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Thank you Malcolm, and thank you for the excellent work you have done as interim General Secretary.

I’d like to congratulate Geoff on his election – I look forward to us working together over the coming years. And I want to thank ASCL for its constructive support since I became Secretary of State.

Many of you will have heard me say it’s the role I always wanted – a chance to have a positive impact on the education system that made me.

To do that, I recognise clearly how vital it is that I really engage with and listen to you, and I am struck by how much we are trying to achieve the same thing.

Yes, there is real debate in some areas and that’s natural. But in other areas there’s real consensus and I don’t want us to lose sight of that.

As Malcolm said, there are areas where we may not always be on exactly the same page.

On funding, ASCL has been calling for the introduction of a national funding formula for years. Taking a consistent pot of investment and spreading it more fairly is always going to be a challenge – that’s why this issue has been left alone for 25 years.

There isn’t a perfect route, so that means making difficult choices and I’m grateful for the mature and considered support and challenge ASCL has provided during the ongoing consultation process.

Malcolm also mentioned grammar schools. Our consultation is about leaving no stone unturned to increase the number of good school places available. This is not just about selection – we want to see our universities, faith and independent schools playing a bigger role in capacity building too.

Of course, part of that is about funding and – alongside extra investment in post-16 skills – we secured investment in the budget for school infrastructure. Not only for next wave of new schools, but money for existing ones too.

What’s really important is our response to the consultation. We’re listening carefully to a wide range of stakeholders.

I want to make sure the proposals we come forward with are about selective schools that drive social mobility and sit comfortably and effectively within the modern schools system.

I want to come back to these specific issues in detail in the Q&A. But actually, these 2 consultations are part of a much broader conversation about how we create a smarter education system, one that is built on an ethos that harnesses and spreads the expertise of great teachers and leaders.

I see my job as Education Secretary being to do everything I can to create the right environment that allows teachers and leaders to flourish. I’m passionately pursuing how we can better drive social mobility.

It’s about taking – or often not taking – action to enable you to get on with what you do best: helping young people to reach their potential, whatever their background, wherever they are born. This is one of most important generational challenges. Teachers are at the heart of making that happen.

I know you are driven by that common aim.

So, whilst there’s so much I could cover today, I want to take this opportunity to talk about where I see the biggest potential for gains in education. That is teachers and teaching as an increasingly mature profession, with evidence and best practice at the core of everything it does.

In particular, that means:

• a core commitment to the ongoing professional development of our teachers and leaders
• making sure there are clear and rewarding career pathways for the people entering and progressing in teaching
• taking a practical approach to supporting you to recruit and retain the high-quality staff you need

Because ultimately, I believe that teacher professional development and school improvement are one and the same thing.

I then want to talk briefly about how this all fits together: about how we can build an education system that really supports and spreads great teaching.

In particular, a system that supports great teaching not just in those areas that are already set up to succeed, but – more importantly – in the areas where it is needed most. I want education to be how we level up opportunity.

Teachers and leaders as the drivers of social mobility

Let me start with the profession.

I feel privileged to do this role as I do being a local MP – for me it’s very much a vocation. When I visit schools I have that same sense. I know for most teachers it is a vocation.

Most of us have our education, make the most of our teachers and then go out into the outside world.

Teachers by contrast stay to nurture the next generation of children and young people. For me, one of the reasons I care so much about this role is that – as someone who went through the state education system – I have the chance to make it better for the children and young people in it now.

I’ve said many times that I want to use my time at the DfE to focus squarely on how the education system can be the catalyst to improve social mobility in this country – so that where a person comes from doesn’t define where they get to in life.

As you know, I’m the first Education Secretary to have been educated wholly at a comprehensive school.

The thing that really made the difference for me outside of my family – the factor that mattered the most – was the great teachers who inspired me. In fact, I could do a whole speech on how transformational great teaching is. It certainly was for me.

I had wonderful teachers who inspired me – like Mr Tranter, my French teacher – but he wasn’t the only one. They were the teachers who ‘built’ me. The way they were able to inspire me was so important.

As Malcolm already mentioned, I spoke at the Chartered College of Teaching recently about the importance of being part of a profession – a body of experts with a clear commitment to high standards and best practice. I believe teachers and school leaders are the experts who not only inspire our children and young people, they inspire the professionals of the future.

