

Have we got an exam and qualification system to which we have confidence? Have league tables and equivalents led to gaming of the system?

Are we motivating and enthusing the workforce of tomorrow – so they fulfil their potential and have the confidence to succeed? Or, at the very least, know how to turn up on time, work in a team, or take direction from a manager?

Is vocational and practical training strong enough so we can compete internationally – or even be able to fill jobs at home without having to recruit from overseas?

How do we measure up against best practice internationally?

To which, my answers are: no, up to a point, not really, yes, not well enough, no and it’s a very mixed picture.

The truth is that too many young people still don’t get the right skills and qualifications for work and further study.

Too many young people are turned off learning at an early age, fall behind and then get left behind.

And it’s not good enough for more young people to be staying on in education if the qualifications they’re working towards aren’t valued by future employers.

I also can’t help feeling that out of a well-intended desire to give vocational and academic skills parity of esteem – which is right – we have ended up undervaluing both.

We’ve forced vocational and academic qualifications to have some kind of uneasy equivalence, when actually we should just be making sure that they are all high quality and do what universities and employers need. And above all that they should be tailored to what individual children need.

So, what are we doing about it?

The top line is that we are trying to get out of the hair of professions to allow them to get on with what they do best. To come up with ideas of their own – like studio schools – as to how they can best cater for their children.

We also want to stop directing and prescribing quite so much, I hope leaving more space for professionals to learn from each other, forming partnerships, spreading good practice and raising standards through collaboration and the sharing of experience.

Reform

More specifically, we have a number of clear aims.

First, to strengthen qualifications so they are more robust, rigorous and teach the economically valuable skills that employers demand to keep pace with the rest of the world.

We will also give universities and employers more say over developing A levels. It’s right that those with the strongest interest in making sure young people have the right skills have a louder voice.

Second, we’ve asked Professor Alison Wolf to lead an independent review of vocational qualifications. Alison’s review isn’t about creating yet another set of Whitehall-designed, top-down qualifications – it’s about giving colleges and schools the flexibility to offer qualifications that meet the labour market’s constantly shifting demands and higher expectations.

Third, we want to raise the quality of careers guidance.

Fourth, we are expanding the number of Apprenticeships.

It’s sobering that only eight per cent of employers in England offer Apprenticeships – compared with 24 per cent in Germany. And of businesses with at least 500 employees, it’s just 30 per cent here compared with more than 90 per cent across in Germany.

Fifth, we are trying to put the right structures in place through our wider reform programme.

People sometimes say to me: why are you making these structural changes? Surely its teachers who make the difference? Stop messing around and concentrate on the teachers.

I agree totally that it always comes down to people – and we will be saying more about that in our white paper to be published shortly. But the point of the structural changes is to give those people more space and it provides the opportunity for new ideas to bubble up from below.

So we’re expanding the Academies programme and we’re ensuring that new providers including parents, community groups and businesses can come together and open new Free Schools where there’s demand – bringing outside expertise and experience into the state sector.

That’s why we back Lord Baker, who through the Baker-Dearing Trust that he set up with the late Lord Dearing, is doing a fantastic job in pioneering a new generation of University Technical Colleges.

They will offer high-quality technical qualifications – all as autonomous institutions, sponsored by leading local businesses and a local university.

The JCB Academy in Staffordshire is already open – offering hard practical learning alongside academic GCSEs.

The new UTC in Birmingham will specialise in engineering and manufacturing when it opens in 2012 – with students working with Aston University engineering staff and students, as well as local business and colleges.

And Ken has ambitious plans to open many more in cities across the country.

Studio schools – the way forward

And it’s in that same spirit that we are right behind the studio schools movement and keen to see it grow, and we hope that the wider education system sits up and takes note of your distinctive philosophy and ethos.

We think that studio schools have huge potential, and it’s not just us who think so. I gather that there is a great deal of interest from overseas.

Studio schools have a fresh and new culture for young people at risk of dropping out elsewhere. They are all ability, have high aspirations for all pupils and make sure young people get the strong qualifications they need to get into employment or university, whether that’s GCSEs, A levels, Diplomas, BTECs or NVQs.

But they also give them the practical skills employers demand in trades like construction, hospitality, plumbing and engineering, as well as softer skills like team working, communication, initiative and punctuality – exactly the kind of intangibles that businesses want but often can’t find in school leavers.

Studio schools show us how to go beyond so-called ‘traditional’ teaching by using some of the most innovative teaching methods like personal mentoring and coaching, project-based learning which cuts across subjects, and rooting lessons in practical, real-life situations. And they use smaller classes to back up high-quality staff, allowing them to focus more attention on pupils who might have been at risk of falling behind or switching off.

And one vital point: this doesn’t mean dumbing down – it’s about making sure young people are inspired and excited to invest the time and effort in their own futures.

