Tag: Speeches

Below is the text of the statement made by Michael Gove on 22 February 2016.

For weeks now I have been wrestling with the most difficult decision of my political life. But taking difficult decisions is what politicians are paid to do. No-one is forced to stand for Parliament, no-one is compelled to become a minister. If you take on those roles, which are great privileges, you also take on big responsibilities.

I was encouraged to stand for Parliament by David Cameron and he has given me the opportunity to serve in what I believe is a great, reforming Government. I think he is an outstanding Prime Minister. There is, as far as I can see, only one significant issue on which we have differed.

And that is the future of the UK in the European Union.

It pains me to have to disagree with the Prime Minister on any issue. My instinct is to support him through good times and bad.

But I cannot duck the choice which the Prime Minister has given every one of us. In a few months time we will all have the opportunity to decide whether Britain should stay in the European Union or leave. I believe our country would be freer, fairer and better off outside the EU. And if, at this moment of decision, I didn’t say what I believe I would not be true to my convictions or my country.

I don’t want to take anything away from the Prime Minister’s dedicated efforts to get a better deal for Britain. He has negotiated with courage and tenacity. But I think Britain would be stronger outside the EU.

My starting point is simple. I believe that the decisions which govern all our lives, the laws we must all obey and the taxes we must all pay should be decided by people we choose and who we can throw out if we want change. If power is to be used wisely, if we are to avoid corruption and complacency in high office, then the public must have the right to change laws and Governments at election time.

But our membership of the European Union prevents us being able to change huge swathes of law and stops us being able to choose who makes critical decisions which affect all our lives. Laws which govern citizens in this country are decided by politicians from other nations who we never elected and can’t throw out. We can take out our anger on elected representatives in Westminster but whoever is in Government in London cannot remove or reduce VAT, cannot support a steel plant through troubled times, cannot build the houses we need where they’re needed and cannot deport all the individuals who shouldn’t be in this country. I believe that needs to change. And I believe that both the lessons of our past and the shape of the future make the case for change compelling.

The ability to choose who governs us, and the freedom to change laws we do not like, were secured for us in the past by radicals and liberals who took power from unaccountable elites and placed it in the hands of the people. As a result of their efforts we developed, and exported to nations like the US, India, Canada and Australia a system of democratic self-government which has brought prosperity and peace to millions.

Our democracy stood the test of time. We showed the world what a free people could achieve if they were allowed to govern themselves.

In Britain we established trial by jury in the modern world, we set up the first free parliament, we ensured no-one could be arbitrarily detained at the behest of the Government, we forced our rulers to recognise they ruled by consent not by right, we led the world in abolishing slavery, we established free education for all, national insurance, the National Health Service and a national broadcaster respected across the world.

By way of contrast, the European Union, despite the undoubted idealism of its founders and the good intentions of so many leaders, has proved a failure on so many fronts. The euro has created economic misery for Europe’s poorest people. European Union regulation has entrenched mass unemployment. EU immigration policies have encouraged people traffickers and brought desperate refugee camps to our borders.

Far from providing security in an uncertain world, the EU’s policies have become a source of instability and insecurity. Razor wire once more criss-crosses the continent, historic tensions between nations such as Greece and Germany have resurfaced in ugly ways and the EU is proving incapable of dealing with the current crises in Libya and Syria. The former head of Interpol says the EU’s internal borders policy is “like hanging a sign welcoming terrorists to Europe” and Scandinavian nations which once prided themselves on their openness are now turning in on themselves. All of these factors, combined with popular anger at the lack of political accountability, has encouraged extremism, to the extent that far-right parties are stronger across the continent than at any time since the 1930s.

The EU is an institution rooted in the past and is proving incapable of reforming to meet the big technological, demographic and economic challenges of our time. It was developed in the 1950s and 1960s and like other institutions which seemed modern then, from tower blocks to telexes, it is now hopelessly out of date. The EU tries to standardise and regulate rather than encourage diversity and innovation. It is an analogue union in a digital age.

The EU is built to keep power and control with the elites rather than the people. Even though we are outside the euro we are still subject to an unelected EU commission which is generating new laws every day and an unaccountable European Court in Luxembourg which is extending its reach every week, increasingly using the Charter of Fundamental Rights which in many ways gives the EU more power and reach than ever before. This growing EU bureaucracy holds us back in every area. EU rules dictate everything from the maximum size of containers in which olive oil may be sold (five litres) to the distance houses have to be from heathland to prevent cats chasing birds (five kilometres).

Individually these rules may be comical. Collectively, and there are tens of thousands of them, they are inimical to creativity, growth and progress. Rules like the EU clinical trials directive have slowed down the creation of new drugs to cure terrible diseases and ECJ judgements on data protection issues hobble the growth of internet companies. As a minister I’ve seen hundreds of new EU rules cross my desk, none of which were requested by the UK Parliament, none of which I or any other British politician could alter in any way and none of which made us freer, richer or fairer.

It is hard to overstate the degree to which the EU is a constraint on ministers’ ability to do the things they were elected to do, or to use their judgment about the right course of action for the people of this country. I have long had concerns about our membership of the EU but the experience of Government has only deepened my conviction that we need change. Every single day, every single minister is told: ‘Yes Minister, I understand, but I’m afraid that’s against EU rules’. I know it. My colleagues in government know it. And the British people ought to know it too: your government is not, ultimately, in control in hundreds of areas that matter.

But by leaving the EU we can take control. Indeed we can show the rest of Europe the way to flourish. Instead of grumbling and complaining about the things we can’t change and growing resentful and bitter, we can shape an optimistic, forward-looking and genuinely internationalist alternative to the path the EU is going down. We can show leadership. Like the Americans who declared their independence and never looked back, we can become an exemplar of what an inclusive, open and innovative democracy can achieve.

