Ofsted has published the outcome of the consultation on its new education inspection framework, which will take effect from September 2019.

From September 2019, Ofsted will refocus inspections of schools, early years settings and further education and skills providers, to make sure that learners are receiving a high-quality education that puts them on a path to future success.

Ofsted inspectors will spend less time looking at exam results and test data, and more time considering how a nursery, school, college or other education provider has achieved their results. That is, whether they are the outcome of a broad, rich curriculum and real learning, or of teaching to the test and exam cramming.

The changes follow a 3-month public consultation, which prompted more than 15,000 responses – the highest number Ofsted has ever received.

Ofsted confirmed today that it will proceed with its headline proposal for a new ‘quality of education’ judgement, after it received strong support from three-quarters of respondents.

More than three-quarters of respondents also supported plans to introduce 2 new key judgements, evaluating learners’ ‘behaviour and attitudes’ separately from their ‘personal development’.

The ‘behaviour and attitudes’ judgement will assess whether leaders are creating a calm and orderly environment, where bullying is tackled effectively by leaders when it occurs. While the ‘personal development’ judgement will recognise the work early years providers, schools and colleges do to build young people’s resilience and confidence in later life, including through participation in sport, music and extra-curricular activities.

Together, these changes will make it easier for Ofsted to recognise and reward early years providers, schools and colleges that are doing the best they can for their pupils, particularly those working in challenging circumstances.

Schools will be empowered to always put the child first and be actively discouraged from negative practices, such as ‘off-rolling’, where schools remove pupils in their own best interests, rather than that of the pupils. Such schools are likely to find their ‘leadership and management’ judged inadequate under the new framework.

All inspection judgements will continue to be awarded under the current 4-point grading scale: outstanding; good; requires improvement; and inadequate. Reports will be redesigned and shortened to give parents the key information they need to know about a school and a sense of how it feels to be a pupil there.

HM Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman said:

This was the largest-ever consultation Ofsted has undertaken and I am very grateful to all those who took the time to respond.

The new framework puts the real substance of education at the heart of inspection and supports leaders and teachers who act with integrity. We hope early years, schools and college leaders will no longer feel the need to generate and analyse masses of internal data for inspection. Instead, we want them to spend their time teaching and making a real difference to children’s lives, which is why they entered the profession in the first place.

Our goal is really simple: to be a force for improvement through our inspections. We want to provide parents with the assurance they need, support teachers and leaders to excel – and help make sure all children and learners to get the education they deserve.

The consultation was the result of nearly 2 years of research and engagement with teachers, headteachers, unions, academics and parents. The new framework and inspection handbooks, published today, will be used across all education inspections from September 2019.

Good afternoon. And thank you for inviting me to Berlin to speak at this year’s Going Global conference.

What better way to prove the power and potential of international higher education than by looking at everyone here in this room today.

It’s amazing to see people from all corners of the globe gathered together to share knowledge, expertise and ideas. And to learn from each other about how higher education can support the best outcomes and experiences for people, young and old, around the world.

I am certainly encouraged and inspired by your enthusiasm. And I look forward to hearing about the ideas and thinking that come out of your discussions over the next couple of days.

Certainly, in the UK, our world-leading universities and colleges are international at their core. And I’m here today because I want to see the international connectivity, collaboration and partnership that underpin so much of our global higher education continue to flourish.

So, as Universities Minister, I want to share with you my vision for the UK’s approach to ‘going global’ in higher education. And I hope that, from it, you will be able to draw out synergies with your own countries’ higher education systems, and identify opportunities for greater partnership with the UK and our world-leading institutions.

But most of all, I want to send the message loud and clear today that, when it comes to higher education and research, the UK is most certainly open.

As a UK Minister, I can’t stand here this afternoon without mentioning the elephant in the room that is Brexit. And I’m sure many of you are already sat there thinking what Brexit means for the UK’s international ambitions.

Brexit may well mean that we are set to leave the European Union, but it certainly does not mean that we are leaving Europe or, indeed, any of our global education and research partnerships behind.

The UK government is serious about exploring a deal with the European Union to guarantee continued participation in schemes like Erasmus+ and Horizon2020. And we wish to get on with negotiating the terms of our future economic partnership with our European friends.

But we cannot ignore the fact that we still face the prospect of leaving the EU without a deal.

Of course, this is not what we want.