They mustn’t be seen as some kind of halfway house between mainstream provision and PRUs, as some sort of sticking plaster. This is exactly the kind of false label, often attached to vocational education, which we need to squash. It doesn’t do justice to the teachers teaching or the pupils learning in them. And it misses the point about the enormous potential that studio schools have.

By bringing employers into the classroom, it’s a win-win for them and the children.

Young people are doing real work in real business environments – the over-16s are paid a proper wage, but above all they are getting the chance to work alongside professionals on real commercial projects.

I like the fact that employers involved in studio schools recognise that there is not much value in making noises-off about the quality of skills, while not actually working in schools directly. So it is absolutely right they are reaching out to young people directly and taking them under their wing.

By working together, I know we can spread the word about the studio school approach. And I would urge everyone here who thinks they might be interested to talk to the Studio Schools Trust.

Conclusion

Today is a celebration of the launch of the first two studio schools, but I hope it also heralds more to come.

It is extremely important that the pioneers do well, not just for the children you are teaching, but because of the role models you can be.

Showing that it is possible to break down the long-standing divide between academic and vocational qualifications that has existed in our country for too long. Showing that it is possible to re-engage young people and get them to set their targets higher.

And showing that we can give more young people real choice in their lives.

I believe that studio schools can help achieve all of that.

And I hope this is just the start of things to come.

Thank you.

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.

The speech made by Jonathan Hill to the IAA National Conference at the Royal Horseguards Hotel in London on 3 February 2011.

Thank you so much for inviting me. And thank you most of all for everything you have done and are doing to improve education and increase opportunity. Nothing this government or the last government has tried to do with academies could have happened without your hard work and dedication. You didn’t do it for the fame or money, but because of what you have done, the lives of tens of thousands have been changed for the better. So thank you and thank you to the IAA for the fantastic support it has given to the academies programme. And finally, and in particular, a big thank you to Mike [Butler – IAA Chair].

I know he is standing down as IAA chair shortly so I wanted to take this opportunity to put on the record my and the Department’s gratitude for his passion, enthusiasm and commitment, and for everything he has done in the course of education.

So as part of my thank you to Mike let me start by saying that I agree with him entirely that the work of academies in areas of deprivation and with disadvantaged young people must remain a key part of the programme.

You know the figures but I am going to say them again.

Children not on FSM are twice as likely to get five good GCSEs as those who are on FSM.

Last year 40 out of 80,000 children on FSM went onto Oxford or Cambridge.

Children who attend private schools are three times more likely to achieve three A-grade A Levels than those who attend state-funded schools.

Gaps in attainment start young and get worse as children grow older.

These figures are a reproach to us all.

Confronting these challenges is what gave the Academies programme its moral purpose. I know it is what drove Andrew Adonis as it is what drove Joel Klein, the former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, and Mike Feinberg, the inspirational founders of the KIPP programme, whom I was lucky enough to meet last week. We went to the King Solomon Academy in Westminster where we saw brilliant, energetic teaching and fantastic switched on children. Joel said something very simple, but very powerful: ‘If we can do it here, why can’t we do it anywhere?’.

It is that simple thought that drives so many involved with academies. And it is what continues to drive heads, sponsors and teachers to work flat out, day in day out, providing opportunity, raising aspiration and raising standards.

And we know that academies do raise standards. Not at all the same rate, but across the board, average GCSE results are improving at about twice the rate of the rest of the secondary sector. More than a quarter of you are rated outstanding by Ofsted – compared to under a fifth of all maintained schools.

Many of you in this room were the pioneers and it is because of your success and hard work that we have been able to roll the academies programme forward as Lord Adonis and Tony Blair had always planned. I am very happy to pay tribute to them and before them to Ken Baker and CTCs – because without them, we would not now be able to open up the potential of academy freedoms to thousands more schools.

I was the lucky person who had the task of introducing the Academies Bill to the House of Lords on my second day in the job.

I know some people wondered what the rush was. Well, the rush was that children only get one shot at education. When all the evidence from around the world shows that there is a very strong correlation between top-performing education systems and autonomy at school level, Michael Gove was impatient – rightly so – to extend these freedoms to others.

As a result of that Bill we have opened up academy status to every single state primary, secondary and special school which wants it.

What has been particularly exciting in recent months has been the number of approaches that we have been having from schools wanting to become academies in chains or clusters. I recognise that at the time of the Academies Act last summer the key message coming across was about autonomy. What has become clear to me when talking to schools is that perhaps even more powerful than autonomy is the combination of autonomy and partnership. That seems to me to combine the advantages of professional freedom, with the real move that there has been in recent years towards schools working together and learning from each other.