We can take back the billions we give to the EU, the money which is squandered on grand parliamentary buildings and bureaucratic follies, and invest it in science and technology, schools and apprenticeships. We can get rid of the regulations which big business uses to crush competition and instead support new start-up businesses and creative talent. We can forge trade deals and partnerships with nations across the globe, helping developing countries to grow and benefiting from faster and better access to new markets.

We are the world’s fifth largest economy, with the best armed forces of any nation, more Nobel Prizes than any European country and more world-leading universities than any European country. Our economy is more dynamic than the Eurozone, we have the most attractive capital city on the globe, the greatest “soft power” and global influence of any state and a leadership role in NATO and the UN. Are we really too small, too weak and too powerless to make a success of self-rule? On the contrary, the reason the EU’s bureaucrats oppose us leaving is they fear that our success outside will only underline the scale of their failure.

This chance may never come again in our lifetimes, which is why I will be true to my principles and take the opportunity this referendum provides to leave an EU mired in the past and embrace a better future.

Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Education, in Birmingham on 16 June 2011.

Thank you Tony for that kind introduction.

The last time we met was in New York when we were discussing school reform and, in particular, teacher performance.

I remember arguing that teachers had nothing to fear from lesson observation – not only was learning from other professionals the best way to improve, confident performers should relish the opportunity to show what they can do.

After all, I argued, other inspirational professionals are used to being watched while they work – great footballers, I said, like Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs, don’t object to people paying them attention when they do their thing.

Perhaps, in hindsight, I could have chosen a happier parallel – but Tony you are one professional who always performs with effortless grace – thank you.

And thinking of outstanding performances which are a joy to watch, Steve, can I thank you for a brilliant and inspiring speech…

You incarnate the virtues of great leadership.

Clarity of vision.

Generosity of spirit.

Energy in action.

And, above all, clear moral purpose.

Together with Vanni, Toby and the rest of the leadership team at the National College you have responded to every challenge we’ve given you with the enthusiasm, optimism and ambition of great public servants.

I am in your debt.

I mentioned that you bring a clear sense of moral purpose to everything you do, Steve.

Throughout your career you have aspired to give children and young people new opportunities, richer futures, a sense of limitless possibility.

And it’s about moral purpose that I want to speak today.

Knowledge is power

The moral purpose that animates the work we all do. Ministers, officials, school leaders, teachers.

What unites us is a belief that lives can be transformed by what goes on in schools. The precious moments spent in the classroom, the interactions between professionals and students, the process of teaching and learning – can shape futures like nothing else.

Just last week I was talking to one young man at the secondary school nearest to my home, Burlington Danes in London’s White City Estate. A teenager who had been persistently in trouble, going in the wrong direction and who saw in the environment around him no incentive to work hard, no penalty for indiscipline, no encouragement to learn. Until that school was taken in a new direction by a new leader, the amazing Sally Coates.

She made sure every moment every child spent in her school was worthwhile – focussed on learning – with a clear expectation that every child could surpass their family’s expectations. That young man is now on course to study engineering at Cambridge and his life has been transformed immeasurably for the better.

And what Sally has done in Burlington Danes, so many of you are doing across the country. Changing schools for the better, spreading opportunity more widely.

I am uniquely fortunate to be Secretary of State at a time when we have the best generation of teachers ever in our schools and the best generation of heads leading them.

People like Dana Ross-Wawrzynski at Altrincham Grammar Schools for Girls, who not only runs one of the most impressive schools in the country, but is also creating a trust in East Manchester that is already rapidly boosting the performance of a number of other local schools.

Or Ray Ruszczynski at Chellaston Academy, a superb National Leader of Education, working in a collaborative group with Landau Forte Academy and West Park School, as well as providing a wide range of support to Sinfin School.

Or Dame Sue John who has turned Lampton Academy into an inspiring example of how a school can succeed in a tough area, while also spearheading the London Challenge initiative which has so helped improve education in our capital.

Heroes and heroines whose vocation is teaching – the noblest calling I know.

All of us in this hall share something, I suspect. All of us, I am sure, were inspired by a teacher or teachers who kindled a love of knowledge, a restless curiosity, and a passion for our subject when we were young.

And all of us, I believe, want to excite the next generation – as we were excited – by the adventure of learning.

Introducing the next generation to the best that has been thought and written is a moral enterprise of which we can all be proud. Giving every child an equal share in the inheritance of achievement which great minds have passed on to us is a great progressive cause. Shakespeare’s dramas, Milton’s verse, Newton’s breakthroughs, Curie’s discoveries, Leibniz’s genius, Turing’s innovation, Beethoven’s music, Turner’s painting, Macmillan’s choreography, Zuckerberg’s brilliance – all the rich achievements of human ingenuity belong to every child – and it should be our enduring mission to spread that inheritance as widely as possible.

Because it is only through learning – the acquisition of intellectual capital – that individuals have the power to shape their own lives. In a world which globalisation is flattening, in which unskilled jobs are disappearing from our shores, in which education determines income and good qualifications are the best form of unemployment insurance, we have to ensure every child has a stock of intellectual capital which enables them to flourish.

Making opportunity more equal

But there is one area where the sense of moral purpose which guides us as leaders in education must impel us to do more.

As a nation, we still do not do enough to extend the liberating power of a great education to the poorest.

As Barack Obama has persuasively argued, education reform is the civil rights battle of our time.

In Britain, as in the USA, access to a quality education has never mattered more but access to a quality education is rationed for the poor, the vulnerable and those from minority communities.