But if it were to happen, the UK Government would ensure the country is prepared for every eventuality – including standing ready to administer the Government Guarantee to provide certainty for those already participating in the Erasmus+ or Horizon2020 programmes. As Minister for Research and Innovation, I have taken part in different meetings with my European counterparts. And I made sure the UK’s voice was heard at the meeting of the EU Competitiveness Council in February.

I’ll also be heading back to Brussels to take a seat at the table at the next meeting on 28th May.

Europe will always remain a close partner to the UK.

And we will continue to look outwards to the rest of the world and nurture important relationships across the globe.

That’s why it’s important we put forward a clear, positive vision for our ambition to remain global.

And I’m now going to share with you the four core principles that I think should underpin this vision for the future.

The first of these principles is to build and amplify the UK’s role on the global stage.

This means bolstering the quality and standing of UK higher education and promoting it as a centre of international excellence.

The UK higher education system has a great global reputation for quality, of which we are rightly proud. According to the QS World University Rankings, we have 4 universities in the top 10, and 18 in the top 100 higher education institutions in the world.

In research too, we have a truly global footprint. In 2014, the UK produced 15.2% of the world’s most highly cited articles.

It is this reputation that drives our ability to attract and nurture talent from around the world, and grow our valued international partnerships and collaborations.

But we want to do more.

Our International Education Strategy published in March sets out our intention to appoint an International Education Champion. This Champion will take to the global stage to grow opportunities for international partnerships, including through tackling and breaking down practical barriers to cooperation.

We want the UK to be an international partner of choice. So, the Champion will help to ensure that we are offering something that resonates with students and researchers around the world.

We have also recently launched a new EdTech Strategy which, together with the International Education Strategy, will support UK EdTech businesses to achieve success both in the UK and around the globe.

Our EdTech Strategy has been shaped by international evidence – showing how we have looked to the rest of the world to see how technology can boost the excellence and quality of our education and teaching.

This brings me on to my second core principle, which is to enable the UK’s Higher Education sector to maximise and benefit from the full range of international opportunities and interconnectedness.

There are a number of mechanisms that enable us to do this better.

Transnational education (or TNE) is one such tool, as it helps to forge international ties between institutions.

Higher education institutions in the UK already work in collaboration with partners across the globe, delivering UK degrees to students in their home countries.

From Lancaster University’s Ghana campus, the first British branch campus in Ghana, to Aston University’s dual degree programme with Muscat University Oman.

And European collaborations like the University of Kent Brussels School of International Studies (BSIS) branch campus in Belgium.

Research funds, such as the Newton Fund or the Global Challenges Research Fund, offer another vital pathway for international collaboration.

They bring together researchers from across the globe, to work together to tackle complex scientific and research challenges.

One such example is the global Interdisciplinary Research Hubs we launched in January 2019 – being funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund.

Through a £200 million investment, 12 global research Hubs will develop creative and sustainable solutions to help make the world safer, healthier and more prosperous.

Over the next five years, these Hubs will work across 85 countries with governments, international agencies, partners and NGOs on the ground – both in developing countries and around the globe.

To demonstrate our long-term commitment to global engagement, we will soon publish an International Research and Innovation Strategy that will set out our ambition to remain the partner of choice for international research and innovation.

And, as announced by the UK Chancellor earlier this year, we will also undertake an independent review of our future frameworks for international collaboration, led by Sir Adrian Smith, which will support the early and effective implementation of the Strategy.

As I expressed in a speech in London just last week, people are key to our success in higher education, science, research and innovation.

So, it is our duty in government to deliver my third principle – namely to provide a world leading offer to international students and staff.

We have already spearheaded this principle by setting a clear ambition to increase the numbers of international higher education students studying in the UK by over 30%, to 600,000 by 2030.

But this is not just about simply boosting numbers. We also want to ensure that these students are coming to us from across a greater variety of regions across the globe.

After all, hosting students from other countries provides us with vital cultural and business links.

Opening our doors to others from elsewhere in the world gives us friends, and opportunities to engage and collaborate around the world – as evidenced so well by events like this here in Berlin today.

International students who come to the UK can become important ambassadors for our country.

As of summer last year, 57 of the world’s serving monarchs, presidents and prime ministers have been educated in the UK. And I’m pleased to see we’ve just added the new emperor of Japan to this tally, who was a former student at the University of Oxford.

In short, we want international students to come to the UK, to enjoy their time there, and if they choose not to stay for work, we want them to go back to their home countries with happy memories and warm feelings towards us. That’s why we want to ensure international students have the best possible experience of their time in UK higher education, the best possible outcomes, and enriching encounters with their institutions, other students and staff.