When I’m in schools, I see a growing culture to find out and spread ‘what works’, enshrining evidence-based practice. I believe that’s because teaching is and should be a profession on a par with any other top profession, and a profession that wants to stay at the cutting edge of research and practice.

So the establishment of a professional body for teachers represents an important step forward. Career progression and professional development

Secondly, career progression has to be grounded, first and foremost, in a teacher’s professional expertise and qualifications.

I want there to be a culture of high-quality ongoing professional development running like a golden thread through a teacher’s career, and I want this to be shaped increasingly through access to clearer career pathways for the next generation of teachers and school leaders.

The newly strengthened set of gold standard national professional qualifications (NPQs) that will be delivered from September this year are a big step forward. I want to thank ASCL, and the new Foundation for Leadership, for its help in reviewing and reforming them, as part of our expert group.

At the heart of these new NPQs will be a focus on evidence and an emphasis on the role of leaders helping their own staff to develop.

The £75 million teaching and leadership innovation fund is all about providing high-quality professional development for teachers and school leaders especially in challenging areas.

From this fund we have earmarked £10 million specifically to support the take-up of the reformed NPQs in schools where they can make the biggest difference.

But it really struck me coming into this role, how we had worked on ITT routes, we’ve now strengthened NPQs once teachers got into their careers, but there was a real gap in the early years of a teacher’s career. That’s often the time when it’s toughest and a new career feels like a vertical learning curve.

You’re having all these new experiences, and I want to try to make sure it’s about learning from them, developing from them, not just coping.

As a fledgling accountant, I had a structured and sustained programme of development and support around me. That’s what I want for QTS. It should be a means to ensure our newest teachers really develop and grow quickly into their roles. So I want to work hand in hand with ASCL and others in the profession to shape this. We need the same great partnership we’ve already had on NPQs.

I want to see QTS as foundation stone for a great career in teaching. So I don’t believe QTS should be scrapped. Instead, I want QTS strengthened. I want it to be of such high quality that school leaders will naturally want their staff to have it.

I know that many fantastic teachers leave in the early years of their careers, but with a stronger approach on QTS we can make it about development from the word go in a teacher’s career: strong CPD has to become the norm.

Recruitment and retention

So, investing in the teaching profession itself is where I see the biggest gains coming. I think that if we’re to have a sensible approach to the third area I mentioned, which is recruitment and retention, we do need to front up squarely to the challenges.

As Malcolm said, this requires a clear, evidence-based strategy to help ensure that you are able to recruit and retain the high-quality teachers that you need. I have read what I thought was a really constructive ASCL paper on teacher supply and I agree squarely with many of your conclusions.

One of the first things I recognised coming into this role is that you can’t just look at recruitment on a national level.

We know that schools in different circumstances face different problems, and that’s part of the difficulty in fixing this. Some of it is to do with the geography, some of it’s to do with the subject, some of it’s to do with the school. So there’s no one-size-fits-all answer.

For me, it’s less about how we label the challenge on recruitment and retention – it’s more about properly understanding it so that we can finally get beyond that and I want to get and work with you to develop an effective range of solutions.

That starts by getting the right evidence base at the right level of detail – it’s not easy because we’ve always done modelling at a national level.

So, I have tasked my department to get under the skin of the data, so we can really start to understand the recruitment and retention challenges at a more local level.

What’s already becoming clear is that there are – as we know – many different combinations of challenges facing individual schools – including deprivation, Ofsted ratings, and leadership vacancies, among others. That’s also what school leaders tell me when I visit your schools.

So we need a better picture of the regional and sub-regional pressures and that work is now underway. We’ll complement this work with a deep-dive analysis, to really understand what’s happening on the ground in particular areas, including urban, rural and coastal areas with different types of challenges, and some of the new opportunity areas.

And Malcolm – as your paper recommends – we do need to take coherent, concrete steps to identify how we can tackle the challenge in areas that need it most. We will begin by investing a substantial portion of the £70 million for the northern powerhouse schools strategy in piloting new approaches to attracting and retaining teachers in the North of England.