Each year there are 600,000 students passing through our state schools. 80,000 of them – the poorest – are those eligible for free school meals.

Of those 80,000, in the last year for which we have figures, just 40 made it to Oxford or Cambridge. Fewer from the whole of the population on benefits than made it from Eton. Or Westminster. Or St Paul’s School for Girls.

We know that we are not playing fair by all when, in the last year for which we have figures, just one child from all the state schools in the whole London Borough of Greenwich makes it to Oxford.

My moral purpose in Government is to break the lock which prevents children from our poorest families making it into our best universities and walking into the best jobs.

That is why this Government is spending two and a half billion pounds on a pupil premium to ensure that every child eligible for free school meals has two thousand pounds more spent on their education every year.

That is why this Government is investing in more hours of free nursery education for all three and four year olds and 15 hours of free nursery education for all disadvantaged two-year-olds.

And that is why this Government is investing in an Education Endowment Fund which will, like Barack Obama’s Race to the Top Fund, provide additional money for those teachers who develop innovative approaches to tackling disadvantage.

Because the scandal which haunts my conscience is the plight of those students from the poorest backgrounds, in the poorest neighbourhoods, in our poorest-performing schools who need us to act if their right to a decent future is to be guaranteed.

We still have one of the most segregated schools systems in the world, with the gap between the best and the worst wider than in almost any other developed nation.

In the highest-performing education nations, such as Singapore, around 80% of students taking O-levels get at least an equivalent of a C pass in their maths and English.

And we should remember that Singapore has only been independent for around fifty years, it has no natural resources, is surrounded by more powerful nations, is a multi-ethnic society and its students sit exams in English – even though their first language will be Malay, Tamil or Chinese.

Here just over half of students get a C pass in GCSE maths and English. And the half which fail are drawn overwhelmingly from poorer backgrounds and are educated in poorer-performing schools.

So, at the heart of our comprehensive reform programme for education is a determination to learn from, and emulate, those countries which are both high performers and succeed in generating a much higher level of equity across the school system.

Thanks to the pioneering work of thinkers such as Michael Fullan, Michael Barber and Fenton Whelan, and the data gathered by the OECD through its regular surveys of educational performance, we can identify the common features of high-performing systems.

The best people need to be recruited into the classroom.

They then need to be liberated in schools set free from bureaucratic control.

Given structures which encourage collaboration and the sharing of the benefits innovation brings.

Held to account in an intelligent fashion so we can all identify the best practice we can draw on.

And led in a way which encourages us all to hold fast to the moral purpose of making opportunity more equal.

I want to say a little about each.

We’re getting more superb teachers

We’ve moved quickly to get more high-performing graduates into teaching by funding the doubling of Teach First over the course of this parliament and expanding the fantastic Future Leaders and Teaching Leaders programmes which, with the support of the National College, provide superb professional development for the future leaders of some of our toughest schools.

Shortly we’ll be publishing our strategy for Initial Teacher Training. This will further emphasise our commitment to boosting the status of the profession by toughening up the recruitment process and ensuring that all new teachers have a real depth of knowledge in their subject.

We’ll be making sure this covers the whole spectrum by, for example, providing additional funding for more placements in special schools, so as to give more teachers specialist knowledge in teaching children with special needs.

We will also explore how excellent schools can be more involved in both initial training and the provision of professional development. Contrary to what some have said this is not about excluding higher education from teacher training. There are many excellent centres of ITT and losing their experience is not on my agenda.

But I am keen that we make better use of headteachers’ and teachers’ experience. That’s why I, like Steve, am so excited about the development of Teaching Schools.

I believe Teaching Schools have the potential to generate higher standards than ever before. Over 1,000 expressions of interest and 300 applications is a very positive sign of your enthusiasm. The first 100 Teaching Schools will be designated next month but the partnerships being developed between schools and with higher education are already having a powerful and positive impact on the system.

We’re empowering school leaders to innovate

Putting our best schools in charge of professional development is, though, just one way in which we’re handing you control of the education system.

We’ve reduced central Government prescription for all schools to make your lives easier and give you the space to focus on what really matters.

The hundreds of pages of forms you had to fill in to complete the FMSIS process. Gone.

The vast Ofsted self-evaluation form that took weeks to fill in. Gone.

Performance Management guidance has been cut by three quarters and capability procedures simplified so you can deal with inadequate staff quickly and effectively.

Behaviour and bullying guidance has been cut from 600 pages to 50 so as to give you complete clarity over your powers and duties.

Over the next few months we will be publishing shortened guidance in a whole host of other areas. In total, departmental guidance will be more than halved.

And, I hope you’ve noticed we’ve stopped the endless stream of emails that use to emanate from the Department.

Beyond these changes we’ve implemented for the benefit of all schools, we’ve also given every school the opportunity to take complete control of its budget, curriculum and staffing by applying for academy status.

When I spoke to you last year there were 203 academies. Now there are 704 and a further 814 schools have applied. By the end of the year more than a third of secondaries will be academies. This is a much faster rate of conversion than I, or I think anyone else, had anticipated and testament, I believe, to school leaders’ desire for genuine autonomy.

Many of you who have converted in the past year have already used your freedoms to great effect. For example:

Premier Academy in Milton Keynes has extended payscales – so that good teachers can choose to remain in the classroom rather than move into management to increase their salaries.

And, like other schools such as Wakefield City Academy, they have used resources previously held by their Local Authority to employ a dedicated pastoral support worker on-site to ensure that children with social and educational needs get complete continuity of care.

Others are following some of the larger sponsor groups like ARK and Haberdashers in extending their school day and the academic year.

Yet others like the Kunskapsskolan schools in Richmond are developing exciting new curriculum models.

