Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
In fact I suspect most of you will have heard of one of Scotland's prominent exports in
the 19th century. A gentleman called Thomas Carlyle who was known as the Sage of Ecclefechan
after the town in Dumfriesshire from which he hailed. Now Thomas Carlyle was a controversial
figure, he was not an easy man to get on with. It was said that it was a good thing that
Thomas married Jane Carlyle because that way they only made two people miserable rather
than four. But one of the things about Thomas Carlyle is that he wrote a book which in a
way is the theme of today. That book, which was a bestseller in its time, was called Heroes
and Hero Worship. The reason I wanted to take that as my theme
today is because I have to be honest; I'm a bit of a hero worshipper of Charlie. I've
been inspired by his story. I've been impressed by his commitment and in particular I've been
moved by the fact that he chose to make his career as a teacher in some of the toughest
schools, dealing with some of the most difficult children in some of the most disadvantaged
circumstances. He earned his spurs by making sure that those children, many of whom
will have been excluded or overlooked by figures in their life who should really have provided
them with love and authority - Charlie made sure that they got the love and the authority
and the inspiration they deserved to turn their lives round. Charlie - impressive
as he is, heroic as he is and brilliant as he has been in his leadership of the Teaching
Agency, would be the first to say however that in a way he's not exceptional, he's typical
of the people in this room. The moral purpose that has driven Charlie
throughout his career, the sense that leadership is about service and not dictating to others
and the determination to transform the lives of children which has been the guiding light
throughout his life. That moral heroism is exhibited by everyone in this room. So all
the praise that I deservedly give to Charlie, I also want to extend to all of you for all
that you have done. Now talking of heroes and hero worship, I have a confession to make
today. It's only appropriate on the day that the Archbishop of Canterbury is installed
and two days after the new Pope has taken over, that I should be in full confessional
mode. I know that you will treat this confession, as all confessions should be treated
as something which is just between us, totally private, not for onward transmission.
So my confession is I don't actually want to be doing what I'm doing at the moment.
It's not that I don't enjoy being Education Secretary, it's a fantastic privilege and
every day, while it's challenging, is enjoyable. It's not that I don't appreciate the opportunity
to work with amazing people, all of you the fantastic civil servants that I have in the
DfE and those who support me every day. It's not that I'm not committed heart and soul
to transforming our education system; it's just that I think that politicians like me
should be doing less and professionals like you should be you doing more. The fact that
I intervene as previous Education Secretaries have intervened all of them, well almost all
of them, in their own way admiral individuals driven by a sense of wanting to make this
country better. The fact that they have intervened so relentlessly is not because I believe that
they have been misguided, in many cases they have been activated by the highest of motivations.
But the fact that there has been this constant intervention I believe to an extent has been
self-defeating. My aim as Education Secretary is not to pass
onto whoever may succeed me an appetite for restless intervention and for determined control
and for edicts and commands. What I want to pass on to my successor is a system where
the leadership is shown not from Sanctuary Buildings but from the hundreds of outstanding
schools in the country which really demonstrate every day what great education looks like.
So in that sense one of my heroes, to go back thousands of years in time the same hero funnily
enough that Boris Johnson had, is a chap called Cincinnatus who deliberately abjured ambition.
I'm sure you will all know that he was called from his estate or in my case my semi-detached
in North Kensington, to the Plough and he led Rome during a period when it needed that
degree of leadership and then he stepped back. He recognised that if you become too attached
to the exercise of political power that you actually end up impoverishing those whom you
should trust to make a difference. So my aim during my time as Secretary of State
is to see the Department for Education reduce, yes reduce in size so that there are fewer
people doing a better job, but also reduce in its reach and scope and interference in
how you operate every day. Many of you will have become academy schools and as a result
you will have felt, I hope, the grip and control of the DfE and its agencies drawback - there
when you need them, sometimes not always there quickly enough when you need them. We know
that there are some things that the Department and EFA and others should do more rapidly,
but the whole point is that we should withdraw so you can innovate with the curriculum. Train
teachers in the way that you believe is right. Provide the right level of professional development.