We don’t want academies to be seen as islands – and nor do the academy principals that I talk to. That is one of the reasons why we said in the Academies Act that we expected outstanding schools which wanted to convert to partner another local school which would benefit from their support.

As you will know, in November we announced a further opening up of the programme by saying that any school could apply for academy status, regardless of its Ofsted rating, if it applied as part of a group with a school that was rated as outstanding or good with outstanding features. There has been a strong response to that, as schools have come up with their own ideas for working together – groups of secondaries, or primaries, or primaries clustered around a secondary, perhaps with a special school. This development seems to me to go with the grain of the culture of schools, and the fact that it is bubbling from the bottom up makes me think that it is all the more powerful.

We continue to roll the programme out and extend its freedoms to others. The new Education Bill, introduced in the House of Commons last week, extends the academies programme to FE and sixth-form colleges and also to alternative provision.

So when I look back over the last six months, what do I see?

More than one academy opening every working day, and the interest continuing to grow.

10 per cent of secondary schools are now academies.

The growing success of multi-academy chains like Harris or ARK – working with weak schools to raise standards with a distinctive ethos and strong leadership.

All-through academies up and running.

The first special schools going through the application process to open later this year.

The first generation of university technical colleges and studio schools on track – offering high-quality, work-based technical and vocational education. I am a huge fan of UTCs and studio schools. While I can probably never match the sheer energy and enthusiasm of Ken Baker, I support wholeheartedly what he is trying to. With the UTC movement picking up pace and the review of vocational qualifications being carried out by Alison Wolf, I think we have a fantastic opportunity to make a profound and positive change to the education.

The independent sector – HE and FE, charities, business and other groups with good track records keen to sponsor projects, now the brakes have been let off the programme.

And the first Free Schools now set to open in September in under a year – with eight projects having their business cases approved last week, and with another 35 applications moving forward.

So we have made a brisk start. But there is more to do. Where there is much to admire and build on in the current system, there are still too many weak schools in deprived areas. Teaching is only rated as satisfactory in half of our schools. And we’re slipping back against our international rivals – falling from fourth to sixteenth in science, seventh to 25th in literacy, and eighth to 28th in maths in the latest PISA rankings. Despite all the efforts of recent years, the rest of the world has not been standing still.

Autonomy and accountability

So that’s why the white paper and Education Bill set high aspirations for the whole education system.

International evidence shows that freedom for schools, coupled with sharper public accountability, is the key to driving up standards.

So we’re freeing outstanding schools and colleges from inspections – so Ofsted concentrates on those performing less well.

We are legislating so that Ofqual makes sure our exams keep pace with international standards.

We are overhauling vocational qualifications through Professor Alison Wolf’s review to make sure young people are equipped with the skills employers need.

It’s also why we’ve introduced the English Baccalaureate, about which I suspect some of you have views, to make sure that while students get the broadest possible curriculum, their parents know exactly how they perform in the core subjects at 16, just as they do in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

And it’s why we’ve set tougher but fairer floor targets.

We want firm, decisive action when results are persistently below this, where management is weak with little capacity to improve, or when there is serious Ofsted concern.

That’s why we’re extending ministers’ intervention powers in underperforming schools.

And why we’ve appointed Dr Elizabeth Sidwell, the Chief Executive of Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation, as our new Schools Commissioner.

Few in education have her pedigree, quality or experience. And she won’t be shy in challenging local authorities and heads to come up with robust improvement plans – brokering academy arrangements, recruiting sponsors, enthusing heads and governors to go for academy status, and promoting Free Schools to prospective proposers.

I know that there has been a lot of emphasis on the structural reforms we have introduced – the academies and Free Schools. But structures without people are nothing. We all know that the key to good schools are great heads and great teaching. So the purpose of the structural change is to give heads and teachers greater freedom and more control over their own destiny, so that they can get on with doing what they do best – teaching and running their schools.

And that brings me – finally and you might think belatedly – to the theme of your conference: Academies, the new orthodoxy. L&G, let me make a confession: I am suspicious of orthodoxies. Orthodoxies tend to be top down, inflexible and controlling. They value order and consistency over innovation and freedom. What is so exciting at the moment is that ideas are bubbling up from below – teachers who want to set up Free Schools, rural primary schools wanting to form a chain and cluster around a secondary school, parents wanting to set up schools in libraries and yes, in the Department for Education. One of the points we made early on about the Academies Bill was that our approach was permissive, not coercive. So whether the Academies programme is a success and becomes the norm is not up to me, but to you and the thousands of people like you.

So let me end where I started: in thanking you for what you have done and in looking forward to working with you to try answer the question posed to me last week by Joel Klein, ‘If we can do it here, why can’t we do it anywhere?’.

The speech made by Jonathan Hill, Lord Hill, to the SSAT Guildhall Reception at the Guildhall in London on 20 January 2011.