And many converter academies have found they are able to buy services for a significantly lower cost than those provided by their local authority.

For instance Broadclyst Academy Primary School has cut the costs of their payroll system in half and has ploughed the money back into teaching. Watford Grammar School for Girls and Hartismere Academy have found procuring small improvements to be significantly cheaper and quicker.

This is creating a new relationship between schools and Local Authorities. As we know, in some areas LAs have been genuine drivers of innovation and improvement: they have seen their role as champions of excellence; identifying struggling heads and governors; brokering peer-to-peer support; and forging partnerships with local universities or major employers to drive up standards.

But in other areas this has not been the case. And this is now beginning to change, as LAs react to schools’ new powers by improving the quality of their offer to ensure academies buy back services and engage with local initiatives. As one academy head explained recently to the Guardian:

Under the old regime, nothing had ever been done about some things that weren’t good enough, whereas now, there’s an awful lot of activity at our Local Authority to make sure services are good enough so that we will buy them in.

And some healthy competition isn’t just improving Local Authorities. A study just published by academics at the London School of Economics, looking at academies opened by the last government, shows not only that they have improved significantly faster than other schools, but also that other schools in their locality have seen results improve.

We’re embedding a culture of collaboration

But competition isn’t the main driver of improvement in the system. What we’re seeing, as Steve put it, is collaboration driving improvement but with a competitive edge. Indeed I would go as far to argue that genuine collaboration is harder without that competitive edge to inspire the need to improve.

So I’m hugely encouraged by the renewed focus on partnership between schools I’m seeing at the moment. I’ve already mentioned how impressed I am with some of the alliances put together by aspirant Teaching Schools. But that’s just one area of activity.

For instance, all of the new converter academies have, between them, agreed to support over 700 other schools and we’ve begun the doubling of the National and Local Leader of Education programmes to support fellow heads.

I am particularly pleased to see that a number of these softer collaborative relationships are evolving into hard federations.

I have always thought that many of the best academy chains are those that have grown out of a single outstanding school with a visionary leadership team. Just look at what Dan Moynihan has done at Harris; or Sir Kevin Satchwell at Thomas Telford; or Sir Peter Simpson at Brooke Weston; or our new Schools’ Commissioner Elizabeth Sidwell at Haberdashers.

What these leaders share is that were given a rare opportunity as headteachers of CTCs to use their longstanding autonomy to develop a powerful educational model that could then be readily applied to new schools when the last Government launched their academy programme.

Now, with our offer of academy freedoms to all outstanding schools and leaders we have created the opportunity on a much larger scale for great leaders to expand their vision across a group of schools.

The process of allowing outstanding schools to convert has created a new generation of academy sponsors dedicated to turning round under-performing schools.

For example, Morley High School, led by NLE John Townsley, converted in January and will start sponsoring Farnley Park School in Leeds next year. And Sandy Hill Academy in Cornwall – one of the very first converters – is now in the process of taking on Trevebyn Primary.

I hope many more of you will take advantage of this opportunity over the coming years.

A proper national framework of accountability

Of course in this new educational landscape – where far more schools have significant autonomy and improvement is driven not by Government but by great schools working with others – proper accountability becomes even more important than ever.

That’s why we’re currently overhauling the Ofsted framework to focus on the four core responsibilities of schools – teaching and learning; leadership; attainment; behaviour and safety – as opposed to the twenty-seven different categories in the existing framework.

I am particularly keen that under the new framework Ofsted inspectors are able engage properly with schools, as opposed to focusing too strongly on data alone. I want them to be able to view more lessons; talk to more teachers and hear what students and parents have to say. And I want inspectors to engage not just during inspections but subsequently so that schools feel they have some guidance as well as a judgement.

We also need to change the way we use data in our pursuit of accountability. As Professor Alison Wolf’s review on vocational education has made clear, the introduction of large numbers of vocational equivalents to the GCSE performance tables in 2004 has led to widespread gaming of qualifications. The 4,000 per cent rise in the number of such qualifications taken in just six years is testament to this.

She has proposed measures to combat this issue which we are now implementing – including much tighter criteria for courses that wish to be considered equivalent to GCSE. But this particular problem is symptomatic of a wider issue. As long as most data is hidden from the public and the profession governments can manipulate what they do choose to release so as to mislead.

That is why we’ve already begun a major transparency revolution. We’ve started the process of publishing all the information the Department collects – including an additional 14 million lines of exam data this year. In future this will include more data on how schools are improving the results of the disadvantaged – both those in receipt of the pupil premium and those with low prior attainment.

I don’t expect, of course, that many parents will personally search through all this new material, but we are already seeing third parties finding new ways to present this data. Moreover educational researchers will have an unprecedented opportunity to investigate what’s really going on in the system.

It also means that any new performance measures Government does seek to highlight – such as the English Baccalaureate – will only have an impact insofar as they resonate with parents. Initial surveys suggest this measure does have real resonance. Which is unsurprising as it simply seeks to replicate the sort of academic core that is expected in almost every developed country in the world: for children on both academic and vocational routes post-16.

A moral commitment to helping those most in need

Crucial to a proper framework of accountability is a set of clear expectations for schools. As the OECD say: “PISA results suggest that the countries that improved the most, or that are among the top performers, are those that establish clear, ambitious policy goals.”

In last year’s White Paper we took a tougher line on under-performance than ever before by raising the floor standard for secondary schools to 35 per cent of pupils achieving five GCSEs at A*-C including English and maths. We wanted these standards to be as fair as possible, so schools which show pupils making superb progress from a low basis are exempted.

But that still left 216 secondary schools below this floor. We have taken action, in partnership with many of you in this room, to ensure their performance is turned round.