We are backing our ambition up with action, such as increasing the post-study leave period, making it easier for students to move into skilled work after graduation. And we are working with Universities UK International to improve the employability of our international students – both in the UK and beyond.

We recognise we have a duty of care for all students who take part in a UK higher education, be they domestic or international.

It’s easy to assume that the university years are the best years of people’s lives. But this is not always the case.

I was particularly shocked to learn, when I gave a speech at a Wonkhe conference on the ‘secret lives of students’ earlier this year, that over 15% of students said they felt lonely on a daily basis. And the figures were worse for international students.

In fact, 20% of international students said they do not consider themselves to have any true friends at university. So, they can lack support networks and be more likely to have concerns over their mental health.

That is why we are working closely with UK universities to embed the ‘Step Change’ programme within the sector, which calls on higher education leaders to adopt the mental health of students and staff as a strategic priority.

It is also why we are backing the development of the University Mental Health Charter, which will drive up standards in promoting the mental health and wellbeing of students and staff wherever they come from in the world.

If we are to invite young people from across the globe to study and live in the UK, we will meet our responsibility to ensure that whilst they are with us, they are happy, enriched and supported as they develop into the global leaders, thinkers and innovators of the future.

And we want to make the most of the amazing benefits international students bring to UK students as well. We know how they enrich the experience of our domestic students, helping to produce globally minded citizens and lifelong links between countries. And that is an invaluable asset in a world where international relationships are so key.

That takes me on to my fourth and final principle, which focusses on supporting UK students be prepared and confident to engage in an increasingly global world. To be truly global citizens.

It is my ambition that all UK higher education students can benefit from an international experience during their time as a student. Whether that is by studying or working abroad as part of their degree, or building relationships with international students on campus.

In a truly global UK, there is a wealth of opportunity for our young people to develop into well-rounded, internationally competent and culturally sensitive citizens. And we want to support them in that endeavour.

That is why the UK’s Department for Education supports a number of outward mobility programmes, which broaden access to international opportunities, such as the Fulbright and Generation UK China schemes.

Both of these schemes have been expanded with increased funding over the last year, bringing opportunities to even more students – particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, who often find it harder to access experiences such as studying abroad.

We have also recently committed funding, via Universities UK, to support UK undergraduate students from disadvantaged backgrounds take part in short research internships at Canadian universities through the Mitacs Globalink scheme.

And to make outward mobility accessible to even more students, we also enable eligible students studying in the United Kingdom to study abroad for up to 50% of their course and still be eligible for student support.

We believe that, irrespective of the outcome of EU exit negotiations, the UK and European countries should continue to give young people and students the chance to benefit from each other’s world leading universities post-exit.

To this end, we remain open to exploring participation in the successor scheme to the current Erasmus+ Programme.

But, as a responsible Government, we are also considering a wide range of options with regards to the future of international exchange and collaboration in education and training. This includes a potential domestic alternative to the Erasmus+ Programme.

The potential benefits of the UK establishing its own international mobility scheme would include the ability to have a truly global exchange programme. And I will be driving forward this work in the coming months.

But at the heart of all this is the message that we want our international relationships to grow, to strengthen and ultimately flourish in the months and years ahead.

We are here today because we want to partner with you, learn from you, and share our own learning in return.

The UK is not just ‘going global’ as the name of this conference suggests. But I can reassure you that the UK has always been global, is global, and will remain global for the future.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove has today invited organisations to apply for the second round of more than £6 million funding under government’s game-changing scheme to slash food waste.

The fund will improve how charities and other organisations handle and distribute leftover food by investing in infrastructure such as weighing equipment, storage solutions, warehouses, industrial freezers and fridges, labelling equipment and vehicles.

This comes as Food Waste Champion Ben Elliot hosted more than 300 major players from the food industry today at London’s prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum, where businesses including Nestlé, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Waitrose signed a pledge to take tough action on food waste – including halving food waste by 2030.

The Environment Secretary also unveiled new figures today which show redistribution of surplus food in the UK has almost doubled in the last three years, with enough food saved to produce the equivalent of 133 million meals a year.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove said:

I want to thank our Food Surplus and Waste Champion Ben Elliot for bringing together the biggest players from the world of food today to ‘Step up to the Plate’ and slash food waste.

Every year, millions of tonnes of good, nutritious food is thrown away.

Today I am opening the second round of funding to help organisations ensure that food is not thrown away, but goes to those most in need.