Thank you so much for that warm welcome. Having spent much of the last four days stuck camping away in the House of Lords in my sleeping bag. I can tell you that it is extremely nice to be here. It may seem a funny way to run the country, but at least – thanks to our sleeping arrangements – I can now say that I having finally slept with a member of the cabinet.

The second thing to say is how very sorry the Secretary of State is not to be here. I know he has been looking forward to tonight and he has asked me to pass on his best wishes and to thank the SSAT and you for all you do.

Apart from the change of scene, I consider myself very lucky to be here tonight with you, the real heroes and heroines of our education system, the people who are day to day helping out to lay the foundations for the better, fairer society which all of us want to create.

No one becomes a teacher for fame or money. And no one gives up their time by becoming a governor or a school sponsor out of anything other than a deep sense that education is the means by which we enable children to enrich their lives and fulfil the limits of their potential.

Over the eight months or so since I became a schools minister, I’ve developed a huge admiration for the work that all of you do.

Your vision, passion, expertise and leadership is what ultimately will make much more difference than anything I can do in central government. Because in any system I can think of it is people who matter the most.

So although an important part of my job is to do with structures, I am very clear that those changes are merely a means to an end. In a nutshell, what we are trying to do is to create the space for professionals to get on with what they do best and to allow people who are passionate about education and young people to make their contribution without feeling they are constantly having to wade through treacle.

So I’m delighted to have the chance this evening to celebrate your achievements and, also, to say thank you.

If this event is a celebration of the very best of our education system, I also want to recognise the role SSAT plays in it. I am grateful to them and to the work they have done in helping and supporting academies.

Expanding the academies programme

International evidence tells us very clearly that schools see fastest improvement where school leaders are given the greatest control over what happens in their schools.

The near-universal network of specialist school shows what can be achieved when schools are allowed to innovate and have the freedom to develop their own distinct character and ethos.

We want to remove the bureaucracy that surrounds specialist status so that all schools can decide how to develop their specialisms in the light of the total resources available to them.

And more generally we want to extend the autonomy that schools can enjoy.

That’s why the very first thing we did when we took office was to lift the brakes that had been placed on the academies programme and gradually open it up to all schools, including primaries and later this year special schools.

The response has been very encouraging.

There has been real enthusiasm in many schools to take advantage of the freedoms that academy status can bring.

Why? Because they’ve recognised that it can help them to offer an ever-better standard of education.

We now have well over 400 academies.

More than one academy has opened every working day since the beginning of the school term in September.

And the pace seems to be quickening. We had 129 new applications in the first week back in the New Year alone.

What I am particularly excited about is the combination of autonomy and partnership that the Academies programme is opening up. We don’t want academies to be islands entire unto themselves to mis-quote John Donne. So one of the developments I am keen to encourage is applications from clusters or chains of schools – from groups of primaries, or primaries grouped around secondary as part of a dealing with the issue of transition.

But there’s no way that we could have done what we’ve done – or what we want to do – without the support of many of the people in this room.

The role of the SSAT and sponsors

The SSAT has played a vital role helping schools that want to make the transition to academy status.

I know that well over a thousand headteachers have attended the seminars that you’ve organised where they’ve been able to hear about the benefits of converting and about the experiences of those who have been through the process.

The National Headteacher Steering Group has also provided us and prospective convertors with invaluable advice that has been crucial in allowing us to achieve this early momentum.

There is no doubt that networks like those operated by the SSAT are the best way of spreading the word, telling it like it really is and developing the culture of collaboration in which schools help other schools to innovate, develop their staff and offer a better educational experience to young people.

Expanding the academies programme also means there will be more opportunities for business people, charities, faith groups, successful schools, higher and further education institutions and other groups with a track-record of success in education to come forward as sponsors.

I am keen to encourage more primary schools to convert to academy status and for more sponsors – both existing and new – with expertise of working with primary schools to come forward as sponsors.

I hope more sponsors with an excellent track-record of working with schools to help them to innovate and improve will come forward. I know that the SSAT itself has exciting plans to become a sponsor, a move which I am keen to encourage. There are certainly plenty of outstanding role models here tonight for any one that wants to do so.

It is only because of the often superhuman efforts of sponsors and school leaders that the specialist schools and academies programmes have been such successes.

It is therefore only right that on a day like today we stop for a moment to celebrate the fantastic life-enhancing contributions that you make day in, day out across the country. And I would like to thank you for allowing me to be here to share in it with you.

The speech made by Jonathan Hill in Birmingham on 25 November 2010.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools talks about the impact the Government’s educational reforms will have on sixth form colleges.

The speech made by Jonathan Hill to the National Governors’ Association Conference in London on 6 November 2010.