Shape collaboration in a way that suits you not a way that we impose. It's for that
reason that I believe that over time we can move towards what my goal is and what the
theme of this conference is, a self-improving system where politicians become smaller and
smaller figures in education and professionals larger and larger.
Now I mentioned Cincinnatus and I suppose if I mention a Roman I'd better mention a
Greek. The Greek that I want to mention is Pericles. The reason why I mention
him is because it seems to me that he sums up or his career summed up a way of reconciling
two things which in education are often held to be somehow at loggerheads. In education
it's often thought that you can believe in competition, in striving, in excellence. Or
you can believe in collaboration, in working together, in cosiness and that you can't have
the two. You can't have at the same time that striving for excellence and that desire to
help, that actually all of us feel all of the time. Education in the past, as Michael
Barber has pointed out has often been bedevilled by false dichotomies. You either have to believe
in skills or in knowledge, you either have to believe in didactic instruction or children
learning through exploration. Michael is right to say that these false dichotomies
help no one. You need both facts and skills; you need both direct instruction and the opportunity
for children to construct their own learning and to explore.
In the same way you need both that striving for excellence within your own institution
and that willingness to help others as well. Now the reason I mention Pericles is that
there was a phrase in Greek, a culture in Athens of what was called 'rivalrous emulation'.
It sounds like a pompous phrase probably is, but it's what I want to foster and encourage
and it's what you do every day. You want your schools to be outstanding, they are. You feel
a sense of pride when you see what happens in your schools and the amazing things that
children have achieved not just academically but in sporting terms, culturally and in terms
of the character that they display when they leave. You're proud of them, they're proud
of the school and the parents feel a sense of pride in what they've achieved as well -
excellence. But you don't by definition, you wouldn't be here otherwise, you don't want
to make that success exclusive. The preserve of simply those who've been fortunate enough
to be educated in your school at one time. You want to help others, and one of the reasons
why you want to help others is that you want them to succeed in their own terms and in
their own way but with your help so that that can then be an opportunity for you to say
to your own school, look these were handsome laurels that we've won but we can't rest on
them. It's that culture of combining a belief in
excellence in your own institution and a desire to foster collaborative relationships with
others that lies behind my philosophy for the Academies Programme and for teaching schools
and which lay behind the existence of national leaders of education in the first place. You
can only become an academy if you're doing a great job. You can only become a teaching
school if you're doing an outstanding job. You can only become an NLE if you've been
recognised as being someone special. But you can't keep that designation; you can't simply
relax in the approval of having secured any of those laurels without going on to help
others. A surprising thing to some, but not to me, is that you don't need massive
incentives or big sticks. All you need to do is to trust the instincts of those who are
currently leading in our schools because what they want to do overwhelmingly is to support,
to encourage, certainly to encourage others to do as well as they've done if not better.
But one thing that I do know is that sometimes politicians or their agencies wittingly or
unwittingly stand in the way of you doing what you know to be right. One of the concerns
that was raised with me last week at the Association of School and College Leaders Conference is
that there are some people who take on schools in difficult circumstances and who think,
do you know what I'm seeking to help but Ofsted sometimes will pass a judgement prematurely
before I've had a chance to turn this school round. Why should I take the risk of moving
from an already good or an outstanding school to one that requires improvement or one that's
in special measures if just as I'm taking the difficult steps, moving on the staff,
changing the way in which we operate, dealing with behaviour that are required, someone comes
and marks my essay before its complete. Judges me not even halfway but on the first
few steps of the journey. There are others that have also said to me, my school's been
outstanding, it's outstanding in every area. But that doesn't happen by accident. Yes I've
got a great leadership team but I need to make sure that they're kept up to the mark.
If I spent time on another school or doing any of the things that you encourage me to
and which I want to, then my worry is that Ofsted will visit and they'll suddenly say
well do you know what, the time that you've spent elsewhere lovely though it is, has actually
had an impact on your own school and we're going to mark you down. For that act of
generosity, in fact that act of leadership on your part, you will somehow suffer. Those
fears are real but let me tackle them head on. The person who understands those fears
best is the Chief Inspector and the person who's most determined to improve the way in
which Ofsted operates, to address those fears is Sir Michael.