In the next school year at least 88 schools, and counting, will be placed in the hands of new academy sponsors with a mission to end a culture of poor performance. That is more under-performing schools converted to academies than the last Government ever managed in a single year and more than they managed in their first eight years combined.

So I’m hugely encouraged by our progress. But I don’t believe, and I hope you don’t either, that 35 per cent of kids getting five decent GCSEs should be the limit of our ambition.

To compete with the best in the world, we have to raise our expectations not just once but continuously. In Poland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand more and more students are graduating from school and going on to university. In Singapore more than 80 per cent of young people taking O-levels now achieve 5 passes – the equivalent of C grades in GCSE. In South Korea an incredible 97 per cent of students graduate from high school.

So if we are to aspire to a world-class education system then we need to raise our sights beyond 35 per cent. And in doing so we cannot allow ourselves to have lower expectations for more disadvantaged parts of country. Of course I accept that schools in such communities face harder challenges but I also know that these challenges can be met. Deprivation need not be destiny.

Look at Perry Beeches in Birmingham. 25 per cent of children are on Free School Meals and 41 per cent have special needs. Yet in three years they have moved from 21 per cent five A*-C GCSEs including English and Maths to 74 per cent.

Or Paddington Academy – which jumped from 34 per cent to 63 per cent five A*-C with English and maths in just one year. At Paddington 51 per cent of children are on Free School Meals and 65 per cent are identified has having some kind of special need.

Or Woodside High School in Haringey, a school Steve spoke eloquently about in his speech, where almost no children at all achieved 5 A* to C with English and maths 5 years ago and where over 50% will hit that benchmark this year. Again this is a school where 55% of children are on free school meals and 38% have identified special needs.

Now that we know this level of achievement is possible in schools like these, and in many others similar to them, we must surely make it our expectation for all schools. To do any less, I believe, would be a betrayal of our young people.

So next year the floor will rise to 40 per cent and my aspiration is that by 2015 we will be able to raise it to 50 per cent. There is no reason – if we work together – that by the end of this parliament every young person in the country can’t be educated in a school where at least half of students reach this basic academic standard.

I realise that in stating this aspiration some will criticise too strong a focus on testing. Let me be clear: I do not think the only responsibility a school has is to help students pass exams. An outstanding school will look after the pastoral needs of its pupils; will provide a wide range of extra-curricular activities, and play a role as a broader part of its community. But it must also endow each child with the basic entitlement of intellectual capital any citizen needs to make their way in the world. A GCSE floor standard is about providing a basic minimum expectation to young people that their school will equip them for further education and employment.

Primary

And we must also have a similar level of expectation for primary schools. The last Government’s academies programme was never extended to primaries, even though it was Andrew Adonis’s clear ambition.

And after an initial focus on primary schools in its first five years, the last Government lost momentum. So in the White Paper I also introduced a meaningful floor standard for primaries for the first time: that 60 per cent of pupils should achieve Level 4 in English and maths at Key Stage 2 or make an average level of progress.

Of course primary test scores are more volatile than those in secondaries due to the smaller size of schools, so one has to treat data with additional care. However, analysis of this new floor standard reveals that there are more than 200 schools that have been under the floor for five years or more. Indeed more than half of these have been under the floor for at least ten years.

A further 500 or so schools have been under the floor for three of the past four years.

These schools have let down repeated cohorts of children. Again I appreciate that it is harder to reach this standard in some parts of the country than others. But again we know that it is possible:

Look at Berrymede Junior School in Acton where 58 per cent of children are on Free School Meals and 31 per cent have a special need. Here over 80 per cent of pupils have achieved Level 4 in English and maths in each of the last three years.

Or Woodberry Down in Hackney with 51 per cent on Free School Meals and 34 per cent with special needs where 80 per cent reached Level 4 in English and maths last year.

Or Cuckoo Hall Academy in Edmonton with 37 per cent on Free School Meals and 34 per cent with special needs where an incredible 95 per cent of pupils achieved the Level 4 benchmark last year.

Or dozens of others in similar circumstances. Given that we know it can be done and it is done, we surely must make it our minimum expectation for all primary schools that they will not consistently fall below a 60 per cent floor.

So, as an urgent priority, we will start work on turning around the 200 schools that have most consistently underperformed by finding new academy sponsors for them so that most can reopen from September 2012. We want to work closely with the schools involved and their local authorities to make this happen.

The Education Bill currently working its way through Parliament will give the Department the power to intervene to turn around underperforming schools where authorities are recalcitrant or try to stand in the way of improvement. But wherever possible we want to find solutions that everyone can agree on – as we have done with the vast majority of the secondary schools that will become academies next year.

Beyond this we want to support Local Authorities in turning round the 500 schools who have fallen below the floor in at least three of the past four years. Several months ago I asked Local Authorities to draw up plans showing how they intended to improve their weaker schools. These have now been submitted and some of them are very impressive showing clear leadership and engagement with the problems of long-term underperformance.

In his speech Steve mentioned Wigan’s plans to commission groups of schools to run improvement activity across the authority and he underlined how schools across Manchester are working together to embed the success of the Greater Manchester Challenge. In Devon and Suffolk the Local Authorities have worked to help schools become academies while maintaining a strong network between the schools.

But there will be other local authorities that need some support – financial and logistic – from the centre. So, over the coming months, we will identify areas – either whole authorities or parts of larger authorities – that have a significant number of underperforming schools. We will help these communities dramatically transform primary education in their area.

Conclusion

And there is an urgent need for us all to act.

We have just suffered the worst financial crisis since 1929.

Our economy is weighed down by a huge debt burden.

Europe has major problems with debt and the euro.