That money will be focused on schools facing the most critical difficulties and providing very practical support, like on workforce planning, resourcing better CPD, and tackling workload issues. From that work I hope we’ll really learn what works and what doesn’t. We can then take that and spread it around the country.

My department is already working with schools to design the pilots and I look forward to setting out the next detailed steps very shortly.

Again, I want to go further to make sure that our efforts have the greatest impact in some of our more challenging schools.

So I will be inviting expressions of interest from providers with innovative teacher training models – school-led, universities and partnerships between the 2 – that can ensure more high-quality new teachers reach the schools and areas that need them most.

Successful bidders will be rewarded with the same 3-year certainty in training allocations that I already awarded to the best-performing ITT providers this year, enabling them to look forward, plan and invest in the infrastructure to deliver more high-quality training in the future.

Finally, I want to stress that, whilst I think it is hugely important to train and recruit more great teachers in our more challenging schools, my approach will reflect that I believe that the real key to improvement alongside that will be to invest in the great home-grown teaching talent that is often already there. We need to make sure that is developed as well as recruiting from the outside.

So it’s about strengthened QTS, committing to the highest-quality CPD throughout a teacher’s career, a strong profession, all backed by evidence on what works and investment behind that strategy.

Flexible working

There is also one further specific area where I think we can make real gains – not only in teacher supply and especially retention – but teacher quality too, and that is flexible working.

It is really striking to me how, compared to many other professions, teaching hasn’t really ever seen flexible working take off. It seems such a massive missed opportunity.

We have these great, amazing teachers, just beginning to really get their careers underway and then, often once a family gets started, there’s this huge risk that their career stalls or worse still they leave.

I want to work with you to see how we can deliver a culture shift on this, particularly because a new generation of teachers will expect teaching to adapt as their lives change. That’s what other careers will offer them. Many other workplaces have flexible working embedded into their DNA now – and they often say that it allows them to work more efficiently.

Flexible working won’t be the whole answer to recruitment and retention – there is no silver bullet – but it’s definitely a part of it and many schools are already demonstrating what’s possible.

When we were working with ASCL and others to develop our recent flexible working guidance, teachers and leaders helped us to identify some of the very practical challenges.

So what I want to do later in the year is to have a summit on flexible working in the teaching profession, to agree how to get a step change in the classroom and in schools to see flexible working become the norm. I’d like us to also focus on what good looks like for a strengthened QTS.

I want to thank ASCL for agreeing to take part. We’ll get a range of people ‘round the table working on this. People like Alison Peacock from the Chartered College of Teaching, Lucy Heller from Ark, representatives from Barclays and Google. It’s really important that we have a wide range of people so we can make meaningful progress on flexible working.

Supporting a school-led system that can deliver where it is most needed

So I want to now step back briefly to look at the overall picture – at how this all fits together.

I believe strongly in the school-led system – taking what happens in the very best classrooms and schools in this country and spreading it, driving improvement through collaboration and school-to-school support.

But I also recognise that, although this system has flourished in many places, it hasn’t yet done so in others. So we need to take a more active, stronger approach where it is most needed, building the capacity to enable genuine and sustained school improvement in the future.

For me, this has to happen across 4 key areas.

First and foremost – as I have been talking about today – is people. In particular, attracting the best teachers to our more challenging schools and investing in the development of those currently working there.

Second, and closely linked, is on curriculum – improving the quality of what is taught and how it is taught – ensuring that we can spread best practice, such as maths mastery approaches, where it is most needed.

Third is having the right school improvement infrastructure. I want to ensure we develop a full national network of teaching schools and prioritise attracting good sponsors and growing MAT capacity in challenging areas, ensuring our best tools for improvement are not just concentrated where they are easiest to establish.

Fourth is targeted school improvement. Ensuring that the support and school improvement activity that is carried out by these system leaders is really reaching the schools that need it most, driven by our new £140 million strategic school improvement fund.

But these efforts to build the right long-term capacity will only really work if we also help to create the right overarching conditions.

This requires us to think about accountability and making sure we have the right incentives.

That’s why I think the shift towards progress measures is such an important step, enabling us to judge similar schools fairly, based on how well they support every one of their pupils.