He's another hero of mine, he shares the same sense of moral purpose that all of you have.
He is someone who deliberately chose to teach in the most challenging areas, his career
was entirely in the state system and he chose the opportunity when it arose to try to help
others. So let's work together. Let's make sure that the framework that we have and the
way in which it operates ensures that when you do make that commitment to work with others
that it is rewarded and acknowledged. I know Sir Michael wants to introduce ways of recognising
leadership that goes above and beyond outstanding. I know that Charlie wants to make sure that
all the incentives are there and I know that all the ministers in my department; Lord Nash,
David Laws and I agree that we need to make this work. So hold my feet to the fire. If
I'm still here in six months or in a year's time in whatever gathering we have, if we
haven't made the changes necessary in order to recognise that public spiritedness and
that leadership, then is the moment to hold me to account. But in the next 12 months let's
make sure that the incentives are there. Talking of heroes and Sir Michael is one,
there's another one I want to mention too and that's Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The
author of the New Deal, the great American President who was responsible for taking America
out of depression and who was responsible also for the victory of democracy in the Second
World War. Now FDR, when he was elected said that what he wanted to usher in was not a
new dawn, not utopia but an era in his own words 'of bold and restless experimentation'.
He acknowledged that the situation that he inherited was far from ideal, but he also
believed that if it was going to work there was no master plan that would be unveiled.
The most important thing to do was to unleash the talent of others. The new deal succeeded
not because everything that was implemented was right, much went wrong. But because he
trusted people, whether it was in the Tennessee Valley Authority or those responsible for
the electrification of the south, to run projects in a way which would unlock the talent of
those who had hitherto had their talents neglected or overlooked or insufficiently stretched.
In a way our approach at the Department for Education has been to try and foster as much
as possible, bold and wherever possible restless experimentation. Yes we'll produce curricula
documents, yes I'll give speeches or interviews and an indication of my thoughts on these
things, but the most important thing is that there are developments in how teachers are
trained, in how the curriculum is applied, in how children are inspired in your schools.
What we want to do is to capture those successes and to ensure that they are disseminated
more widely but never to condemn those who do things which may not work out initially,
but are doing them for the right reasons. One of the things which I know has sometimes
been the case in the past is that there's been a tendency not so much amongst outstanding
schools but amongst good schools or requires improvement schools towards risk aversion.
A desire to swim close to the side of the swimming pool and never to strike out for
the deep end. You see that reinforced sometimes in the way in which people feel
that the only way in which, when Ofsted comes to call, that they can escape stricture is
to do the traditional Ofsted model of a lesson. The three part lesson with particular types
of activity delivered in a particular type of way. All of the things that Michael Wilshaw
has again made clear is that there is no perfect lesson, there is no ideal model, good teaching
occurs in a variety of ways. Sometimes it will fit a particular template. Sometimes
there'll be an opportunity for teachers to digress, diverge to be creative, but provided
children are engaged and making progress that's great.
Again while it's been a problem in the past that innovation has been constrained, we want
to encourage it. We want you to take ownership and that brings me to another hero of mine,
Dr Ben Goldacre. There was a letter recently, I think yesterday actually, in the Daily Telegraph,
and in the Independent from a hundred academics who were all saying 'what a tragedy that the
Education Secretary would like children to learn things', a huge mistake that. Times tables,
vocabulary, spelling, grammar we don't need any of that in our universities. The impression
was created in some minds. This is Gove versus academia. Actually there's good academia and
bad academia. Dr Ben Goldacre sums up to me the best in academia because the point that
he's making is, we now have the means through research, through randomised control trials,
through ways of experimenting to discover what really works in education and rather
than relying on prejudice and worst of all rather than relying on the whims of politicians
who are subject to fashion, let the profession take control as they have in medicine.
Let the profession decide what works. Ben made the point, which a number of people
have said to me in the past, why should politicians dictate teaching methods? You wouldn't have
the Secretary of State for Health saying how you should conduct an appendectomy. Well that's
true, but in order for us to know exactly what the most successful ways of raising attainment
are what we need to do is to empower the profession. To experiment to try new ways of working
or indeed to go back to some traditional ones which may have been neglected unfairly and
to say this works for us, this is the evidence. Let's make sure there's a body of evidence
from which we can all learn. I think that's one of the most exciting developments in education
at the moment, the belief that we should be influenced by evidence and the belief
above all that those who will generate that evidence, those that will debate it, those
who will learn from it are here in this room, teachers and teaching leaders.
