Tag: Speeches

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.