Meanwhile there is a rapid and historic shift of political and economic power to Asia and a series of scientific and technological changes that are transforming our culture, economy and global politics.

If we do not have a school system that is adapting to and preparing for these challenges then we will betray a generation.

Our school system needs to have innovation embedded in its way of working. That is what our reforms provide – the opportunity for our school system to adapt rapidly to technological change such as the amazing revolution of iTunesU, whereby Harvard and Oxbridge publish their most valuable content free, extending the scope of knowledge available to all children.

Only by learning from other nations, and by giving school leaders the freedom to shape their own futures, liberated from outdated bureaucratic structures, can we ensure we benefit from the other, increasingly rapid changes technological innovation will bring.

And while globalisation brings many benefits to our citizens, it also bears particularly heavily on the poor and the young.

Across the Western world countries are struggling with youth unemployment at the moment.

And for all those of us who feel that the moral purpose of our work is to find a fulfilling outlet for the talents of our young people, there is a special tragedy in seeing young lives unfulfilled.

There are things Government can do to ameliorate this in the short term. And we are acting, not least through my colleague Iain Duncan Smith’s work programme.

But if we are to grasp this issue properly then we must deal with the root causes of the problem.

And that is our shared responsibility.

For those root causes can be found in the first years of a child’s life.

We know that a child who struggles at Key Stage One will struggle to do well in their Key Stage Two tests. And we know those children with the greatest difficulties are drawn overwhelmingly from our poorest neighbourhoods.

And we know that those same children who don’t have Level 4 English and maths when they leave primary school are much less likely to achieve five good GCSEs than their more fortunate peers.

And we know that the same young person who doesn’t get the equivalent of five good GCSEs is much more likely to be NEET at 16 or 17 and much less likely to be in secure employment thereafter.

We are fortunate to be in the most fulfilling employment anyone can have. To be engaged in the education of the next generation is to be given a chance to liberate thousands from the narrow horizons which have limited mankind’s vision for centuries.

But if we are to make good that promise then we need to recognise that we will all have to work harder than ever before – work to attract even better people into teaching, work to innovate more determinedly, work to identify talent more zealously, work to collaborate more intensively, work to raise aspirations, standards, hopes…

But in this work lies the promise of a reward greater than is given to any other profession – the knowledge that we have guaranteed the life of the next generation will be better than our own.

Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Education, at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London on 11 January 2011.

There could be no better way to start 2011 for me than by welcoming you all here to London.

Because this second decade of the twenty-first century will be characterised by uniquely daunting challenges – but it also holds out amazing opportunities.

The challenges are so daunting because they are global in scope and as testing as any our generation has known.

But the opportunities are even greater because there is the chance – in this generation – to bring freedom, opportunity, knowledge and dignity, material plenty and personal fulfilment to many more of our fellow citizens than ever before.

The great Italian Marxist thinker once enjoined on his followers an attitude he defined as pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.

What he meant was that we should be clear eyed about the difficulties we face, but undaunted, determined and resolute in our belief they can be overcome.

Our world does face huge problems.

A resurgent wave of ideologically motivated terrorism and renewed conflicts between peoples threaten millions. Our global environment is threatened by resource depletion and thoughtless exploitation. A dramatically growing, and increasingly youthful, world population chafes against constraints which deny millions the chance to live their dreams. Economic growth has been spread inequitably and nations which are adjusting to reality after years of folly are finding the process, inevitably, painful.

But bumpy, indeed turbulent, as the journey ahead might be, we are also fortunate in knowing what the best route not just to safety, but to plenty, will be.

It is the pursuit of knowledge.

Nothing is so effective a solvent of hatred and prejudice as learning and wisdom, the best environmental protection policy to help the planet is a scientific innovation policy which rewards greener growth, the route to fulfilment for the next generation is dedication to study, hard work and restless curiosity and the single most effective way to generate economic growth is invest in human and intellectual capital – to build a better education system.

So, in that sense, in talking to those who lead the world’s education systems I have the unique privilege of talking to those who will lead the world out of the dark valley we are currently navigating and onto sunlit uplands where opportunity beckons.

It is, certainly, a special privilege to be involved in shaping education policy at the moment. Because as well as laying the foundations for a world which is better, we are also ensuring that we live in societies which are fairer.

For most of our history people have been victims of forces beyond their control.

Accidents of birth – like where individuals were born, both geographically and in class terms, as well as what their parents did for a living – proved overwhelmingly likely to dictate people’s future.

But education is the means by which we can liberate people from those imposed constraints. It allows individuals to choose a fulfilling job, enrich their inner life and become authors of our own life stories.

And that is why education reform is the great progressive cause of our times.

The Education World Forum is so important because it demonstrates our shared belief that we can educate our children to an ever higher standard and achieve the levels of fairness and social mobility that have long eluded us.

In the coming days, we have an opportunity to talk in detail about the issues that we face, share our expertise and strengthen the bonds between our countries. I’m also delighted that many of you will have the chance to see for yourselves the very best of the British education system.

I am pleased that so many young people in Britain today are enjoying a superb education – and pleased that in many areas we have made progress over the years. In particular, I am overjoyed that we have so many great teachers and headteachers who are playing an increasingly important part in transforming our system for the better.

But I am also conscious that in the world of education, by definition, the quest to improve never ends.

Education is a process of continual learning, of crossing new boundaries, exploring new territory, restless curiosity and perpetual questioning.

And as I have been in this job one of the things I have learned is that we can only improve our own education systems if we make them as open to new thinking, as free to learn, as flexible and innovative, as possible.

Because with every year that passes we are privileged to enjoy new insights about how best to organise schools, how best to inspire pupils, how to use new technology, how the brain absorbs knowledge, how teachers can best motivate, how parents can better support, how governments can best invest.