I am also working with Ofsted to review how we can ensure that school inspection can best support social mobility.

I want to see a system where great teachers and leaders who choose to work in challenging schools that we want them to work in know they will get the full credit for what they achieve.

More broadly, I want to shift the culture of accountability, so that it feels less like a regime of punitive sanctions and is seen to be much more about a professional dialogue and timely access to the right support.

It also – crucially – requires us to build a culture where we put evidence at the very core of everything we do. So I want to work closely with the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and organisations like it, to support the shift from generating evidence to implementing it.

It is by really placing ‘what works’ at the heart of classroom practice, and embedding this within our approach to professional development and school improvement – including in the new EEF research schools – that we will ensure that we have an impact where it is needed most.

Conclusion

Which brings me back to you. The teachers and leaders who I believe are the key to improving our education system.

I know I can only carry out my half of the bargain if I – and my department – work alongside you. So I fully intend for there to be a spirit of collaboration running through everything we do. That’s how we’ll make our education system work for everyone.

Ultimately, I think the most important part of my role is about having a strong strategy and helping to find practical solutions, and making sure you have the tools and the conditions that enable you to do what you do best: to level up opportunity, to drive social mobility, and to give every young person in this country the chance to make the most of their talents no matter where they are or what their background.

And I will work with you on that.

Thank you.

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Justine Greening speaks to school and college leaders about the teaching profession and the recruitment and retention package.

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Minister for Europe and the Americas, Sir Alan Duncan, today held talks in London with Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov.

The Ministers had a frank and open discussion of the UK-Russia relationship and current international issues ahead of the Foreign Secretary’s visit to Moscow in the coming weeks. They discussed shared priorities in the relationship between our two countries, including the Year of Science and Education; and cultural exchanges. They also discussed areas of difference including Ukraine, and recent human rights developments in Russia. Sir Alan Duncan noted the importance of a political settlement to bring an end to the war in Syria, on which Russia must play a role.

It is important we engage on these issues, push for change, and seek to find a way forward. Sir Alan Duncan’s meeting with Mr Titov reflects the UK’s policy of guarded engagement with Russia.

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Groundwork North East & Cumbria is working with partners from across the region to protect and preserve the upper part of the Ouseburn River.

The charity has secured £200,000 from the Environment Agency to fund the Ouseburn River Restoration Project.

Working with partners including landowners, communities, schools and local businesses, Groundwork will carry out a number of enhancements to the river and the surrounding environment to improve water quality through a number of environmental improvements.

The project will implement several physical measures to slow the flow of the river, including widening it at strategic points, sculpting areas of the river bank, altering meanders and installing silt traps.

In addition to the physical work, the Ouseburn River Restoration Project will also work with farmers and landowners about how to manage fertiliser and sediment run off, which causes high levels of phosphorus in the river, this diminishes invertebrate life and affects all aspects of river life.

Lesley Silvera, Senior Project Officer at Groundwork North East & Cumbria, said:

It’s fantastic that the Ouseburn River Restoration Project is now off the ground. Over the next two years, we will be working closely with third parties to improve the water quality and ecology of the river.

We’ll also be looking to survey and eradicate invasive species, remove litter, monitor wildlife and plant trees, which will keep the river cool, create riverbank habitats and help prevent bank erosion.

We will be working in partnership with Newcastle University, the Environment Agency and Tyne Rivers Trust to observe and measure water quality to gauge the success of the scheme, which will also inform future work on the river.

Lucy Mo, the Environment Agency’s Project Manager responsible for funding this work added:

The health of our rivers is better than it’s ever been with drastic improvements to water quality over the past 20 years. However, there is still more to do and by working with partners on projects such as the Ouseburn River Restoration Project we can play to different organisations’ strengths and deliver more.

We’re pleased to be part of this exciting project, which will improve in-river and bankside habitats, and will also give us more water monitoring data and analysis.

The work is funded primarily through the Environment Agency. Additional funding is from Groundwork NE & Cumbria, Northumbrian Water Ltd, Newcastle University. Partners include Environment Agency, Northumbrian Water Ltd, Natural England, Tyne Rivers Trust, Newcastle City Council and Newcastle University.

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Thank you. I’m delighted to be back in this great city at the inaugural Midlands Engine Trade Summit.