Together we can deliver real change to stop good food going to waste.

From today, redistribution organisations in England will be able to bid into a £6 million pot to help them overcome the financial barrier to redistributing surplus food which is currently going to waste but which could be redistributed.

It’s the second round of a £15 million scheme announced last year by the Environment Secretary to specifically address surplus food from retail and manufacturing.

The food waste symposium runs alongside the V&A’s FOOD: Bigger than the Plate exhibition, which will explore similar themes when it opens to the public on Saturday 18 May.

Currently around 55,000 tonnes of surplus food is redistributed from retailers and food manufacturers every year. It is estimated a further 100,000 tonnes of food – equating to 250 million meals a year – is edible and readily available but goes uneaten. Instead, this food is currently sent away for generating energy from waste, anaerobic digestion, or animal feed.

The government is committed to being a global leader in tackling food waste. The government’s £15 million scheme to tackle food waste builds on its landmark Resources and Waste Strategy, which sets out how the government will introduce annual reporting of food surplus and waste by food businesses. Should progress be insufficient, we will consult on seeking legal powers to introduce mandatory targets for food waste prevention.

The Resources and Waste Strategy also sets out how the government will ensure weekly collections of food waste, which is often smelly and unpleasant, for every household – restoring weekly collections in some local authorities, subject to consultation.

The government is committed to supporting the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 2 to end hunger by 2030.

The Secretary of State delivered a speech on tackling food waste at the V&A museum.

I told my wonderful private secretary Hannah that I was going to come on immediately after a rap video. I thought ‘Ben, you have excelled yourself’.

You really do have the conveying power of a very special genius. But of course, the rap video that we have watched is not a pounding beat from the streets.

It’s an emotional cry from the heart on behalf of WRAP, an magnificent charity who is run by Marcus Gover and others, which has done so much to compel government, businesses and individuals to recognise the role that they can play in making sure we have a more circular economy and more respectful of the resources that the earth has given us.

It is particularly appropriate when we’re thinking about food that we should be here in the V&A. It’s not just the case that Tristram, under his leadership, has increased the number of people coming into the V&A, and his latest exhibition opening this evening, ‘Bigger than the Plate’, is set to be one of the most successful that the V&A has ever put on.

It’s also the case that those of you who are as old as I am will remember from the early 1980s when the V&A was marketed to tourists.

The line behind that marketing slogan was a piece of history that I learned about just over lunch. Actually during that great period of Victorian Institute building, the V&A, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum were being built.

There was actually a Food Museum here on the side. One of the reasons why there was a Food Museum because it’s through food that we understand so much about ourselves.

The exhibition that is being put on here, ‘Bigger than the Plate’, reflects on how modern day designers are using food in order to send messages on who we are and our place in creation.

But all of us recognise that food influences and shapes, and is essential for our lives in so many ways. Of course we need food to literally stay alive, but food is also one of the ways in which our senses are delighted. It’s one of the ways that the creative impulse within us is given expression.

Cooking is a form of magic. The application of heat, salt and fat can transform ingredients into something sublime. It is also the case that through food, our priorities as a society are reflected.

So at times of strength and times when we’re tested, it is by sharing food and by making room for others around our table that we show our love and affection, our respect and care for others.

But also when we produce our food it says a great deal about us and what we value. And as Emily has reminded us in her remarks, the way in which we produce our food at the moment is preferred. We use water and irrigation in a way which is scornful of the limits that this earth has placed on all of us in order to grow our food.

Our food is transported in refrigerated lorries using chemicals which themselves have an impact on our environment.

Our food is also a growth for the application of fertilisers and other chemicals in a way that certainly improves yield, but also has an impact on the carbon content of the soil and the health of our rivers.

So everything about the way our food has been produced suggests a degree of extravagance, but perhaps even heedlessness about the consequences of our generation of abundance.

And it’s not just the way which our food is produced. It’s also the way in which our food is distributed. There are people in this room who have done wonders to bring delicious food at a competitive price onto the table of millions.

In so doing, you have reminded us that the market performs a million miracles every day. But it is also the case that there are millions in this country who go hungry. Whose diets are simply not good enough in order to give them the full physical health and the deep mental wellbeing that they need in order to live full lives.

So in reduction and distribution, the way in which we handle food reminds us of some of the flaws in our society and some of the challenges in our world.

And that is where food waste comes in, because food waste is the product of this. And food waste also symbolises the inequity in distribution.