And we are uniquely fortunate that speaking at this conference are two men who have done more than any others to help us understand what works in the world of education. And by listening to them we can see how much further we all have to go.

Yesterday, you heard from a man I recently have described as the most important man in the British education system – but he could equally be the most important man in world education.

Later this morning, you will hear from the man who is vying with him for that accolade.

Neither will teach a single lesson this year, neither are household names, neither – unsurprisingly – are education ministers – but both deserve our thanks and the thanks of everyone who wants to see children around the world fulfil the limit of their potential.

They are Andreas Schleicher and Michael Barber.

Andreas Schleicher is a German mathematician with the sort of job title that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy – head of the indicators and analysis division (directorate for education) at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

On the face of it, a job description like that might seem like the title of the bureaucrat’s bureaucrat – but in truth Andreas is the father of more revolutions than any German since Karl Marx.

Because Andreas is responsible for collating the PISA league tables of international educational achievement. He tells us which nations have the best-performing education systems and then analyses that data to determine why that is the case.

When the first PISA league tables were published they demonstrated, to the amazement of the German political classes, that their education system was nowhere near the position of world leadership they had fondly imagined.

The phenomenon of discovering just how relatively poorly the German education system performed was termed ‘Pisa-Schock’ and it stimulated a furious debate about how Germany could catch up.

In the US, education experts described the 2006 PISA report as our generation’s ‘Sputnik moment’.

The evidence that 15-year-olds in the Far East were so comfortably outperforming American pupils in maths and science sent the same shockwaves through the West as the Soviet Union’s surprise satellite launch in 1957, an event which prompted a radical reform of science education in the US.

But just because you come top in PISA these days doesn’t mean you rest on the laurels Andreas fashions for you. Far from it.

What characterises those nations which are themselves top performers – such as Singapore and Hong Kong – is that they are restless self-improvers.

They have also eagerly examined every aspect of Andreas’s research to see what their principal competitors are doing with a view to implementing further changes to maintain their competitive edge.

Sir Michael Barber is another visionary educationalist.

In the early part of the last decade, he played a direct role in shaping the English education system as a leading advisor to Tony Blair’s government. As a result of policies that he helped introduce – including an uncompromising focus on literacy, floor standards for school performance and higher standards for teacher performance – improvements were undoubtedly made.

But, rather like Tony Blair, Michael has arguably had an even bigger influence globally than at home in recent years. His seminal 2007 report, How the world’s best-performing school systems come out on top, which he produced for McKinsey provided those nations that were serious about education reform with a blueprint of what they needed to do to catch up.

And his recent report, How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better, provides further invaluable insights for all nations aspiring to improve their education system or hoping to remain amongst the best.

No nation that is serious about ensuring its children enjoy an education that equips them to compete fairly with students from other countries can afford to ignore the PISA and McKinsey studies.

Doing so would be as foolish as dismissing what control trials tell us in medicine. It means flying in the face of the best evidence we have of what works.

And just as the evidence that Andreas and Michael has gathered has influenced education reformers in North America, Asia and Scandinavia, so it is influencing the Coalition Government here in Britain.

Not least because it shows that we are falling further and further behind other nations. In the last ten years, we have plummeted in the world rankings from 4th to 16th for science, 7th to 25th for literacy and 8th to 28th for maths.

These are facts from which we cannot hide. But while they may encourage a certain pessimism of the intellect, the examples of transformed education systems which Andreas and Michael have highlighted, certainly encourages optimism of the will.

From Shanghai to New Orleans, Alberta to Hong Kong, Singapore to Helsinki, nations which have been educational back markers have become world leaders.

And our recently published schools White Paper was deliberately designed to bring together – indeed, to shamelessly plunder from – policies that have worked in other high-performing nations.

It was accompanied by a detailed evidence paper, The case for change, that draws on the insights generated by successive PISA studies and McKinsey reports.

And it is based on the three essential characteristics which mark out the best performing and fastest reforming education systems in the landmark PISA and McKinsey studies.

Importance of teaching
First, the most successful education nations recruit the best possible people into teaching, provide them with high-quality training and professional development, and put them to work in the most challenging classrooms.

Our schools White Paper was called The importance of teaching because nothing matters more in improving education than giving every child access to the best possible teaching and ensuring that every moment of interaction between teacher and student yields results.

We are committed to raising the quality of new entrants to the teaching profession by insisting they are better qualified than ever before, we are determined to improve teacher training by building on intellectual accomplishment and ensuring more time is spent in the classroom acquiring practical teaching skills, and we plan to establish new centres of excellence in teaching practice – teaching schools modelled on our great teaching hospitals – so that new and experienced teachers can learn and develop their craft throughout their careers.

We have learnt from Finland – a consistently strong performer in PISA studies – about the importance of attracting the very best graduates into teaching, which is why we are expanding our principal elite route into teaching, Teach First, as well as providing extra support for top graduates in maths and science to enter teaching.

And we are increasing the number of national and local leaders of education – superb heads who lend their skills to raise standards in weaker schools – so that the best support the weak in a concerted effort to improve education for all children, not just some.

The principle of collaboration between stronger and weaker schools, with those in a position to help given the freedom to make a difference, lies at the heart of our whole approach to school improvement.

Greater autonomy

The PISA and McKinsey reports clearly show that the greater the amount of autonomy at school level, with headteachers and principals free to determine how pupils are taught and how budgets are spent, the greater the potential there has been for all-round improvement and the greater the opportunity too for the system to move from good to great.

The Coalition Government agrees that headteachers and teachers – not politicians and bureaucrats – know best how to run schools.