I want to thank my department’s regional team here in the Midlands for organising this event. I know it’s taken a lot of hard work.

Personally, this is an important event for 2 reasons:

First, as a Minister at the Department for International Trade – I am responsible for ensuring the world knows that the Midlands, like every other region in the UK, is open for business.

And secondly, because I have the honour of being a Midlands MP.

Wyre Forest, my constituency, is based in Worcestershire.

So I know, better than most, the potential of businesses in the Midlands.

They are diverse, innovative and can be world beaters.

And history is on our side.

If you head up the A41 for 2 miles you’ll arrive at the birthplace of the industrial revolution.

It was in Soho that James Watt created his steam engine: a manufacturing marvel that led to levels of productivity the world had never seen.

It allowed Britain, and this region in particular, to become the manufacturing powerhouse of the world.

It’s a well-known fact, particularly if you have a friend from these parts, that Birmingham has more miles of canals than Venice – albeit with fewer gondolas.

150 years ago, these canals were the arteries of the Midlands economy – carrying everything from Black Country coal and iron ore, to Wedgwood pottery heading to the markets of Birmingham and Manchester.

Today, we talk a lot about innovative disruptors shaking up the modern economy – the likes of Uber and AirBnB; however historically, the Midlands has been the world economy’s disruptor in chief.

Whether that was Rolls Royce in Derby developing their iconic Merlin aero-engine, or Cooke Optics in Leicester, who produced the camera lenses with which they filmed Star Wars – this region has always led, never followed.

There will be some who dismiss the Midlands Engine as an empty political slogan.

They are mistaken.

Between 1997 and 2010, manufacturing output in the Midlands fell from over £15 billion to under £12 billion. No other UK region had a greater fall.

Regional productivity here is also on the wrong side of the national average.

These are real issues that need more than gimmicky solutions.

That is why the Chancellor recently announced our strategy for the Midlands Engine – focussing on the key themes of connectivity, skills, enterprise and innovation. The strategy demonstrates our commitment to the Midlands and we will work with Sir John Peace and the Midlands Engine partners to ensure it is a success.

For me, the Midlands Engine is a commitment by this government to ensure that the best days for this region are not those consigned to history, but those of the future.

It is a commitment to harness this region’s 11.5 million people, a fast growing economy, and expertise across many sectors, to create the jobs and growth that spreads prosperity from Dudley to Derby.

That is why I entered politics; that is why I joined the Department for International Trade.

And that is why we will make the Midlands Engine a success.

Let me outline 3 areas government will focus on to ensure the Midlands fulfils its huge potential.

Midlands exports

The first is to use the momentum of the Midlands Engine to drive this region’s exports to new heights.

Transport technologies, advanced manufacturing and engineering as well as healthcare and life sciences are just some of the centres of excellence in the Midlands.

This is expertise the world wants.

Over 27,000 businesses in the Midlands export nearly £40 billion worth of products to over 100 countries.

Incredibly, even the so-called factory of the world, China, runs a goods deficit with the West Midlands. But these impressive figures belie a bleaker national picture.

Only about 11% of British businesses export anything beyond our borders, despite hundreds of thousands having a product or service that is export ready.

This unfulfilled national potential is not just affecting the businesses themselves, who forgo the additional profits and productivity that overseas trade unlocks, but also the national economy – the strength of which relies on our ability to trade overseas.

That is why my department was created: ensuring that Britain becomes a champion of global free trade – lowering barriers and raising prosperity wherever and whenever possible.

For the first time, the 3 pillars of trade – policy, promotion and finance are under one roof – so we can be more coordinated in our approach.

Our objectives are simple and clear.

We will promote UK companies abroad; we will attract inward investment into regions such as the Midlands, and promote our businesses across the world; and finally, we will build a strong trading framework for the UK outside the EU.

But what does this actually mean in practical support for the businesses here today.

It means DIT delivering 20 Midlands Engine trade missions by 2020.

Eighty Midlands companies and over 100 delegates have already participated in DIT-led trade missions across the globe, from the USA to the UAE to China.

We are encouraging companies from Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire to meet with buyers from Shanghai, New York, and Dubai.

