Education Secretary addressed an audience of
4,000 teachers today (Tuesday 24 October) and urged them to work
with her to give every child the same opportunity to fulfil their
ambition.
In a speech at the Teach First
conference at Wembley Arena, set out plans to help
pupils from all backgrounds reach their full potential and
highlighted the pivotal role teachers have to play in boosting
social mobility.
She also used the speech to provide further detail on two new
initiatives aimed at ensuring schools can recruit and retain the
very best teachers, building on the government’s wider programme
of support. She announced:
• the 25 areas across England, which include Bradford, Derby and
Salford, selected to run a pilot programme to reimburse student
loan repayments for modern foreign languages and science teachers
in the early years of their careers.
• two new projects that will receive a share of the £75
million Teaching and Leadership
Innovation Fund. These projects will help provide tailored
training opportunities for teachers on both managing challenging
pupil behaviour and developing leadership, so they can make the
most of their talent in the classroom.
Education Secretary said:
I want to make sure that everyone has the same opportunity to
achieve their ambitions, regardless of where they are growing
up or their background. It’s great news that there are 1.8
million more children in schools rated good or outstanding than
there were in 2010 and the attainment gap between disadvantaged
children and their peers is narrowing.
But we know there is more to do – particularly in parts of the
country that are at risk of falling behind. Our
12 Opportunity
Areas are central to this. Working together with
schools, councils, local businesses and other organisations,
this programme is looking at ways to give all children the best
start in life.
Great teachers help unlock children’s talents and Teach First
is already playing a key role by recruiting top graduates with
the potential to become excellent teachers in some of our most
challenging schools. I look forward to continuing to work with
them to broaden horizons for all young people.
These announcements follow the recent confirmation of a number of
measures to recruit and retain more great teachers, including a
new phased maths bursary and a £30 million investment to provide
tailored support to some of the schools facing the most
significant recruitment and retention challenges.
Teach First CEO, Russell Hobby, also spoke at the event and urged
the teaching profession to “go further, working alongside
schools, the government, businesses and communities – with a
collective will to create a country where the opportunities are
available for all”.
The two projects that will receive a share of the £75 million
Teaching and Leadership Innovation Fund are Tom Bennett Training
and EdisonLearning.
Jerry Baker, Managing Director EdisonLearning on behalf of
EdisonLearning and NAHT said:
We are delighted that the success of the NAHT Aspire Programme
has been recognised in the award of the TLIF contract. We look
forward to continuing this success with the TLIF schools and
building new Aspire networks across the country over the next
two years.
Tom Bennett, Director of Tom Bennett Training, said:
Good behaviour is fundamental to every outcome we value in
education: academic outcomes, social skills, employability,
citizenship, creativity, critical thinking, and more. Teachers
and leaders can make a huge difference by creating fantastic
cultures in their rooms and schools where learning, civility
and community are valued.
Our training offers school staff the tools to do exactly that,
in ways that have been tested in some of the best schools in
the UK and beyond.
The local authorities covered by the student loan reimbursement
pilot are: Barnsley; Blackpool; Bracknell Forest; Bradford;
Cambridgeshire; Derby; Derbyshire; Doncaster; Halton; Knowsley;
Luton; Middlesbrough; Norfolk; North East Lincolnshire; North
Yorkshire; Northamptonshire; Northumberland; Oldham;
Peterborough; Portsmouth; Salford; Sefton; St. Helens;
Stoke-on-Trent; and Suffolk.
Around 800 modern foreign language and 1,700 science teachers a
year will be eligible for this pilot scheme. For a teacher on
£29,000, the new student loan repayments pilot and the increased
student loan repayment threshold of £25,000 will mean £720 cash
in pocket. This is the equivalent of an approximate £1,000
increase in salary.