That is why we’ve announced a review of our National Curriculum with the aim of reducing prescription and are taking action to shed all unnecessary bureaucratic burdens on schools.

It is also why we’re freeing schools from central and local bureaucratic control by inviting them to become academies.

Schools are taking up our offer because they recognise the huge benefits that being an academy brings – more autonomy, more resources, less bureaucracy and an opportunity to thrive, free from interference from government.

Since the start of the school term in September, more than one school has converted to become an academy every working day. As of last week, more than 400 academies are now open and enjoying many of the same freedoms which are enjoyed by schools in the best-performing education systems. And many more are in the pipeline.

Alongside this, we are also further extending autonomy and choice by making it easier for teachers, parents, academy sponsors and other groups to start their own free schools.

In Sweden, free schools have driven up standards in those schools but also in neighbouring schools too.

And as the OECD points out, two of the most successful countries in PISA – Hong Kong and Singapore – are among those with the highest levels of school competition.

But while increased parental choice can help tackle ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations’, which continues to blight the life chances of many children from deprived backgrounds in particular, it does not need be the enemy of cooperation.

Our plans foresee schools collaborating on a scale that has never been witnessed before, which is why all new academies are also working with weaker schools to help them improve.

And this week will see a major advance in that drive.

We will identify those of our schools most in need of support – those where attainment is poor and where students are not making progress.

These are the schools whose children most need our help – those underperforming institutions where opportunity is restricted.

We will work with these schools – all of which have great potential and all of which will have staff ready to accept the challenge to improve.

We will provide them with extra resources.

But on condition they work with us to develop tough, rigorous, immediate plans for improvement.

Those plans will involve weaker schools being taken under the wing of high-performing schools, entering academy chains, changing the way they work, implementing reforms to the curriculum and staffing and putting in place new, tougher approaches to discipline and behaviour.

This drive will be led by an inspirational former headteacher – Liz Sidwell – who has experience of the state and private sector and who has helped turn round underperforming schools as well as setting a benchmark for excellence in the state system.

Proper accountability
The reason we’re able to identify great heads like Liz – and the schools which need her help – is that we have, over time, developed ways of holding schools, and education ministers, accountable for the money they spend.

Because the other, central, insight from the PISA and McKinsey reports into what makes great education systems so successful is that they all use data to make schools accountable and drive improvement.

Data allows us to identify the best so we can emulate it, and diagnose weaknesses so we can intervene before it’s too late.

I know that some in the education profession fear that data has been used – perhaps I should say abused – to constrict the autonomy which we know drives improvement.

But the lesson from PISA is that autonomy works best when it’s combined with intelligent accountability. That means making comparisons which are fair. And trying to limit the extent to which measurements can be ‘gamed’ by those in the system.

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

Pupils need qualifications to succeed in life, so I won’t shy away from saying we expect more and more young people to leave school with better and better qualifications. That is non-negotiable.

But we must also recognise that schools succeed when they take children from challenging and difficult circumstances and ensure they exceed expectations and progress faster than their peers.

And because we want to limit the extent to which accountability mechanisms are ‘gamed’ we will also ensure much more information is put into the public domain so that schools can be compared on many different criteria.

That will help schools which believe they have special qualities, undervalued by current performance tables, to make the case for their particular strengths.

And I expect that we will see new performance tables drawn up, by schools themselves, by active citizens and by professional organisations which will draw attention to particular areas of strength in our school system.

In this year’s performance tables 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.

It’s been introduced this year to allow us to see how the schools system has performed in the past – in a way which manifestly can’t have been gamed.

And I expect it will reveal the way in which past performance tables actually encouraged many many great schools and great heads to offer certain non-academic subjects rather than more rigorous academic subjects.

I am open to arguments about how we can further improve every measure in the performance tables – including the English Baccalaureate.

But I am determined to ensure that our exam standards match the highest standards around the world.

And in other high-performing nations there is an expectation that children will be tested in a wide range of subjects at 16.

In Singapore children sit compulsory O Levels in their mother tongue (which will be Chinese, Malay or Tamil), in the English language, in maths, in combined humanities, In science and in at least one other subject.

In Germany graduation to sixth form follows on from passing exams in German, maths, English and three other subjects.

In Alberta there are compulsory tests at age 15 in maths, science, English, French and social studies.

In France the brevet diploma is awarded at age 15 depending on performance in tests of French, maths, history, geography, civics, computer science and a modern foreign language.

In Japan there are tests at age 15 in Japanese, social studies, maths, science and English.

In the US at age 17 there are exam requirements in English, maths, science and social studies.

And in the Netherlands at 16, 17 or 18 students are expected to pass tests in Dutch, English, social studies and two other subjects – such as science, classical culture or a second modern foreign language.

England’s current expectation that only English and maths be considered benchmark expectations at 16 marks us out from other high-performing nations.

I am delighted to have a debate about how we both broaden and deepen our education system, but we cannot be in any doubt that while reform accelerates across the globe no country can afford to be left behind.

I’m in no doubt that what we are attempting in England adds up to a comprehensive programme of reform for schools here – but if we are to learn one thing from the groundbreaking work done by Andreas Schleicher and by Sir Michael Barber, it is that whole-system reform is needed to every aspect of our education system if we are to build a truly world-class education system.

It is only by paying attention to improving teacher quality, granting greater autonomy to the front line, modernising curricula, making schools more accountable to their communities, harnessing detailed performance data and encouraging professional collaboration that a nation can become one of the world’s top performers.

The evidence shows us it can be done.

And the challenge facing us in 2011 is to follow the path which the evidence, so patiently acquired by Andreas Schleicher and by Sir Michael Barber, tells us can liberate our children.

What better New Year’s resolution could any of us make this week.