We expect the business done at these trade missions to generate £5 million worth of deals over the next 12 months.

A simple face to face meeting with the right contacts can be a game-changer for SMEs.

Like packaging manufacturer B&G Products from Staffordshire, who landed their first export deal to the United States, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, just 4 months after taking part in the first Midlands Engine trade mission.

Later you will hear from UK Export Finance’s Chief Executive, Louis Taylor, who will explain how we are helping Midlands companies win, fulfil and get paid for their overseas contracts.

Last year, UKEF provided £19 million in support for nearly £200 million worth of export contracts for companies in the Midlands.

Businesses, as you know, run on cash flow; so we are making it easier.

We’re also taking our export support online.

If you haven’t already, please visit great.gov.uk – the government’s new digital platform.

It should be every exporter’s first port of call for information and my department’s International Trade team will be on hand throughout the day to show you how to get the most from it.

Where else can you find nearly 1,500 live business leads for which you can apply today; or sell your products on the world’s biggest online marketplaces like Amazon and Tmall at preferential rates; or have global buyers contact you direct to supply what they need?

It’s all in one place; it’s all digital; and quite frankly, I’ve seen nothing like it anywhere else in the world. Some of you may be thinking that it’s all well and good politicians standing here and telling you about the benefits of exporting. They don’t know what it’s like running a business.

I’d be the first to agree that our best ambassadors and spokespeople are actually exporters themselves.
They know what it’s like; they’ve felt the benefits; they have a story to tell.

Which is why I am delighted to announce today the launch of the Midlands Engine Export Champions Programme.

Twenty eight experienced exporters based in the Midlands have agreed to serve as Export Champions and inspire others to either export for the first time or to export more.

They will promote the government’s Exporting is GREAT campaign and raise the profile of the Midlands Engine in the UK and overseas.

Many of them are here today, ready to share their insights.

Investment

The second way to fulfil the potential of the Midlands is by continuing to attract investment into the region that creates jobs, introduces new technology and raises standards of living.

Last year alone, nearly 15,000 new jobs were created because of inward investment in the Midlands. And with the pull factors of the Midlands, it’s easy to see why.

Investors will be dealing with a regional economy worth over £200 billion; they will be able to access 90% of businesses anywhere in the UK within 4 hours; and benefit from the talent and research fed by 25 universities.

I want these factors to be known worldwide.

That is why today, I am also launching the Midlands Engine Investment Hub.

Specialist staff will work with local partners to ensure investment projects land effectively into this region.

They will work with our embassies and High Commissions to raise the profile of the Midlands overseas.

It is the only physical hub of its kind in the UK – and is currently hosting 12 global entrepreneurs from Eastern Europe who are looking to set up here.

Brexit

The final point I want to make is how businesses in the Midlands can thrive post Brexit.

I know Lord Bridges from the Department for Exiting the EU is leading a session later, so I will be brief.

There may be businesses in the audience who are currently exporting to mainland Europe.

In the short term, nothing changes. We are still EU members until the formal process of exiting is complete. During this time, goods and services will flow as usual.

The Prime Minister has been clear. When we leave, we will seek the greatest possible access to the single market so that British and EU firms can trade with as little friction as possible.

Brexit is not a rejection of European values, or the idea of the EU.

This country was built on those values and ideas; they form part of our own national identity.

We want the EU to succeed – it is in our national interest.

But if you look further afield, you will see opportunities beyond the borders of Europe too, which we can now look to seize.

90% of future global growth will be outside the EU.

We can strike trade agreements with global partners, who also happen to be some of the fastest growing economies.

Many of whom have already signalled strong interest in striking agreements with the UK.

The Midlands, as it so often has, is leading the way.

My department will ensure that the whole of the UK will be ready, willing and able to follow suit.

Conclusion

When it comes to Midlands, it is clear that with great potential comes great expectation.

If the Midlands matches its predicted growth over the next 15 years – it will create 300,000 jobs and inject £34 billion into the UK economy.

The Midlands Engine is how we go about meeting that expectation.

The great and innovative businesses of this region need only look to history to see how high the bar has been set.

Speaking as a local MP and a minister, I can assure you that both regionally and nationally, we are all backing you to succeed.

Thank you.

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