And that is why I’m so delighted that Ben has taken on the role of Food Waste Champion – because in so doing he is helping all of us in this room and beyond, to play a critical part in a role which advances both economic justice and environmental justice.

Environmental justice in that if all of us are more careful in the food that we use, more thoughtful in the resources that we deploy, then we can ensure that we do tread more lightly on this planet. We use less water, less fluorinated gases, that we use less fuel and we deploy less energy in the generation of food.

But also, that there is less pollution, and land can be used in a way which is more sparing of all of our resources and therefore more effective in ensuring that we can win the fight against climate change.

So reducing our excessive demand on this earth’s resources is a critical thing to do, and using food wisely and taking food waste seriously is part of that. But also distribution as well: this government has made available £15 million in order to ensure that we help the private sector to redistribute surplus food which is edible and nutritious and delicious to those most in need.

So cafes, retailers and other can ensure that at the end of the day that food can be collected by wonderful charities like the Felix Project and then taken to those who need it. And this practical redistribution of resource shows also that we value the food that we’ve produced – we don’t regard it simply as something to be discarded at the end of the day. We regard it as something created with care that can bring happiness, support and necessary relief to others who are in need.

So food waste is both a way of showing that we respect the earth and its limits, and it is also, by taking it seriously, a way of showing that we respect our fellow human beings and their potential.

Of course there’s a danger sometimes, when we talk about food waste, that it can seem as though we’re being punitive, Calvinist even, that we’re determining in a joyless sense the man in Whitehall knows best exactly how you should eat and exactly what you should do with every last ingredient.

Well I don’t believe, actually, that tackling food waste need be seen in that way at all. If you look back at the history of food – shepherd’s pie, bubble and squeak, oxtail’s soup – all of these are the consequences of past chefs, past cooks, taking food waste seriously and being determined to use every aspect of what the earth has created.

Nobody can say that Fergus Henderson, the Chef at St John responsible for nose to tail eating – nobody can say that he was a joyless individual, who didn’t communicate the sheer savour and relish of someone who loves their food. To visit that restaurant, to hear him speak, is to know he is someone who is a natural communicator of the joy that food can bring.

So it’s also the case that taking food seriously, and taking food waste seriously, is also a way of celebrating human ingenuity, of celebrating culinary originality, of celebrating the great chefs so many of whom played such a wonderful part earlier in showing what we can do with the ingredients that others would throw away.

So during the course of this afternoon, you have an opportunity to discuss the action that we can take and the example that we can set. And I do believe that Marcus and the team at WRAP, and Ben, and the work that he has done, remind us exactly what we should do.

We should make sure that we measure, as far as possible, the food waste that we generate. We should make sure that companies are accountable of the way in which they husband natural resources. We should seek to raise awareness at every point, and to educate every single one of our citizens about how we use food more responsibly.

But above all, what we should do is we should celebrate food and what it means in all our lives. Food is a source of joy to so many, something precious that we should hate to waste it, and also a way of showing as I underlined earlier, that we care for our planet, we care for our fellow citizens, and we care about the future.

Thank you all very much.

The Watershed, in Whitehaven, will support aspiring business owners to get their ideas off the ground.

Sellafield Ltd and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority are providing £996,000 for the project via Sellafield’s social impact budget.

It will be part of the Whitehaven Buzz Station scheme, which Sellafield Ltd is supporting with a £2.6 million investment.

Both projects are being led by developer BEC and are key to Whitehaven’s North Shore regeneration programme.

Gary McKeating, head of community and development for Sellafield Ltd, said:

Our social impact strategy is designed to help our community overcome barriers to success.

One of those barriers is the low number of business start-ups.

Small businesses are the engine of the economy. And to be successful they need vital support in the early stages.

The Watershed is a state-of-the-art facility which will nurture the energy and creativity of our entrepreneurs and allow them to work together to bring ideas to life.

That’s what our social impact strategy is about: providing opportunities that change lives.

The Watershed is scheduled to open at the same time as the Buzz Station.

It will support businesses in their very earliest stages while the Buzz Station will provide facilities for more established companies.

Its design reflects the changing needs of smaller businesses and aims to provide facilities usually only available in bigger cities.

Michael Pemberton, chief executive of BEC, said:

Co-working for small businesses is becoming the norm. The conditions they need to grow is changing from a four-walled office to a lively, shared space.

This allows people to bounce ideas off each other and support one another’s growth.

The lead contractor for construction of the Buzz Station and the Watershed will be announced by BEC soon.