But I also recognise that when talking about the importance of experimentation, you might
sometimes feel well there are some ways actually Michael that you tie our hands. Let's take
one of your wheezers, which a lot of us are quite keen on - School Direct. The idea that
we should play a role in training the next generation. There you are you've had your
side swipe at these academics whom you don't agree with - fair enough. But actually action
speak louder than words Govey and when we want to train teachers you insist, you absolutely
insist that we team up with a higher education institution where some of these people are
and that they're the people who get the cash not us. I thought you trusted us, I thought
you wanted a self-improving profession. I thought you wanted those in the classroom
who are exhibiting great leadership to be in control and I do.
One of the things that I want to see over the course of the next two years is a move
away from a reliance on higher education institutions determining what should be happening in terms
of teacher training and increasingly towards you. That's why today we're making an
additional £10 million available in order to ensure that you can play a bigger role
in School Direct. Because I believe that it's in your schools that the top graduates can
become the outstanding teachers of tomorrow. I also know that contrary to what some of
us have said in the past, that the very best school based initial teacher training is the
best teacher training in the country. There is more and more evidence that people
want to go as soon as possible after graduating in whatever subject it may have been that
they were an undergraduate - the best people want to go into the best schools. The
success of School Direct so far, the number of top graduates who want to go in has been
hugely encouraging for me. Now having a first, having a 2.1 is not everything.
There are some great teachers who haven't necessarily been to some of the posher universities
with lustre and all the rest of it. However one thing that we all recognise is that over
the last 10 years it's been a really good thing that more top graduates from great universities
with real subject knowledge and a passion for education have come into the classroom
and into the profession. That is something we want to encourage not discourage and that
is one of the things that School Direct has helped accelerate. It's partly due to what's
happened beforehand, it's partly due to the leadership and the example that you've set,
it's partly due to the leadership and example of Charlie. But we now have more people particularly
in shortage subjects who have great degrees, who really want to go into teaching and who
School Direct is helping. I think that the additional money that we're making available
today is a sign in earnest, that we want to move in the direction of empowering you.
Now I began by mentioning Thomas Carlyle and people might think that's all too revealing,
he quotes a Victorian, he quotes these figures from Ancient Greece and Rome, that's all Govey
cares about. Indeed there was a revealing moment last week I'm afraid at the ASCR Conference
on 15 March when I was asked what day is it today? I said, it's the Ides of March.
Then Gerard Kelly of the TES said 'well I think more people might recognise that today is
Red Nose Day Michael'. I thought that he'd constructed the perfect trap and I'd fallen
into it. But the truth is that while yes I love history, some people might think too
much, I'm also far more excited about the future. I'm particularly excited about the
fact that change is happening quickly in English education thanks to all of you.
I have the opportunity whenever I travel abroad or whenever I talk to other government ministers
to boast, not about what I'm achieving but about what you're achieving. Speeches that
I give to external audiences are always studded with the successes of schools in England now.
All of them state schools, some of them Academies, almost all of them represented here.
The reason that I enjoy boasting is because I feel a sense of pride and excitement about
the way in which England, your schools are pioneering new ways of making sure that children
can do better than ever. There are lots of things to be proud of in England's past but
there is one thing of which we should be ashamed. Over our history England has always been great
at educating an elite well and terrible at making sure that education promotes equality
and social mobility - until recently. Thanks to the leadership that people like
you have shown at last even as the bar is being raised the gap is being closed.
Thanks to what you have done my belief which is that education can overcome the disadvantages
of environment, or the difficulties caused by poverty is being proven. The reason I believe
so powerfully that schools can make a difference to our society is that I believe in the power
of teaching to inspire and to transform lives. You demonstrate that every day, which is
why ultimately in any speech about heroes and hero worship I have to acknowledge, you
are the heroes and it's a pleasure to have this opportunity to give you more power.
Thank you.